2017 Week 4: Episodes 13-16

[Milieva]

This week we will be discussing Season 1: episodes 13-16.  Please mind the rewatch rules.

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[Somariel]

Episode 13
This episode was seriously dragged down by not having the fight occur in the Sky Shrine, although the bit near the end where Umi says Caldina has to be okay because Ascot is willing to defend her with his life helps to redeem it somewhat.


Episode 14
The monster fight at the beginning was cool, but that and the discussion about Hikaru's family in no way whatsoever make up for the rest of the episode's blatant attempt to shoehorn Hikaru into the Sole Protagonist role. And I say that as someone who considers Hikaru to be her favorite character. I'm sure you'll hear more from me on this subject when the rewatch gets to Season 2.


Episode 15
The opening scene, with Innouva all but openly saying he knows the real reason why Zagato is doing all this, leaves me strongly convinced that Innouva would have been a much better Season 2 Big Bad than Debonair was. He could have made a very interesting foil for Lantis, having them both looking to achieve the same goal (the end of the Pillar System) for the same reason (it led to the death of Zagato and Emeraude), but where Lantis is at least concerned about the safety of the other citizens of Cephiro, Innouva doesn't care who gets hurt along the way, so long as the Pillar System is destroyed.

Watching this episode today made me decide that I really need to develop Sera into an actual independent character who exists in the manga universe. Because honestly, going climbing in the mountains, while Cephiro is so unstable, in order to get the medicinal herbs needed to treat her brother's fever, makes a great starting point for an interesting civilian character. And given that my MKR muse already badgered me into admitting Sierra into my manga headcanon as Presea's younger twin sister who knows that Presea is NOT okay after Emeraude's death, regardless of what Presea claims, and keeps trying to convince Presea to talk about whatever the issue is, I don't have a problem with including anime characters if they can be fitted in unobtrusively.

I honestly have a LOT more sympathy for Innouva's failure in this episode than I do for any of Alcyone's failures (and that goes for the ones in the manga as well). Innouva had a well thought out plan that got screwed up by the fact that Fuu refusing to take the easy way out activated Windam (since Innouva probably could have dealt with Fuu if Windam hadn't activated). Furthermore, when he's reporting his failure to Zagato, his report can be summarized as "I'm sorry I screwed up. Please let me resume my more powerful form so I have a better chance of dealing with the Magic Knights."

In contrast, Alcyone's failures all resulted from her repeatedly underestimating the girls and although the first time is probably excusable, the subsequent failures aren't, and every single time she reports her failure, it takes the form of something like "I didn't expect the Magic Knights to advance in skill so fast," which, at least to me, sounds an awful lot like she's trying to say "Don't blame me, blame the Magic Knights for being the exceptional magic users that their duty requires them to be."


Episode 16
I'm firmly convinced that at this point, Zagato's sanity was so far gone that he only cared about Emeraude's life, not her sanity, and was therefore trying to break her will with the whole "Lafarga is under my control" thing. After all, if she cares about the Magic Knights at all, she surely wouldn't want to force them to face to someone who's certain to kill them, right? Or at least, that's what he was thinking during that scene, especially since I refuse to believe that he hadn't tried every other possible means of persuasion since she entered the Water Dungeon.

Given the truth about the whole situation, I have to conclude that what's happening in the flashbacks Lafarga has is that Zagato is trying to physically keep Emeraude from doing Something Drastic. Although it's possible that Lafarga's memory was modified, I really don't think that Zagato would see that as necessary and it really didn't seem like Emeraude was aware that Zagato had Lafarga under his control before the first scene of the episode, which means that she would have had to modify Lafarga's memories with no preparation and from an extreme distance, which, to be blunt, I'm not sure she has the energy for at this point.

[Mokonalord]

Episode 13
This episode was seriously dragged down by not having the fight occur in the Sky Shrine, although the bit near the end where Umi says Caldina has to be okay because Ascot is willing to defend her with his life helps to redeem it somewhat.

A few more scenes like this could've helped redeem the direction they took in the second season. Just, you know, Umi showing that she really does care about Ascot, even if it's all platonic rather than romantic, and not just when he happens to save her life (and no, the beginning of episode 44 does not count, it will never count!).