Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 18 – Time to Make an Impression

After seeing to the safety of the nobles, Tomoe and Root have an interesting conversation, dragon-to-dragon. Dragons seem to be the most informed in this world, to the point Tomoe reports to Root that at this point Kuzunoha is approaching the peak of his potential, and need only choose his role in this world. Upon learning even he wouldn’t be a match against him, Root internally considers that Kuzunoha could one day defeat the Goddess herself.

After that macro, high-level conversation, we return to the nitty-gritty of the city-wide chaos. Even though his students are still riled up by the battle, having killed their first fellow hyuman, Makoto insists they evacuate to a safe location. Powerful they may be, they’re still students, and they’re under no obligation to fight the mutant monsters. Shiki heals Abelia, and he and Mio take the students to a safe location.

Unburdened by dependents, Makoto explores the city, where dozens of monsters are running rampant. His shop has been reduced to a pile of rubble, and while it while emptied of any merchandise (even the sign was taken down), it’s still an emotional blow. He’ll simply have to rebuild. The screams of women lead him to a brothel, where he meets and rescues the former adventurer Estelle and her co-workers (also regular Kuzunoha customers) from a monster, earning her gratitude and friendship.

After seeing the kids to safety, Mio splits off from Shiki to take care of unfinished business: specifically, she alone can sense that Ilumgand, or what’s left of him, isn’t quite dead yet. He’s an unsightly blob of flesh with eyes and a mouth, and retains most of his memories, but all of his anger and bloodlust has evaporated. Even so, Mio cannot forgive him for what he did to her master, and settles on taking his life for amends. She also assumes the Hero Hibiki Ilum idolized isn’t the same Hibiki she met and befriended.

That night in the slums where an evacuation center has been set up, Makoto’s underlings give their reports. Other nations are headed this way to eliminate the monsters and offer relief, so the time for the Kuzunoha organization to distinguish itself and gain indelible renown is now. They are right in the thick of it, but while Makoto is confident they can deal with this crisis, the demons’ specific motivations and ultimate goal eludes him.

In his capacity as temporary instructor, Makoto is reamed out by the headmaster for not doing enough, but both Sairitsu and Princess Lily plead for him to cease his reprimands out of respect for them. Lily informs Makoto that the Hero of Gritonia is on his way. For now, Makoto is ordered to deal with the mutants in the northeastern district, which happens to be where the merchant’s guild is headquartered. It’s time to make himself indispensable to the elites of the academy city.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 17 – Making Lemonade

When Ilumgand goes berserk, transforms into a giant monster and eats his teammates, the battle between him and Makoto’s students would normally happen immediately. But thanks to a little creative license, it’s placed “on hold” so that Makoto can fully assess the situation and his options.

Fifty other monsters have turned up around the city, making this a full-blown crisis. While Mio thinks this is a perfect opportunity for some of their commercial and political rivals to be culled, Tomoe suggest they take the high road and serve as heroes of the city, earning the gratitude of many important figures.

All those figures happen to be in one place: in the royal box of the arena, essentially trapped. They include Limia’s king and prince (who is actually a princess in disguise as Makoto learns); the king’s right-hand man and Ilumgand’s father; Princess Lily, Root (AKA False), Sairitsu of Laurel, and the biship of the temple.

Makoto comes to the box with Tomoe and announces his intention to help. Tomoe uses her penchant for showmanship to explain that her magic sword enables her to transport everyone to safety. Root gives them an assist by serving as a guinea pig, and everyone but the king, prince, Ilum’s dad, and Makoto teleport away.

Makoto teleports the king closer to Ilum so that he and Ilum’s dad can try to talk sense into the monster, to no avail. When a monster from the city shows up, Makoto dispatches it with non-elemental magic, saving the prince without revealing his mana matter.

Down in the arena, Mio and Shiki issue instructions and encouragement to the students, who have their real weapons back. It’s a tough battle, but Abelia distinguishes herself by asking Sif to enchant her arrows with her explosion magic.

