“Don’t you want to become one with me?”
What They Say:
“Nothing seek, nothing find.”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Elias is a mess. He does something unforgivable to his girl’s loved one out of jealousy for not getting her full attention and she leaves him for it, so now he’s having a complete meltdown with no sign of his former humanity, and wouldn’t get anywhere but more insane if not for Titania coming to calm him down. Titania has been painted in a somewhat negative light relative to the protagonists’ interests due to her attempts to goad Elias and Chise to leave the human world, but at this critical juncture, she’s the one who slaps some sense into Elias and gets him moving in the right direction again. Looking at this as a relationship, Chise could definitely do better than Elias, but it’s true that he’s still better off growing up and trying to do what he can to help Chise than just wallowing in his own self-pity and throwing one of his extreme temper tantrums by himself. Most importantly, Chise could really use a hand right now (no pun intended), even if that hand is his.
As bad as Elias has been, though, Cartaphilus is still looking like the absolute antagonist of the series. Or is it Joseph? The reason that this character has these two names and gets particularly upset when called by the one most others choose to use hasn’t really been explained. Both names refer to the classic “Wandering Jew” on which the character is explicitly based, but it turns out there’s more to it than that. Just as Chise’s past was laid bare through the connection these two enemies are experiencing in the attempt to acquire Chise’s unwanted new dragon arm last time, the same is done for the other party this time. In relatively recent events involving Cartaphilus (as we’ll continue to call him for the moment), he has been shown more sympathetically than could’ve been anticipated from his original appearances, and as with many villains, this is taken to its extreme as we begin his backstory. A seemingly normal human boy mostly resembling the character we’re familiar with but known only as “Joseph” is seen at the bottom of society, trying to do honest work to get by while the world tries to push him down further.
That’s when we meet Cartaphilus, an entirely separate being, and eventually begin to see the transformation and ultimately the fairly ambiguous fusion that begins the story of this character proper. We don’t experience much in the way of complex thoughts after Joseph’s initial struggles, his character soon turning to the dark side and Cartaphilus seeming to have no thoughts of his own other than “help me.” Who we’ve really been dealing with since then is somewhat opaque; it appears to be largely Joseph, but it remains to be seen how separate the two of them currently are and/or how much Cartaphilus has influenced him. While there is some suffering depicted in their journey, they are most certainly villainous from that point on, chopping innocents up to Frankenstein on new parts like the character we know. That brings us to today.
Just as Chise seems hopeless against this monster, everyone comes together in exactly the way you’d expect to close out the penultimate episode of an anime series. There was no real doubt that Chise and Elias would end up together in the end, but Chise makes it clear that Elias has to answer for his transgressions in a serious way, and this will require everyone to be at their best.
In Summary:
Just as its predecessor explored Chise’s background in greater detail than ever before, this penultimate episode offers the same for her greatest foe, whose two names are explained. As with Chise, there are still many questions to be asked, but there’s only one more episode to go.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
