Hai to Gensou no Grimgar – 11

Hey, I’m back from visiting a Mayan pyramid during the equinox to watch Hai’s penultimate episode of the Spring, which begins with a beautifully-rendered flashback-slash -dream in which Mary is suddenly awakened by one of her fellow party members, before heading into the mines that will claim three of them.

It’s no accident that this scene is highly reminiscent of several similar scenes of her present party shooting the breeze during their downtime. When she’s awakened from this happy, mundane memory by Haru, and with “Death Spots” stalking them, it’s definitely not downtime.

Since Mary’s the one with mine experience, even the ostensible party leader Haru must rely on her to show them a way out of their predicament—which is why more and more she and Haru have looked something like co-leaders. To her credit, she doesn’t let her fear or guilt overcome her, and leads everyone into the mines’ fifth level, where the kobolds do a lot of metal smelting.

After a successful and nifty stealth attack, they continue into a former temple of Luminaris, who just so happens to be the saint whose power Mary draws from for her new Dispel skill. The reason she acquired that particular spell is revealed here, as this was the site of her three comrades’ demise.

The thing is, they’ve become zombies, something that came as such a creepy shock that not only does Ranta draw back in fright, but in her moment of fear Yume embraces him tightly, something Ranta does not complain about!

That aside, it’s Mary’s solemn duty to exorcise her three friends so that they can be freed from their wretched existence as shambling ghouls; quite similar to the way FFX’s Yuna sends fiends. The only problem is, Dispel is a very close range spell; she has to be right up in someone’s personal space to pull it off.

The problem is, while they may look like the dessicated corpses of her friends, they aren’t her friends anymore, and they attack the party with the same ferocity as the kobolds would. And this is where this episode becomes about more than just the party helping Mary; Mary is also helping the party.

This is their first fight against opponents who are neither goblins nor kobolds. They may be zombies, but they’ve retained all the skills of the humans they used to be, and they’re tough.

Moguzo has trouble with the more acrobatic zombie tank; Ranta’s theif opponent can fight him off indefinitely; and the mage’s spells outclass Shihoru, who quickly runs low on magic, but thankfully doesn’t become a sitting duck, because Haru observes everyone long enough to determine the proper way to deal with the zombies, who at the end of the day are outnumbered 2-1.

First, Haru backs up Mary as she goes to the front to deal with the mage, punching through her firewall and performing the spell. She briefly reverts to the girl Mary knew before crumbling into a pile of ash. Then Haru gives Ranta an opening to lop off the theif’s leg, whereupon Mary comes from behind and performs the spell on him.

Finally, after Yume’s arrow bounces off the tank’s armor, Haru pounces on him and exposes his arm for Moguzo to hack off with all his might, cutting so close he takes some of Haru’s hair with it. Mary performs the spell and poof, job done. Weight lifted. Did I mention that the combat in this episode rocked? Well, it did.

Mary is relieved, and thanks her new party profusely for their help, but they’re all thankful too. They never got to meet her friends, but they did learn how those friends could fight, and it helped them identify the shortcomings they all still have, whether it’s Shihoru’s lack of offensive magic, to Ranta’s lack of a sufficiently cool finishing move.

What had been a harrowing battle, then, becomes another great scene of downtime where everyone is just sharing a little more about themselves and bouncing off each other, enjoying each other’s company in various ways. It also demonstrates how good this show is at slowing things down and giving episodes room to breathe. It makes the moment the casual rest scene is blown up by the raging Giant Kobold all the more impacting.

Death Spots is smarter than he looks, or at least a far more determined hunter than the party gave him credit for, but out of respect for his formidableness, Haru’s order to the party is to simply GTFO, briefly tangling with the boss to give his people a head start.

Ranta relieves him when the Kobold sends waves of subordinates after them, and after Moguzo uncharacteristically grabs Shihoru when everyone has to jump a great distance, Ranta offers her a hand up.

Finally, after the Kobold simply decides to start bringing the wooden scaffolding the party is using down, Haru nearly falls to his highly-possible death, but his Manato-ing is prevented by—Ranta, who tells Haru that the leader can’t die.

The annoying selfish contrarian isn’t really redeeming himself by staying behind and fighting so that Haru and the others can get away, because he has nothing to redeem. This is who Ranta always was, the situation just never called for this particular brand of desperate heroics.

And I daresay Ranta is every bit as cool as he thinks he is at episode’s end, never letting the Kobolds see him sweat (though he does condemn their crossbow bolts as unsporting!).

Furthermore, both Mary’s and Manato’s experiences help inform Haru’s decision to not send the party back down to try to rescue Ranta. That’s not what he wants, and it’s not what’s best for the party.

Haru’s deep affection for all of his comrades (even Ranta) can be a fatal weakness in a leader, but here he makes the right decision for the right reasons, and the rest of the party concurs with it. We’ll see how it pans out.