Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 13 – The Thick of It

Having juggled between the separate stories of Makoto, the Demiplane gang, and the heroes Hibiki and Tomoki and their parties, Tsukimichi now aims to continue squishing all of these elements together. While the weeklong academy festival proves a financial boon for Kuzunoha Inc., Makoto ends up under the Church’s eye, which reflects the will of the hated Goddess.

While Tomoe, Mio, Shiki, and the Ogres eat, drink, and become increasingly merrier and more boisterous, Makoto has to fight off a flock of assassins, including the guy who had already been sent previously to kill him. None of them can put a dent in Makoto’s Mana Matter.

While the Church’s bishop is onto Makoto being far more powerful than he lets on, there’s a parallel political incident involving the nation Hibiki’s mage Chiya is from. They want her back. Princess Lily is also tailing Makoto and his cavorting party from the shadows.

With all these crossed agendas and allegiances, Tsukimichi story has never felt more complex … or volatile. We’ll see if Makoto & Co. can weather all of the myriad challenges that are sure to come while solidifying old bonds and forging intriguing new ones.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 03 – Now for Wrath, Now for Ruin

When the heroes of Limia and Gritonia meet, it’s extremely awkward thanks to Tomoki. Whether he’s determined not to show any affection for Limia’s hero in front of his lover or party, he’s very rude, curt, and petulant with Hibiki, who is only trying to get along.

I have to think part of it is his unresolved feelings of inferiority and victimhood back home. Hibiki is a reminder of the world he left behind, so it makes sense he’d be hostile. All the adulation he’s received has given him a big head, to boot.

But while power has corrupted Tomoki and turned him into a big haughty self-involved jerk, Hibiki is ever modest and grateful for her support, in particular from Navarre. The two have developed a rapport that borders on the romantic.

Hibiki tells Navarre how easy her life was and how she came to this world in search of a challenge. She didn’t think she’d find someone she could trust to watch her back, but she’s found her in Navarre. As sweet as this scene was, it was tinged with the bitter notion it might be a death flag.

The battle commences, with Tomoki insisting it take place at night, when he’s secretly immortal. He charges right in with his party, but ends up falling for a simple trap: the ground in front of the demon fortress opens up and swallows his rank-and-file.

When he confronts the “demigiant” demon general Io, he doesn’t introduce himself or ask his name, which is bad form in combat. When Hibiki comes in to back him up, she doesn’t repeat his mistake, but Io uses a magic ring to remove the goddess’ blessing from both heroes, leaving them weakened and fatigued.

Tomoki, terrified he’s no longer immortal, flees immediately with his party, who don’t question his orders. Hibiki, a little disgusted by Tomoki’s craven conduct unbecoming a hero, stays put, and she and her party fight what increasingly looks like a hopeless battle against the blue demon colossus.

Just as Hibiki starts going to a dark place where she’s faced with an foe she’s not strong enough to defeat, Navarre gets with Woody and tells him to implement a plan he’s not happy about. That’s because Navarre wants powers to be bestowed upon her and her alone to defeat the demon general.

These powers, represented by a red rose brand on her neck, come at the cost of the user’s life. Hibiki doesn’t know this until she’s being whisked away by Woody’s high-speed flight magic. Navarre, who’s never looked more beautiful than she does in her final moments, gives one look back at Hibiki before turning to her foe.

Hibiki is powerless to stop her best friend in this world from sacrificing herself in a literal blaze of glory. But Navarre, a sword ogre, doesn’t see her actions as tragic, but the height of honor. While she gained a hyuman friend in Hibiki, she’d always known her death would come on the battlefield, giving absolutely everything she’s got.

There were two heroes on the battlefield that night: Otonashi Hibiki, and Navarre Polar. Iwahashi Tomoki is a lot of things—blowhard, chuuni, figurehead, pawn—but he’s no hero. If he had actually put his life on the line, maybe Navarre wouldn’t have had to die. I’m really upset about losing her so soon after we met her.

