Another slow post this week because of my preference for UTW subs. Sometimes I really wish I understood moonrunes (well, acutally all the time). I'd say this week's episode is one of the better ones, purely because of the twist. When twists are thrown into any story, there are usually two reactions. One, the twist is there for the sake of the twist, and often times it's there to desperately try to make a generic story stand out. Two, there were slight hints dropped, yet it was still unexpected and it works well. I'm in accord with the latter category. More on that farther down.
Here's something that isn't directly related to this story arc that I really appreciate. Haruaki really makes the right moves in integrating Fear into human society, and shows her that it feels good to be a decent human being. Doing everyday things such as shopping and cooking seems for like something for a slice of life show, but I think these kinds of scenes really add to the growth of her character. Some might gloss over these scenes and dismiss it as the comedy part of the show, and be more attentive to the story aspects of the show.
I thought I'd include this screenshot because I really like Kirika's character. I sort of want to classify her as a tsundere, but the tsun part isn't really there, which is quite nice. After watching so much anime, you just develop a propensity to classify any character you see. Of course, if you're looking at a character you can't classify, it's probably well-written. I think these two share quite an interesting share an interesting dynamic, albeit Haruaki's density level is higher than that of osmium. This specific scene reminded of a similar one between a certain pink haired girl and a certain combat butler.
I honestly didn't see that twist coming. "Sovereignty" from the previous episode seemed like she had the perfect personality for that of a doll. However, we find out that she is actually Shiraho, and who we initially thought was Shiraho is actually Sovereignty. But it doesn't end there! Sovereignty is actually androgynous, having both and female and male forms.
Last week, I suspected that it wasn't Sovereignty that attacked Konoha, but the unknown male student. It turns out that it was indeed Sovereignty that attacked her, but the male student is actually Sovereignty. So was I right or wrong? Or both? This twist has got me all tangled up! I think the reason why I thought this twist worked well because there was a slight hint. There's no way a girl with such an ample bust would use the pronoun "boku," right?
Another nice scene here; it looks like something out of Bakemonogatari. I think that it's likely that next week's episode will end the arc. If Sovereignty's curse is to make its owner fall in love with her and kill her, why did so many students look like they were drained of energy? Judging by the scene above, a stab with that blade seems inflict physical wounds rather than drain energy. I guess we'll find out next week.
-Bern
