The field trip exercise takes a turn for the far, far worse as Shiemi ends up spirited away.
What They Say:
Suguro’s joint strategy pays off, and the Exwires have success in their sights! But then a gigantic moth demon (cuchi) appears, and attacks Rin the moment he lets his guard down!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The use of a summer trip turned field exercise to see if the gang is capable of taking on real mission, albeit probably minor ones for awhile, turned out to be pretty fun in the last episode as a way to get them to work together and apart to serve a common goal. With things at the end of it, it turned large with the creature that they dealt with going on a rampage and I rather liked how it all turned even more towards putting Rin and Shiemi together since I find the two to be an utterly adorable couple that needs to happen. Shiemi is just so completely not the normal type of girl that someone like Rin would get involved with or be a big part of a series like this, but rather kept to cute secondary status. Thankfully, there really doesn’t feel like there’s any serious competition for the position of female interest either, so we avoid the harem aspect easily too.
This episode goes mostly for the action after it deals with the results of that first foray as the kids try and understand what it was the real objective of the night was. When the guy that Rin was fighting, Amaimon, after before he ended up being sequestered away and interrogated returns, it turns far more into an action piece, though a male dominated one. He ends up grabbing Shiemi in his kind of lackadaisical way to try and get Rin to really cut loose and show him what he’s made of. With Shiemi trapped under his spell and basically a doll that serves his pleasure, Rin’s doing all he can without going over the edge to stop him. But what’s welcome is that the other guys in the group get involved as well, manning up so to speak, even if they don’t have the most well thought out plan.
With the general purpose of the original exercise to mostly bring the group together, it does just that and then it does it in spades with what goes on here as they have to deal with Amaimon. I’m not particularly a fan of him because of his general nature and the way he seems like an easy foil that’s just a little cracked in his mindset, he seemingly does things just for the fun of it. Such as when he kept “igniting” Rin a few episodes ago. This time around though, he does finally get serious after being laughed at, which is an unpardonable offense in his mind. It may be a goofy way to do things, but it starts off one of the better fight sequences of the series and really shows just how strong the animation and choreography here is in this series.
In Summary:
While the series has been pretty uneven for me at times, this episode does a good job of reinforcing the way the group works overall and making it clear that at least amongst the boys of the group, they know when to come together and do what needs to be done. Of course, being the boys of the group, they don’t have a plan and just want to rescue Shiemi. Amaimon manages to make for an interesting villain in the second half of this after he snaps a bit, but that’s only because it actually gives him a little bit of a personality, and a wonderful new nickname. While the episode doesn’t have any big moments story wise, there’s some solid action to be had here and a growing, clearer picture of the manipulations going on.
Grade: B
Simulcast 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.