Abelia flies up in to the air in order to aim the fire arrow at the monster’s head, and while she is wounded by the monster tossing its severed hand at her like a Frisbee, she holds her “ground” in mid-air and maintains her aim, knowing her comrades are all with her down below.

Her arrow finds its target and blasts the monster that was Ilumgand to smithereens. She falls to the ground, but she’s soon surrounded by her friends. It’s such a lovely moment I doubt even a perpetual hyuman skeptic like Mio wouldn’t be touched.

Ilum would appear to be dead, but Shiki did mention that restoring him isn’t impossible, just extremely difficult. That leaves open the possibility he’ll be back. Meanwhile, Makoto has surely gained the favor of those Tomoe safely evacuated. Makoto also made a deal with Eva and Luria to retake their homeland of Kaleneon. We’ll see how Makoto and his pals deal with the other monsters roaming the city.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 16 – Dirty Tricks

While visiting Luria’s land of Aensland in Kaleneon, a young Ilumgard Hopleys makes a promise to fight with her someday. Here, in the present, he’s using real weaponry, heavy plate armor, magical medicine, and some kind of mysterious amulet. The fix is in, so the ref allows all this as Jin, Yuno, and Izumo are the three of Makoto’s students to win rock-paper-scissors and fight in the team final.

Ilum also trained with and befriended Hibiki, which makes sense as he’s part of the nobility of Limia and as Limia’s Hero, she is the personification of his ideals. But when fate brings Ilum and Luria back together in Rotsgard, his attempt to reconnect is ruined when his toadies castigate her for abandoning her lands to invasion, and then Kuzunoha intervenes.

It’s interesting watching this scene unfold from Ilum’s perspective, because it fills in a lot of blanks about his character, who had kinda been floating on the periphery. If it wasn’t for the OP and ED, I’d probably think he was just some background character.

I also had no doubt that even with everything stacked against them, Jin, Yuno, and Izumo would have no problem dispatching Ilum and his team of nobodies with ease and style. This may be deadly serious business for Ilum, but they’re just having a fun time showing their teacher how much they’ve progressed under his tutelage.

Ilum hates Kuzunoha, and blames him both for his inability to reconcile properly with Luria and prevent him from fulfilling his promise to Hibiki. While I can’t speak to the perceptive qualities of demons in this show, I can say with relaive confidence that Rona had been watching this guy closely as a candidate for treachery. She supplied him with ability enhancing drugs, and gave him an amulet she claimed boosts magical resistance.

I’ll refer to Frieren’s rules about demons, which is that every single word they say is meant to deceive humans. Rona may not be a Frieren demon, but she’s just as crafty and duplicitous. Just like Zara did in the merchant’s arena, Rona would seem to have exploited Makoto’s naïveté.

He thought he could form an alliance with the demons, but there’s every indication that alliance would only last as long as Rona needed it to to achieve her goals, which have something to do with the amulet mutating Ilum into, well, I dunno … some kind of hyuman-demon hybrid boss that threatens all of Rotsgard?

Makoto had it all planned out: After congratulating his victorious students, he’d shove off to Kaleneon to help Eva and Luria win back their lands. He, in turn, would be able to run his trading company outside the guild’s jurisdiction. That’s all on hold now that there’s the more immediate threat of Demon Ilum.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 15 – Out of His Element

Half of this episode is given over to the academy tournament, and while I thought Makoto’s students would face stiffer competition, the fact is no other students are a match for any of them, except each other. Jin and Sif blast through their categories without the slightest bit of resistance and end up in the final together. This, despite having to use wooden weapons.

Sif defeating Jin is a foregone conclusion, but that doesn’t take away how impressive Jin and the other members of Makoto’s class were. Not only that, despite having gone up against each other, there’s no hard feelings, and they all come away from the tournament more tight-knit than ever. Princess Lily can see what an amazing teacher Kuzunoha is, and wants to claim him for her kingdom—or at least deprive the other powers of his services.

