Let’s see if it’s possible to make Seira likable…
What They Say:
Since ancient times long past, this world has been ruled by two tarot cards. Diablos Tarot—The tarot of the devil that feasts on the souls of living humans and uses that nourishment to bring countless pain and suffering. Elemental Tarot—The tarot that draws its energy from the power of nature in order to oppose the Diablos Tarot.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the story focusing on Akari from the beginning, some bits about Luna here and there, and Ginka getting her chance to shine last time, while Seira told them all how weak they were for taking pity on Daemonia from the sidelines, it was pretty obvious that the next episode would show her history and attempt to make her a likable character after so much of her screen time hasn’t helped that very much. Here it is, and in a lot of ways it’s as much what you’d expect as many of the recent events of the series.
The episode basically has two parts that work together. In the present, Seira meets a couple of new characters whose fates are pretty much sealed as soon as they show up on the screen. In the meantime, everything Seira has been experiencing brings up memories of her past, giving us the insight into her character that will clearly be resolved by the new story taking place in the present.
If I can say nothing else especially positive other than the basic strong points the series has had since the beginning, at least the episode takes a few slightly different routes than the well-traveled ones we’ve come to easily expect by this point. The story of her past at first feels like another “best friend turning into a Daemonia” formula, but the fact that she ends up refusing to think of them as humans makes it not so surprising that it doesn’t in fact go like similar situations. Then, while the story of the new characters of the week does go a bit more predictably, the one who inevitably becomes the monster of the week isn’t necessarily the one who most fit the description from the beginning. It’s all very brutal as usual, and it’s obviously trying very hard to be very emotional and make Seira a much more sympathetic character, whether or not the viewer can look past the flaws enough for that to work.
The final scenes feel a bit like a conclusion to the overall issue of dealing with having to kill creatures that were once human. Seira has always been the big critic of feeling pity for the Daemonia, so when it’s finally her turn to have to deal with it firsthand, she obviously fails to stand by her principles and feels as much despair as anyone else ever did. This causes a bit of a role reversal, as Akari now steps up to tell Seira that she’s weak for not being able to kill them because of this, and so Seira goes through the same little rite of entry that the rest have suffered through, essentially putting them all on the same level and probably putting aside this issue for now. Luna still hasn’t really gotten an episode to herself, so perhaps hers will follow a slightly different formula.
In Summary:
It’s Seira’s turn this time, giving us a look at her past to find out why she’s so insistent that no Daemonia should be treated like a human and hopefully making her a little more sympathetic, as well as bringing the issue into the present with our standard monster of the week formula and finally putting her complaining away for good. It has its moments, but is still largely unimpressive.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.