Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 12 – Decent Item Drop

Akane still remembers the day she was wandering FOS looking defeated and bored when she was comforted by the warm light of Rurihime. It’s for this reason that now that she’s over her Covid (hat tip to kumashock) she wants Eita and Momo to be the first people to hear that she’s fallen for someone—and Eita can easily guess who.

Eita tells Akane that even though most people note Yamada’s looks, there’s no one kinder than him, so he wishes Akane the best in expressing her feelings to him. Once Akane is off, Momo wastes no time re-introducing herself and asking if Eita has a girlfriend. Hey, can’t hurt to try!

But when Akane stops by Yamada’s to say what she wants to say, the moment never seems right. There are loud neighbors ruining the mood. Yamada is in a rush to get to cram school. Without knowing what Akane wants to say, he suggests she walk with him, but she loses focus and almost gets hit by car-kun.

It’s at this point that Akane decides to call it; she’ll tell him another time. But Yamada can still sense it’s something important, so he says he’ll give her a call later tonight. This puts a big, adorable smile on Akane’s face, which in turn puts a smile on Yamada’s.

By not going for broke and getting those ever-important three words out when she had the chance, Akane unwittingly kept the door open for someone else: Tsubaki. After cram school it starts raining hard, and Tsubaki doesn’t have an umbrella so Yamada shares it with her.

When he decides to give the whole umbrella to her and run for it, Tsubaki chases after him, stumbling and dropping her glasses in the process. Yamada comes back to pick them up for her, and that’s when she says “I like you,” tearfully covering her mouth immediately after as if she’d done something terrible.

But kudos to Tsukabi—she said what needed to be said to clear the air between them, and her timing was perfectly imperfect. The only problem is, it’s unlikely Yamada can return her feelings. He may not totally understand his feelings for Akane, but he knows he doesn’t have those same feelings for Tsubaki.

My heart breaks for Tsubaki, as she’s a good kid who deserves happiness. But I also can’t overlook how well-matched Akane and Yamada are.  Yesterday, Akane felt selfish and self-centered by not thinking about Yamada’s schedule the day she visited him to confess.

Rather than press her agenda of trying to confess when he visits the konbini where she works unannounced, Akane can tell Yamada is down, and so decides to cheer him up, drawing her character and her new sword on his hand. When he tells her he’s quiet and reserved because he fears saying the wrong thing, and is “just a nobody”, Akane assures him he isn’t.

That said, I would feel like garbage too if I had to meet with Tsubaki that night to turn her down and possibly break her heart. Tsubaki’s sentiment is devastatingly apt: falling in love should be more fun than that.

As for Akane, she could have confessed to Yamada the previous day or here outside the konbini, but chose to subordinate her feelings to Yamada’s (previously due to his hectic schedule, now due to his mood). Eventually, if anything is going to happen with these two, Akane is going to have to put herself and her feelings, first.

Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 11 – Runa Can’t Find Her Doughnuts

Momoko arrives a little late but still regarded as a goddess by Akane for providing much-needed provisions to beat her cold. When Momo learns Yamada took her to the hospital and watched over her, Momo asks if they’re dating now, and Akane says they’re just friends.

Momo, who has met some real cads, isn’t not sure a man would do that much for a woman he’s not in love with. That said, she knows too little about him to make a fair judgment. But it’s evident to us Akane’s feelings are growing beyond mere friendship, as she feels extreme relief upon receiving a belated text from Yamada saying he’s fine.

Feeling up for it, Akane ditches her studying to play some FOS, and ends up meeting the newest member of their guild, Tsubaki, through Rurihime. It’s clear that Rurihime, i.e. Eita, ensured that Tsubaki would see that Akane is a good, kind person who is easy to talk to and work with.

Eita also makes this entertaining for him by pitting Akane and Tsubaki, both relatively weak Paladins, against a seemingly low-level boss Rurihime could destroy with one strike. Tsubaki and Akane work well together, using trial and error to make progress even though they run out of time.

Later, when it’s just Tsubaki and Rurihime, the latter tries to offer the former some advice after Tsubaki tells him that she’s “afraid to make a move”—go ahead and make that move. Waiting for courage or motivation to well up won’t do her any good.

Just as Tsubaki ponders this advice and possibly plans to adopt it in one form or another, Akane follows similar advice she got from Momo: Timing is everything with love. Akane calls Yamada up, and they have a long conversation mostly about the game. But she also admits she just wanted to hear his voice, before quickly saying good night and hanging up, her hands trembling.

To paraphrase the Oracle in The Matrix, by taking this first step Akane has already made her choice, she just needs to understand it. Fully recovered, she meets with Momo at an adorable café she hadn’t noticed before, and it’s not long before two pushy, handsy guys from one of Momo’s group dates show up and join the women without asking.