But while Makoto’s adorable students are to be commended for their showing, they only made Kuzunoha’s enemies more irate. Before the team tournament (which his kids also ace), he is suddenly summoned to the Rotsgard Merchant’s Guild’s leader, Zara Hardis, who proceeds to give Makoto perhaps the biggest dressing-down of his time in this world. All of his physical and magical strength is useless against the bureaucracy of the guild. If he tries to use violence, he’ll be branded an ally of demons.

And therein lies a fundamental issue with Makoto’s desire to be friends with everyone. The Hyuman powers that be will not allow him to consort with demons. Makoto is chastened and bitter over having his naivety laid bare so completely, and while Mio has his back, Tomoe and Shiki, who know more about this kind of stuff, admit that the young master may have bit off more than he can chew with this one.

But if the guild is determined to squeeze Kuzunoha out of the market, with two heroes siding with Hyumans, Makoto decides he’ll go the other direction and, if not outright align himself with the demons, at least look the other way to their activities.

He has his sights set on Kaleneon, formerly part of Elysion, which is not only where his parents’ hometown is, but also Eva and Luria’s home and rightful lands. Zara shook his confidence in business, but with Tomoe, Mio, and Shiki backing this latest plan, Makoto believes he’s making the right choice.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 10 – Saved by Bananas

As Makoto prepares to wrap up the investigation of the Organization experimenting on demihumans, Shiki, Eris, Aqua express their dislike and distrust of Rona. During a one-on-one lunch, Rona warns Makoto about Shiki, Eris, and Aqua, as she once fought both with and against the lich and doesn’t know Makoto knows full well that they’re forest ogres.

Rona has fulfilled her mission in Rotsgard, so she’s headed back to the Demon’s Army. However, she gives Makoto what amounts to her LINE ID, so he can contact her telepathically should he ever require her aid. Always good to have one of the Demon Lord’s top generals!

After dealing with Professor Bright personally (and admitting he and the Org at least see eye-to-eye on the Goddess sucking), he continues teaching lessons to his students, now missing “Karen Force” but gaining the Rembrandt sisters.

Not only do they take every ass-kicking in stride, but they come to Makoto with a united voice, asking if he can keep teaching him during summer break. He agrees to weekly lessons after Shiki fails to make up a scheduling conflict, but insists the sisters return home for the second half of the break.

Just when the seven students, who through their trials-by-fire have become quite a tight-knit and cohesive group of friends, think they have a strategy to defeat the Blue Lizard, Makoto makes them fight two of them, albeit separately.

When the second lizard Zwei is called a jerk, she unleashes a can of extra whoop-ass on the kids, and Makoto apologizes, telling them that she’s a female and didn’t take kindly to the insult. The kids regroup and ask if they can go one more round.

After their training, Makoto takes the students out to dinner, and Shiki informs him he’s told them about the place where they can fight monsters and efficiently level up (they’re all members of the Adventurer’s Guild after all). But Makoto is still worried that they might face dangers if he’s not always present.

His solution, since he’s got ample bananas (for now), is to have Eris keep an eye on them on their training camp. When they pick a fight with a demi-dragon for whom they’re all twenty levels too weak (they’re all in the 70s), Eris traps it in roots and tosses it into the lake, deeply impressing and inspiring the bright-eyed novices. It is indeed going to be a summer to remember for all of them.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 09 – Man of Two Worlds

The man Lime encounters in the shadows isn’t Makoto’s comrade Professor Bright, but another man who is strong enough to block Lime’s slash with his wrist and knock him out with one halfhearted blow. Lime wakes up in a cell with the librarian Eva and without his katana, but uses a second magical knife to break them out. What they encounter is horrific: a lab full of failed hyuman and demihuman experiment subjects.

As thanks for freeing her, Eva offers Makoto the most information he’s gotten in a long time about his parents, who were apparently a nobleman and priestess in this world. They were to be married in Kaleneon, a state that no longer exists, and where Eva and her sister Luria are from.

