The fight intensifies in big and surprising ways.
What They Say:
Can the Ishiyama gang take back their school from Behemoth’s 34 Pillars Division? Aoi tests out her new Demon powers, but Lord En doesn’t play fair! Meanwhile, Oga and Hilda are met face to face with the leader of the Division…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Bringing back the original Ishiyama school into play was definitely a welcome turn of events in the previous episode. While the academy they’ve been housed in for half the shows run at this point has had its fun, it’s definitely overstayed its welcome when you get down to it. There were some fun elements brought in at times but largely it’s kind of felt empty for a bit, especially with how it seemingly dealt rather quickly with the 5 Holy Knights subplot. Of course, with the new school having finished being constructed, the gang arrives to check it out only to discover that it’s been designed to house the 34th Pillars Division as an effort to educate them and Lord En on humanity before they wipe out said humanity.
Bringing Behemoth’s group into play in the last episode and setting them up here certainly had its fun as we got see them deal with one of the teachers, nearly putting him to tears with how they handle themselves. With this episode, it’s time to let them run a bit wild in the elegant hallways that are now the mainstays of this formerly rundown and old school. For the kids, they intend to take their school back no matter the cost, which makes a lot of sense with what we’ve seen of them before. Though the school was a dump, they had their own sense of pride and ownership about it that was fun to see. Now that it’s back and others are occupying it, they’ll be the ones to take it back. And with it being a bit of a match set by those several leagues above them in power with Behemoth staking out a claim, it plays things big in a pretty fun way.
The fighting doesn’t get to be a big part of events here for a lot of it, but there is some strong grandstanding going on, especially with Lord En as he tries to show that he’s taking over the student body. Where the real fun for me was with it is with Behemoth and the massive dragon that he brings into play with his group, first taking down Hilda and seemingly Oga and then from there as Oga fights back. Oga’s been pretty marginalized for awhile now so getting him to drink the milk here with Beel and really have a chance to step up and fight is great to see. The fight itself is fun, but I really found myself appreciating the quiet moment that Oga and Hilda have in the midst of it all as it was pretty unexpected and says a lot about both of them when you get down to it.
In Summary:
Beelzebub has had a lot of fun standalone episodes recently between the main arcs and while some fans disliked those filler bits, they left me smiling a lot. The main arcs at the new academy they’ve been at for awhile now haven’t really thrilled me but I’ve liked the characters. Here, some of the things that came up during there are well utilized as the old school re-opens and there’s some twists to be had with it all, especially with what Behemoth brings to the table and the plans that are being put into effect. The secondary story with Lord En and Aoi is cute and fun, but the real winner here continues to be that of Oga, Beel and Hilda as what they go through is spot on throughout. Sadly, next episode is the final one of the series, bringing to an end a very fun series overall.
Grade: B+
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