As Akane and Momo’s luck would have it, the manager at this café happens to be Eita. He and Akane exchange nonverbal communication, and he cheerfully invites the jerks to go find another table to sit at. When that doesn’t work, Eita adopts a far sterner aura and bearing, and the flowery request becomes an order with an air of a threat. The toxic boys obey, not wanting to wait around for Eita Stage 3.

Momo is surprised to learn Akane not only knows Eita, but can engage in effortless conversation at the drop of a hat. I especially love how Eita snaps right back into his normal bubbly self when the unpleasantness is over. Momo is not just impressed, she’s smitten. Eita is indeed a hot guy, as is Yamada, leading Momo to wonder if she should ditch the group dates for a game guild.

After Eita clocks out for the day and smoothly, politely declines a karaoke invite from a cute co-worker, Eita is approached by Akane and Momo. Akane has something she needs to talk to him about. If it’s not about Yamada, both me and Momo are going to be soufflé pancake-withholdingly cross.

Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 10 – So Cold It’s Hot

When Tsubaki first approached Yamada, it was because she suspected him of cheating in a game she watched him play online. He lets her watch him play, and she does—for hours. He didn’t cheat, he’s just that good. In the present, neither she nor Okamoto can get ahold of Yamada.

Okamoto tells her if she doesn’t make a move, Yamada will end up with some rando. Tsubaki’s mask falls and she tears up, and Okamoto rightfully feels bad for pressuring her, as she’s already quite aware of her situation.

Turns out Tsubaki wasn’t the younger girl with whom Yamada couldn’t promise to be together forever. Rather, she hears from Yamada why he doesn’t have a type, never had a crush, and is generally uncomfortable with women. It all comes down to that girl, who was mercilessly bullied for liking Yamada until she stopped coming to school.

Their teacher sent him to the girls to give her handouts, keeping a connection between the two. The girl kept liking him, and then asked him to make a promise he couldn’t make. He says he only did what he did because the teacher told him to, but often wonders what would have been the right thing to say instead of what he did say.

From the day Tsubaki learned that about Yamada to the present, she feared ever falling for a guy as kind and cruel as him, lest she get hurt someday. And that day seems to have arriving—or will do so soon.

As Okamoto and Tsubakai wander the streets and presumably head to their respective homes, Yamada spends the night at Akane’s, but not for romantic purposes. His role is purely to observe and protect. Akane is in a terribly bad way, to the point he wisely takes her to a late-night clinic where she gets an IV.

Akane is somewhat aware of these events, but her fever is so bad it all feels like a fuzzy dream, up to and including when she comes to and finds Yamada dozing beside her bed, her “getting over heartbreak” book loosely in his hands.

When she realizes all of the things Yamada did for her when she was well and truly much out of it, Akane bursts into tears of gratitude, feeling like “someone like her” wouldn’t normally deserve such kindness (which is of course untrue).

When the heartbreak book comes up, Akane tells him how it’s really gotten her out of her funk, he tells her he’s not the good guy she thinks he is, and she recognizes his expression. It’s the same one Takuma had when he broke up with her.

Akane tells Yamada she’s glad Takuma put an end to things that way rather than lie to her. It’s her hope that should he look back on the memory of her, it’s of her smiling, not crying and wailing, making him think “she was a great girl” and “I shouldn’t have let her go.”

Just as Yamada’s face reminded her of Takuma’s, Akane’s bright toothy grin reminded him of the girl he essentially broke up with without knowing it at the time. He even remembers something he forgot: the last time he saw her face—and the first time we see it—she’s smiling at him through tears, thanking him for being there for her.

As the night wears on and Tsubaki logs off the game with no one else around, Akane’s fever drops and she’s able to eat some yogurt. As she eats, she can’t help but notice how safe and secure Yamada’s presence makes her feel. But when she tries to reach out to him, she suddenly feels horrible.

It’s a leg cramp, and it’s agony. But as she shouts and thrashes, Yamada calmly takes hold of her foot and leg and stretches it out. Her other foot flies wildly around his head and face, sometimes hitting only air, and sometimes hitting face. But after a minute or so, the pain subsides.

Yamada thanks him for saving her yet again, and Yamada comments that she’s “so dramatic.” But when he looks over at her as she says her leg was killing her, she’s scarcely looked more beautiful. The two have an extended moment where something might happen, but it passes, and the night proceeds without incident.

The next morning Yamada heads off to school without sleep, something he assures Yamada he’s done before. She’s fine for him to go, but hopes he’ll take care and let her know if he feels sick. No doubt she’ll want to be the one to nurse him should he fall ill; such is her transactional way of showing affection and demonstrating her worth.