Ashamed that they had to abandon their homeland, Eva and Luria are determined to return and reclaim Kaleneon out of the ashes of the kingdom of Elysion. Eva was where Lime was that night because she was seeking help from an organization of people who oppose the goddess.

When Makoto returns to his rooms, Lime detects the man who bested him, and Tomoe and Mio show up to provide backup. The man turns out to be Root, guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild. He’s also, like Tomoe, a dragon; an extremely old and powerful greater dragon she knew in her female form, but at some point grew bored and turned became a man.

If Root is indeed at or near the level of Tomoe and Mio in power, I suppose it’s a good thing he has no interest in fighting, though his attempts to flirt with Makoto only serve to antagonize them. As for the guild, Root himself founded it a thousand years ago, and his first master was someone from another world, from which he got video game terms like “level.”

Root set up the guild as a kind of check on the Hyuman population, giving them greater and greater levels and challenges that some Hyumans would lose their lives trying to achieve. When Makoto asks how someone from his world a thousand years ago would know about video games and the 16-bit limit, Root goes on to explain it as the result of time dialation between worlds,

Some of this goes over Makoto’s head, while Mio straight-up falls asleep after eating all the apples Root asked for. The big question Makoto wants to know is what the chances are of him returning to his world. Root doesn’t mince words: it’s not impossible, but he has about a one in 10 million chance of returning to the time and place he came from.

After all this enlightening information from a very fascinating new character, Tomoe escorts Root out, specifically so she can ask him if humans from Makoto’s world really only live a hundred years. When Root confirms they very rarely even get to that age, Tomoe is crestfallen, for that’s far too short a time for a dragon like her, and if she lost him, the world would lose its luster

Root can understand why Tomoe loves Makoto so much, as he’s an ordinary young man on an extraordinary path. He doubts Makoto would ever abandon Tomoe, but believes a “single catalyst” might make him change. While the other two heroes are choosing new paths for themselves in this world, Root can’t rule out the possibility Makoto chooses neither to stay nor go, but rather gain the ability to travel between worlds at will. All very intriguing stuff.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 08 – New Students

Makoto leaves the Demiplane to head back to Rotsgard, and while Tomoe is eager to determine the precise ways mist gates have affected the weather, Mio is simply sad to see the Young Master leave again so soon. But teachers have class, and he’s got three new students: Sif and Yuno Rembrandt, who he saved last season with judo and ambrosia, and the more mysterious Karen Force.

He has one of his blue lizardman friends fight his existing students (urging him not to use his breath and fight at no more than 20 percent), and they get trampled, but surely learn valuable lessons through their failure. Meantime, he has the three new students come at him at once with everything they’ve got, instructing them to adjust their tactics on the fly.

After the battles, the existing students are surprised the infamous Rembrandt sisters are so … nice. Makoto is more concerned with Karen Force, and takes her aside after class to learn more. Because she’s far more powerful than the real Karen should be, he suspects, and is quite correct, that she’s an imposter. Shiki confirms she’s actually Rona, a general in the Demon’s Army who specializes in … seduction.

Naturally, neither her magical nor feminine charms have much effect on our young heartbreaker, who is already more than neck-deep in lovely ladies to whom he doesn’t give the time of day. Over lunch, he makes it clear he and Shiki are netural and have no immediate quarrel with Karen/Rona as long as she doesn’t disrupt his business. Karen, in turn, tells him the purpose of her disguise: she’s investigating rumors of demi-human trafficking in Rotsgard.

Makoto pays the Rembrandt sisters a visit at their palatial dorm, and they receive him in lovely Renaissance-style dresses bearing their family crest. They express their heartfelt gratitude for him saving them, but he assures them he didn’t free them from their curses so they could live their lives indebted to him. Like his other students, he has high hopes for them.

