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 14 – A Plethora of Pleasantries

On Day 2 of the academy festival there’s a formal stand-up luncheon filled with foreign dignitaries, and to put it charitably, it’s not Makoto’s scene. For one thing, it’s full of hyumans, who are all beautiful and as such tend to look alike. One of the foreigners who stands out is Kahara Sairitsu, envoy from Laurel, due to her vaguely Japanese look and her bodyguards who are actually demons in disguise (whom we later learn were charmed by Tomoki).

Sairitsu is interested in Makoto due to the use of what her country calls “sage script”, i.e. Kanji. The secluded Laurel Commonwealth considers the two Heroes to be sages—those from distant lands with inconceivable knowledge—and she has cause to believe he’s one as well. Makoto plays it coy, but like it or not, he has Sairitsu’s and thus Laurel’s attention. Princess Lily notices Sairitsu meeting with Makoto and tries to pump her for info on both Makoto and the gunpowder tech Laurel possesses.

While chatting with the Rembrandt Sisters’ parents, Makoto is confronted by the long-haired blonde student whom he and Shiki fought off upon arriving in Rotsgard. The lad declares that he’ll be challenging Makoto’s students in the upcoming academy tournament. Makoto informs his class of the threat, but has full confidence in their ability to win, and even has them agree to withhold their most powerful abilities—they’ll be fighting Blondie with handicaps.

Turns out Princess Lily also knows Root in his capacity as founder of the Adventurer’s Guild. Root rejects the notion he backs Kuzunoha, but also warns Lily that she’s no match for Tomoe, and that taking on the trading company would be akin to engaging in all-out war with the demons. Lily seems to concede she should limit her goals to re-taking Fort Stella from said demons, and if no one “notable” presents themselves at the tournament, she’ll be returning to the empire.

And so the stage is set for the academy tournament, with Makoto’s students being pitted against each other. While in Rotsgard he can always feel the influence of the noble families conspiring against him and meaning him harm, whether it’s tactics like poisoning food or unfavorably seeding his students. He admits that being less than honest with all of these hyumans may be the reason things have gotten more complicated. But for now, in the tournament, hopefully it will be a simple matter of who wins and who loses.

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 12 – Not Too Late to Apologize

After a bear attacks one of the orcs as a warning, Makoto investigates the deep forest and meets huggable bear, a surprisingly reasonable pack of wolves, and an ever larger bear, essentially the ruler of the forest. Once Makoto makes clear he has no plans for conquest and only wants to be friends, the animals are open to coexistence.

While Makoto is scolding Tomoe and Komoe for picking too many persimmons, another animal friend appears: a giant bird that shrinks to the size of a pigeon to speak to Makoto. Introducing himself as “Boulder Bird”, once Makoto compares it to “roc bird”, he adopts that name going forward. In these guardians of the forest, he’s gained subjects, not to be confused with followers like Tomoe, Mio, and Shiki.

Back in Rotsgard, Jin and Abelia dress up and go out for drinks. Abelia wants to pump Jin for info on Shiki at first, but it become apparent they both want to have another go at the demidragon before summer break is out. We learn a lot from the two. Abelia has no family or home to speak of since her mother passed, so maintaining high enough marks to stay in school is key.

As for Jin, he admits he has a village to go home to, but he left it with a bad taste in his mouth. Another resident of the village, an orphan girl named Miranda, was his first love, mostly because she was so much stronger than him. But when they discovered a giant chimera in a remote barn while on patrol and she seemed to take pleasure in tearing it to pieces, Jin called Miranda a “monster”, and she ran into the woods, never to be seen again.

While he was only a punk kid, how he left things with Miranda never sat right with Jin. So he vowed to work hard enough to get scouted by the academy so he could become strong enough that when he saw Miranda again he could apologize. To that end, thanks to Makoto providing them with one, the whole group, Jin and Abelia included, manage to bring down the demidragon as a sign that they are becoming stronger together.

As for Miranda, well, we know her: she grew up to be Sofia Bulga, the tough-as-nails warrior that nevertheless was squashed by Makoto once he got serious back in season one. Having returned to the abandoned barn where she and Jin last saw one another (and indeed, she momentary wonders whether he’s still alive), she vows to track down her creator, Luto, and “absorb” him, no doubt to become strong enough to defeat Makoto. Good luck with that, kiddo: he’s got a slime suit now!

Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy – S2 11 – Mana Matters

Makoto wants to devote as much of his summer break as he can on expanding his knowledge and understanding of mana and how to maximize his output and efficiency. To that end, Root provides him with an ancient-looking booklet of mana training techniques, while Eva furnishes him with a dense tome of deep mana theory—the real nerdy stuff.

While in the demiplane, after some administrative work, Emma directs him to a scheduled mock battle against the Wingkin. While there’s no doubt they’re a formidable opponent against virtually anybody else in part due to their flight and transformative abilities, Makoto obliterates them without breaking a sweat, but also offers practical guidance on how they should improve.

Makoto isn’t standing still, as when he gets some free time alone he heads out to the outskirts to launch a fusillade of brids in order to try to achieve the state of mana materialization. The first attempt results in him going into a kind of trance, as the next thing he knows, Mio and Tomoe are waking him up and wondering why he spent the night in the grass.

Eventually, Makoto gets the hang of the process, and not only figures out how to manipulate the mana outside his body, but materializes it into a sort of amber slime golem suit that moves with him and gives him even greater strength. It’s strength he believes he needs above all else, in order to fight and defeat the Goddess and Slayers of the world. It has to be him. He won’t have anyone who loves him (and, if he’s honest, he loves) dying for his sake.

The liveliness, vitality, and strangeness of the Demiplane is on full display for the balance of the episode, as all of the myriad races compete against each other to see who can hit a giant boulder from the mountains the hardest. The boulder helpfully displays a number on a scale of 0-to-1oo after each attempt. Emma scores a 78 for the Orcs, while the Gorgons get zilch, because the rock is already petrified.

Eris an Aqua only manage a 50, but score massive style points for their banana leaf magical girl outfits and poses and a barrier of ice that none of the other races can break through, but Makoto is able to dig under and dispel with the touch of his hand. Finally, the big dogs join the fun, as Mio whips out a Hero Suit she designed based on Makoto’s memories, and Shiki cleaves the boulder in two with a dwarven-made dragon slaying sword.

Not about to be outdone by his underlings, Makoto decides to have a bit of fun while also showing off his new ability for the first time. All it lacks is a name, but Shiki, Tomoe, and Mio call it “mana matter”, and he likes the sound of that. He then leaps up to the boulder, gives it a good punch while in his slime suit, and smashes it into teeny tiny pieces.

The display is so violent and powerful Tomoe and Mio are gobsmacked and Shiki straight up passes out. Hopefully he’s closer to being a match to the Goddess and her cronies, but it looks like some animals in the deep forest of the Demiplane will have business with him first. As always, my money’s on Makoto.

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?