Whither Makoto? Well, his battle against Sofia and Mitsurugi in the first season finale took place the same time as the heroes’ siege of the demon fortress. We even see the column of light he makes from their POV. And while we know he did a number of the demons, it also did a number on him, as we see Tomoe and Mio desperately healing him.

Now that we know the whole deal with the two Heroes brought here from Japan, and how one of them is no hero at all, we return to the present, and Makoto about to reach his destination of Rotsgard Academy.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 02 – Two New Beginnings

Tsukimichi steps away from Makoto, Tomoe, Mio, and the Demiplane Gang entirely this week, instead focusing on the stories of the other two heroes from Makoto’s world. First up is Otonashi Hibiki (Kakuma Ai), who is actually Makoto’s senpai at their school. Raised by a powerful, successful family and hardworking and calculating, there’s nothing Hibiki can’t achieve with ease, which is her whole problem: she’s bored.

The Goddess summons her to eliminate that boredom by sending her to a world where she’ll face challenges as an adventuerer and one of two Heroes who will save the world. (Of course, the Goddess doesn’t mention Makoto.) And so, while she started the day in Japan, she ends it in the royal palace of the Limia Kingdom with a wolf familiar.

Joining Hibiki in her Hero’s Party is Navarre, a bloodthirsty ogre swordswoman; Woody, a powerful Mage; and a brawny blonde knight. On their first quest together they rescue the talented priestess Chiya, who cuts her hair and joins the party on the spot.

It should be noted that Hibiki does not have an easy time in this first battle. Her first slash of a kobold cuts too shallow and hesitates when it begs for its life. It then cries out for help, resulting in dozens of reinforcements. It’s then when Hibiki refuses to give up and rallies to victory. By the end she’s a sobbing mess, but Navarre comforts her.

The five-person party kicks ass in all of the battles that come, but all winning streaks must end. The first true defeat Hibiki faces, both in this world and the one she came from, is at the eight insta-regenerating legs of all-devouring Spider Disaster we have come to know and love as Mio.

I’ll point out that both her first battle and this defeat aren’t going to knock anyone’s socks off, but they are competently animated and feature some flourishes of style. Hibiki wakes up in her room surrounded by her bandaged but otherwise okay party-mates, but thanks to Mio she is determined to become stronger so she’ll never suffer such a defeat again.

The second hero the Goddess snags is Iwahashi Tomoki, who judging by the uniform is a middle schooler, bullied by the boys and loved by the girls for being a “fragile bishounen”. But he hates the way he is, and how he can’t even win at video games, so the Goddess lures him with the promise of a transformative new life as one of two Heroes in another world.

In addition to the physical and magical level-ups Hibiki gets, Tomoki is also given a magic eye that allows him to enthrall anyone, as well as immortality at night during the full moon, which sounds pretty lycanthropic. He’s also, as he specified, much taller and brawnier, and has silver hair instead of black along with heterochromia.

While Makoto started out in the wastelands and Hibiki arrived in the middle of an celebratory crowd, Tomoki appears in this new world in the presence of one person: Lily Front Gritonia, second princess of the Gritonia Empire (which is, for now, allied with Limia against the Demons).

He soon meets Guinevere, a lady knight, Yukinatsu, an alchemist specializing in golems, and Mora, the resident dragon tamer. All three women make contact with his magic eye, which he can’t yet control, and all of them fall madly in love with him, providing the motivation for joining his party.

Not to be left out, Princess Lily intends to avoid the effects of Tomoki’s eye while keeping him wrapped around her finger. Her late mother was a believer in the “capricious” Goddess, and Lily is ready to do whatever it takes to defeat the Demons. That includes stealing a march on the other women and taking Tomoki’s virginity right away.

Thus this episode ends with both Hibiki and Tomoki having lost their innocence and finding themselves firmly integrated into this new world. There are still other players in the OP and ED we’ve yet to meet, but for now they seem like decent new additions to the cast, and  I’m excited by the prospect of Makoto crossing paths with them at some point.