After bribing the ogres with bananas, Eris and Aqua are all too eager to assist Lime Latte, now Tomoe’s spy and apprentice, in the investigation Karen/Rona mentioned. We later see Lime taking the initiative, roughing up people until he finds signs of trafficking on a still under-construction part of the academy. There, he puts his sword to the throat of someone wearing instructor’s robes. Looks like the darker corners of the academy are as rotten as Mio’s potatoes.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 07 – Meanwhile, at the Demiplane

Makoto returns home to find a huge, majestic new house and a banquet being held in his honor. To his shock, Mio has cooked almost everything, and it all tastes great! His praise brings tears to her eyes, but rather than drag him to the bedroom like I expected, she hurries back to Tsige to try to wring more recipes out of Hibiki.

After dinner Makoto, Shiki, and Tomoe exchange reports. Tomoe hasn’t found out much about the person who created the lake with an arrow (which was Makoto himself), but does report her encounter with the “scumbag” hero Iwahashi Tomoki. She believes someone like him might attack fellow Hyumans once the Demons are dealt with. Shiki also owns up to the monster Mio and Hibiki encountered being a discarded experiment of his from before he met Makoto.

Hibiki informs Mio that she can’t teach her anything else, as she must return to Limia at once. She thanks Mio for saving her and her party in the Wastelands, and also asks if Mio will join them. Mio refuses before Hibiki can even finish talking: even if the world is at stake, the Young Master is all that matters to her. That said, Mio isn’t against at least going to Limia someday, and Hibiki tells her she’ll teach her new recipes then.

Makoto’s next order of business is deciding which of the three new species recommended by Tomoe, Mio, and Shiki. Of the three, only two are approved: the winged Wingkin, and the bodacious Gorgons. The latter were worried about their stone gaze causing havoc, but Makoto is able to nullify the petrifying effect so they don’t have to walk around wearing masks. The only rejects are a race of faerie-like creatures that Emma feels were being too disrespectful to Makoto (Emma is on one all this week).

Back in Rotsgard, word spreads that two infamous sisters are returning to the academy, having “recovered” from some kind of disaster that earned them their infamy. They are the Rembrandt Sisters, no doubt related to the trading company Rembrandts. We’ll see if they join Makoto’s unique, high-difficulty class, which seems right up their alley.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 06 – A League of Their Own

Two weeks since he became a teacher and the Rotsgard store finding success despite the Ogres running it, Makoto has to fend off incessant political marriage proposals from students, suggesting his status at the academy has risen.

But more importantly, Tomoe and Mio are back, and with significant screen time! In fact, most of this episode is evenly split between them, and something happens I did not expect: they meet the heroes before Makoto! First up is Tomoki meeting Tomoe.

It does not go well for our silver-haired power-drunk young friend. In fact, Tomoki shows his whole ass this week to be nothing but a pathetic twerp who has tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants.

Tomoe doesn’t waste too much breath on him, and what breath she uses is able to dispel his Magic Eye effect on Lime (she herself is immune). When Mora reveals she’s a dragon tamer, Tomoe demonstrates the gap in their power by destroying her staff.

Tomoki wants Tomoe’s katana, then Tomoe herself, but the answer to both is no, and he doesn’t have the power to make her. In fact, she uses illusion magic to cast him, Lily, and Mora back into the forest with the warning that he won’t last long as Gritonia’s Hero if he tries to pull this shit again.

I’ve come to loathe Tomoki, so seeing him cut down a size or two was deeply gratifying, and there was no one better to do it than Tomoe. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like Tomoki will give up on her.

On to Mio, who is trying to discern kelp from seaweed on the beach when a giant wolf shoves her into the surf, soaking her kimono. She prepares to kill the beast with a flick of her fan, but a girl leaps out to help the wolf dodge: it’s Hibiki! Mio is impressed by her contrition and decides not to kill her or Horn.

More importantly to Mio is the fact that this hyuman knows her sea grass, which means she probably has some cooking pointers for her. What neither of them realize is that they once met before when Mio was the Spider Disaster, the first battle Hibiki fought that she couldn’t win.

