Mercuri

During that whole planning sequence, everyone seems to have forgotten about Gluttony.

Gluttony eating his own name so they forget he exists.... clearly XD

Wow, you REALLY have to turn your brain off for this episode and just enjoy the mayhem.

"We won't fail" "Oh no, we failed!"

The fact that Jun's Brother seems to expect Ordela to go out of control makes me a LITTLE bit hopefully for some semblance of plot forming in the next episodes.

Some of the jokes were silly but enjoyable. Hikaru basically asking the bad guy to wait. Doc Glasses being slightly less useless. We even get more of the Chunibyo with a Chaingun! But the fights are the real reason this show exists at all.

How nice of Ordela to stop rampaging for all this other stuff to happen though, right?

I don't know what you're talking about. I'm still a super young and fresh 90s kid... cries in middle-aged

Oh yeah, Sasaki and Peeps was good. Definitely enjoyed that series.

The opening argument between Momo and Aira reminded me of Get Smart or maybe FLCL. It was just so wacky with giant text across the screen as they talked with their mouths full.

Then this majesty happens:

I love how for Okarun, getting his ball back is a big deal but everyone else is just messing with him, especially Turbo Granny.

Then we get the love-triangle story arch with a "No, I won't listen to you and will keep the misunderstanding going" trope. It's interesting that Aira went from making fun of Okarun to falling for him. Okarun harem incoming?

At the end of the last episode, it was pretty clear that Aira was going to get powers from Acrobatic Silky. But I love how they introduced it with just enough going on that it comes as a bit of a surprise. And damn does she look cool.

Oh, and how they used the water ripples to build tension between Not-Godzilla and Momo. Jurassic Park levels of tension build there.

I never thought Turbo Granny would be a main character but it's so freaking cool having her along for the ride!

Also, I’m annoyed that Dan Da Dan employs the usual miscommunication / misunderstanding trope. Momo could have hear Okarun out and avoid this needless conflict.

Yeah, that bothered me a lot too. "Let me explain." "No, I'm just going to keep believing the wrong thing." The only saving grace was that Okarun WAS wrong in that he lied to Momo about doing a report. It's not much but at least Momo getting upset isn't entirely unprovoked.

I love this series! I've convinced so many people to watch it. It's just so good! And when Maomao goes cat mode... just perfection.

Giving me Ossan Newbie Adventurer vibes. Or my Daughter Left the Nest and returned an S rank adventurer. Will have to check it out.

Wow, what an episode. It feels like nothing happens and yet SO MUCH happens at the same time. A lot planning and setup and yet there's still a lot going on. Subaru seemingly absorbs the dragon blood from Crusch.

Dragon blood is crazy stuff. It's interesting that Subaru seems to have an affinity for it as it actually seems to benefit him but cripples Crusch. I'm guessing it has something to do with Subaru's Witch Factor.

Wilhelm reveals the identity of the two sword cultists, one of which is his deceased wife! Otto proving once again why he's best man. And lets not forget Priscilla joins the team!

Reinhard casually getting a new divine protection on demand was funny. And last but not least, we get confirmation that Liliana has a divine protection.

The final moments of this episode are perfect too. Emilia confronting Greed really shows how much she's grown. I can't imagine pre-Sanctuary Emilia doing that. Finally, Subaru and Reinhard bust in with the stereotypical wedding objection. I bet Subaru had always wanted to do that.

@rikka@ani.social

However, if that was the case, wouldn’t it have influenced Duke and the handful of others that don’t seem affected by it by now?

Right? We've seen Henry get broken out of it. Maybe Alicia has some kind of cheat skill too since she's a reincarnation.

The confrontations with Liz are going to be epic. And yes, that push to Ms. Freckles so Alicia could whisper to Liz... amazing.

ALICIA IS BACK! And the first thing she does is give her eye away. Guess she really wants a reason to wear that eyepatch. And boy does it make her look like such a villainess

@rikka@ani.social

Still, I found it weird that she gave it away basically for nothing. That wasn't very villainessy of her. We get confirmation that her magic is now at least at level 91, since she needed that level of magic to give away her eye. Whether or not her magic is at 100 or not remains to be seen. I still think it's possible she went straight to 100, but considering she was so excited about giving her eye away she did it immediately after leaving the cottage I have my doubts now.

And the confrontation with Liz. That was so fierce!

This exchange seems a bit more straightforward in answering some lingering questions. It appears that Liz doesn't have knowledge of the game. Rather, she is aware that no matter what she does things always work out for her. She basically has plot armor as the protagonist. It could be that her brainwashing is just a side-effect of this phenomena and she's completely unaware she's even doing it. If that's the case, it makes me wonder how Alicia is able to counteract it. I do love how Alicia basically reprimands Liz for not trying to min-max her cheat ability.

Prince Duke shows up to be creepy again. Yes Duke, tell the girl you've been watching her constantly without her knowledge.

But in a surprise twist, Alicia screws up. She ends up chastising Duke and pushing him away. Wait, isn't that a perfectly normal thing to do when someone basically admits to stalking you? Well, considering that Alicia internally says she didn't want to say those things, it makes me wonder if the game phenomenon isn't trying to force Alicia back towards her intended path. Or maybe she was just caught off-guard and genuinely screwed up since she wasn't expecting Duke to be angry with her.

At the very end we finally get a good look at Mel

This is the glimpse we got of Mel last week:

Considering that Duke tasks her with finding out the secrets of Liz's ability to brainwash people, how she seems to talk in an omnipresent voice to Duke, and how Mel calls Alicia a "villainess," I'm guessing she's some kind of supernatural entity. She might even have some insight to the workings of the game.

Just wow, what a lot to unpack this episode.