Just as Tomoki is no match for Tomoe, Hibiki is no match for Mio. She and Tomoe are in a different league, power-wise. But while Tomoe’s encounter with Tomoki was thoroughly unpleasant, Mio and Hibiki have a much more positive, cordial, and productive encounter.

A giant mantis monster maims Hibiki’s tank and she’s forced to ask Mio for help, only for her and her party-mates to watch dumbstruck as Mio beheads the boss with one flick of the fan. When it tears her precious kimono in a last-ditch attack, she unleashes a devastating explosion.

Mio puts Hibiki and her party to sleep, and when they wake up, they’re in their intended destination of Tsige. A note from Mio brings Hibiki to the Kuzunoha store in Tsige where she and Mio come to an understanding. Beren will forge the equipment they’ll need to survive the wastelands, while Hibiki will teach Mio how to cook.

Woody notes that Hibiki has concealed her identity as hero and descended into despair ever since the loss of Navarre, who was clearly more than a friend or a sister to her. Her meeting and befriending another strong woman in Mio is an opportunity to cheer up, heal, and move forward.

Six episodes in and Tomoe and Mio, my two favorite characters in the show, have finally been integrated into the season arc. Hopefully Mio and Hibiki’s friendship endures, and the next time Tomoki messes with Tomoe will be his last! But first thing’s first: when Makoto returns to the Demiplane to check in, something is very off. What could it be?

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 05 – Class Is in Session

In the week leading up to his first lecture as a part-time instructor, Makoto frequents the restaurant where Luria works, where Shiki becomes addicted to the “cream hot pot.” Ilumgand, the golden-haired student who was talking to Luria last week, is watching this, and doesn’t like it. Makoto also meets Luria’s older (but smaller-chested) sister Eva, an academy librarian.

Makoto’s fellow instructor Bright sends ten of his students to Makoto’s first lecture. Their attitude ranges from okay with this as long as it makes them stronger, to skeptical an instructor who communicates through writing and has an assistant will be of any use to them. Needless to say, none of these students have ever met anyone like Makoto or Shiki.

While Shiki is all too happy to play the bad cop, Makoto insists upon being as tough and unyielding teacher as Tomoe. As such, Shiki is the good cop, which combined with his good looks make him an immediate hit with the four female students. The students start out underwhelmed by this ugly young man who can’t speak, so Makoto decides to engage in a mock battle with Shiki to demonstrate his power.

Shiki serves as the aggressor while Makoto defends. The kids think every attack Shiki sends will be the end of Makoto, but in reality none of them get through his barrier. The two put on a clinic of silent spells of all elements, and once they actually start using incantations (in a language they don’t recognize) the battle really heats up.

By the time Makoto thoroughly beats Shiki (who has become stronger since training with Tomoe and Mio), the students are a combination of impressed, in awe, and scared shitless. One of the girls who talked down to Makoto has an arm wound from the debris of the battle, so Shiki heals it with ointment from their new shop and she’s immediately smitten with him.

With that, the first class is in the books. Shiki expects that half of the ten students will be no-shows for the next class, and that turns out to be so. However, the five remaining students are there because they know there’s something special about these classes and their instructor.

In the next lecture, Makoto has them come at him with everything they have, with the specific goal of getting them to experience how it feels to reach their limits of mana and stamina. For all five students, it’s the toughest battle they’ve ever been in, and they all fail, but they also learn a lot.

As for the students, they’re an eclectic group … for Hyumans. There’s Daena, a kid with hair like a black-and-white cookie who is married with a kid on the way. Misra is the son of temple officials who sacrifices his mana to keep the mock battle against Makoto going.

Abelia, the only girl who stuck around, is balanced in physical and magic attacks (and shares a last name with Ilumgand). Izumo is a mage-in-training. Finally there’s Jin, a skilled swordsman and natural leader. Makoto observes and analyzes his students and believes them to have potential, especially after surviving two of his classes.

Unfortunately, teaching this class isn’t the only thing Makoto will have to deal with at Rotsgard. There’s also the matter of Bright-sensei wanting him dead. He sent the assassin Makoto had absolutely no trouble with, and in a darkly-lit meeting that accentuates his hidden evil, he orders that assassin and his guild to redouble their efforts to eliminate Makoto. It should be fun watching them try and utterly fail.

P.S., Tomoe and Mio only get one scene each this week, and their relegation to the margins is my one complaint with an otherwise strong season. I get it: you can’t have characters as loud and OP as they are involved in either the Rotsgard storyline or those of the other two heroes. I just hope we get a little more time with them at some point!

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 04 – Those Who Can Do, Teach

Tsukimichi brings the focus back on Makoto this week as he and Shiki finally arrive in Rotsgard. When they encounter a group of guys in academy uniforms seemingly pestering a young lady, Shiki teaches them a lesson. The woman with aqua hair didn’t ask for help, but she extends an open invite to the restaurant where she works as a waitress.

Makoto thought he’d be taking the student entrance exam for the academy, but the paperwork from Rembrandt indicates he’ll be taking the teacher’s exam. Chalk it up to Morris needing reading glasses, but considering how OP Makoto is, perhaps a teacher is the more appropriate position. Like in the plaza, Shiki is quick to perceive Hyuman slights and rudeness, greatly aging the first employee they encounter; the second one is more cordial.

Makoto and four others are teleported to the test grounds, where they must collect three of one of three colored orbs within three days to pass the exam. This leaves us alone with Makoto as he troubleshoots and monologues. The red orb can only be neutralized and captured with a physical attack, the blue with a magic attack, and the yellow with a ranged attack. But because Makoto is so OP his initial attempts to collect the orbs only end up shattering them.

Over the next couple days he eventually finds the right sweet spot between too strong an attack and too weak an attack, but on the morning of his third day he’s attacked by an assassin. The assassin is no match for him, but was able to make the other three examinees drop out. After breaking his poison dagger with his bare hand (he’s immune to poison), Makoto paralyzes the assassin and kicks him into the stratosphere.

The red orb turns out to be the toughest to capture until Makoto realizes he can use the simple, non-magical knife he borrowed to prepare fish to eat. Once he has a red, blue, and yellow orb, he returns to the academy, where the proctor is gobsmacked. Examinees were expected to collect three of the type of orb that best matched their skills; no one has ever come back with all three types.

Makoto’s misunderstanding made his exam a lot more difficult than it needed to be, and by the end even though the test area was paradise compared to the wastelands he had grown quite sick of it. But thanks to his impressive performance, he is hired as a temporary instructor, and that appears to attract the attention of a certain bespectacled lady.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 01 – Answered Prayers

Moonlit Fantasy’s second season picks up where the first left off, as Makoto is on his way to Magic Academy with Shiki by his side. They make a stop in the town of Obitt, and Shiki searches for the very best inn for the young master (fearing Tomoe and Mio’s wrath if he doesn’t).

Makoto chooses not to wear his mask in town, which gets him some looks. When he stops by the guild, he finds a woman begging in vain for aid against a group of bandits called Moon over the Ruined Castle, which is the same name as a famous Japanese song and one of Makoto’s faves.

Back in the Demiplane, Mio is attempting to cook for everyone, but the first attempt leads to serious casualties as her “curry rice” contains ingredients inedible to demihumans, such as soft emeralds. The camera panning to various characters suffering ill effects of having tasted the curry is a clever way to re-introduce the large cast of supporting characters.

Makoto has decided to follow his heart when in doubt, so when he sees the girl from the guild being harassed in an alley, he rescues her and her werewolf friend. She introduces herself as Lana from Tapa Village; the wolf, whom Makoto heals, is Eto. Makoto introduces himself as Kuzunoha.

Tapa may be a long way away, but that’s no problem for Makoto, who picks up Lana and Eto and flies there, arriving at the gates before sundown. Once there, Lana heads into the village, which Makoto can sense has been attacked again by the bandits. When Eto asks why he’s helping them, Makoto says he doesn’t like a bandit group having the same name as a song he likes. Simple as that!

Mio fares no better in her second attempt. While she uses nominally edible ingredients (meat, fruit, and vegetables), the ways in which she prepared the dishes render them just as inedible as the emerald curry. Tomoe suggests Mio travel the world and hone her skills, and to her surprise, Mio is all for it. So are the others, who are sick of being poisoned!

Makoto “takes a walk” into the forest where the bandits dwell, uses Silence Kai to eliminate all sound in their radius, then uses the confusion to pick off a few of them with arrows. By the time sound returns, Makoto has a lot more targets, so he decides to take them all out with fire, fondly recalling when Emma first taught him.

He doesn’t kill the bandits, but he does make them change their name, and makes it so they won’t threaten Lana or Eto’s villages again. When next we see him he’s back in Obitt, checking in with Shiki, who has found a passable (and expensive) inn in which to stay.

Before heading to bed, Makoto looks up at the moonlit sky and considers when he’ll encounter the other two heroes from Earth the Goddess summoned into this world. That should be interesting! Moonlit Fantasy delivers a quiet first outing in its return, but reminded me why I loved the first: that colorful special-sauce balance of action, comedy, and a smidge of drama … with no melted pot handle aftertaste.

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – 12 (Fin) – Becoming Less Terrible

After being deposited in the middle of a strange wasteland he eventually learns is a battlefield, Makoto is battling two tough cookies in Sofia Bulga (Sawashiro Miyuki!) and Mitsurugi AKA Lancer (Saitou Souma).  An excellent balance of aggressive offense and iron defense, Makoto is initially caught off guard, and were it not for his Dwarven clothes and accessories, he might’ve died right there and then.

However, for much of the start of the “battle” Makoto is holding back…like, a lot. And what a battle it becomes, as Tsukimichi clearly saved some of its animation budget for this exciting and dynamic showdown. It doesn’t really mattet who Sofia and Lancer are. The point is they are two of the many reasons Makoto needs to pull his head out of the sand and learn more about this world, and the people in it who can cause harm to his people.

But like I said, Makoto eventually lets loose, destroying one Dwarven ring afrer another and unleashing a massive flare of mana that literally changes the landscape while giving him the time he needs to escape his persistent pursuers. Even lying half-dead (and in Sofia’s case, naked to boot) in the middle of a suddenly picturesque lake Makoto’s magic created, the two are still determined to kill him next time they meet him. While I look forward to the attempt, I doubt they’ll ever catch our boy that off-guard and unprepared again.

The plans to attend Magic Academy and for Shiki to accompany him are still on, as he finds himself back in the Demiplane—and with Tomoe and Mio sleeping beside him in various stages of undress. After what happened (Shiki thinks it could have been the goddess trying to force Makoto to fight), the ladies want to go with him, but he insists they stay put. They’re his trump cards. When “the time for violence” comes, he promises he’ll call on them.

In other wrap-up news, Tomoe created a new fragment of herself, who Makoto names Komoe. She also enrolled the forest ogres into taming training for the Demiplane Ranking. the Illusory City is open for business, and Makoto’s general store in Tsige is booming on its very first day thanks to Tomoe, Mio, and Beren’s excellent marketing skills.

The night after the store’s grand opening the Demiplane has a huge celebration for both the opening and the Young Master’s goodbye. It should be clear to everyone by now that a second season is already in the works, as in addition to the typical finale recap/summing-up moments, there are a number of peeks at who and what that second season might involve.

After an extremely uneven penultimate episode, this one returned to that specific balance of serious and comedic that kept me into the show to that point. That is to say, the ship is righted, and I’m looking forward to more of Makoto & Co. down the road!