But more than ever before, Akane is acutely aware of her body being naturally drawn towards Yamada without her having to think. That’s the product of how safe and secure she feels around him. He’s about to leave when she grabs a corner of his jacket, only to tell him she’s fine and to go ahead and go. But when he’s gone, she can’t help but sigh, and her blushing isn’t just from her cold.

This episode was another triumph of shoujo romance shot composition and direction, full of beautiful cross-fades and dissolves reflecting the characters’ states of mind. Minase Inori and Uchiyama Kouki’s layered performances also add to the intimate atmosphere of an episode that takes place almost entirely in Akane’s bedroom.

Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 09 – Self-Serving Dream

When Akane vociferously urges Yamada to go to the local konbini while they’re playing FOS, he finds that she’s the clerk at said konbini. When she asks him to wait for her shift to end so they can go home together, he does. She made another meal for him as thanks for his help with her laptop.

While she’s glad he’s opened up a little more and they’ve gotten a little closer, she’s wary of seeing him in a romantic light, considering his troubles in that arena. That said, in practice he is quite sweet and kind, both in waiting for her shift to end, protecting her from a bicyclist, and expressing his hope she doesn’t get too bad a cold.

While Momo is giving her a manicure, Akane calls Yamada’s kindness a “terrifying trap”, but while Momo has heard a lot about Yamada from Akane, she hasn’t heard Akane say what she wants to do. Runa interrupts by announcing a “crisis in the guild”, which is really just Yamada inviting a new member—a girl! Even though she became friends with Akane, Runa is scared of a new member, but Akane calms her down with cocoa.

As for that new girl member, it’s Tsubaki, who seems to be harboring some lingering feelings for Yamada, or is at least curious about the older woman who came to the cultural festival. Could that be the only reason she’s joining the guild? We’ll have to see, but one thing’s for certain: Akane will welcome Tsubaki to the guild with open arms, not as the romantic rival Tsubaki believes herself to be.

It’s almost as if Tsubaki has taken comfort in the fact Yamada is terrible with girls, but Akane is quickly changing that, becoming someone he cares about and wants to protect. Akane is back in full-on disaster mode as she catches the mother of all colds after having to pull a night shift.

She can’t drink water, and hasn’t eaten in a day, but has nothing for rice porridge. She tries to take her bike as she’s worried about infecting other riders on the bus, but she’s too feverish and weak to get on the bike, or even get back to her apartment.

Fortunately for her, Yamada is close by. He stops a bike from falling on her, then picks her up from the ground and carries her to safety. This whole time, Akane is so feverish she believes this is all a dream—a selfish dream. But there’s nothing selfish about it. Yamada is doing what he wants to do. Helping her isn’t a burden—it’s a comfort.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 12 (Fin) – Something That Ended Ages Ago

The end of what I hope to be only the first of a split-cour series starts with the final boss battle between the unlikely but awesome duo of Menou and Ashuna and Centipede Pandemonium, whom I’ll henceforth call Centipan. The cent- is key, since around 100 people were sacrificed to create Centipan, which means she’ll have to be killed at least that many times to be defeated.

Unfortunately, every segment of Centipan that is broken off goes running off into the city to wreak havoc—this is Chaos Pure Concept, after all—forcing Ashuna to break off in order to save the people. Menou’s piss-poor ether capacity once again rears its ugly head, as Centipan relieves her of her Scripture and trusty dagger. That’s when Ashuna tosses her giant sword Menou’s way, since she can destroy the segments with her bare fists.

Menou swinging Ashuna’s sword around is #Goals, but the weapon quickly drains what little ether she has left. Fortunately, soon after telling Akari that there’s a way to go back to Japan, the other ‘Moni leaves Akari alone and flies off on wings made of shadow. This leaves Akari free to join the battle with Menou exactly when Menou needs her (and her ether) the most.

While the train episode was the only other time I can think of that Akari and Menou joined forces, it’s not “ticklish” to Akari this time, as the two simply combine forces to create a massive blade of flame that obliterates Centipan with a single satisfying swing.

All that’s left of Moni is her quickly dissolving head, but that’s enough of her to give Menou one last piece of advice: the Sword of Salt she once visited wth Flare? That’s powerful enough to kill any Pure Concept, even Akari. But true to her chaotic nature, Moni tells Menou this knowing that Menou isn’t totally 100% sure she wants to kill Akari, even if it’s her duty and probably the best thing for both Akari and the world writ large.

Ashuna congratulates Menou on her victory and decides to “let it slide”, “it” being the fact that Akari is an otherworlder. As for Moni, another version of her in a spooky graveyard resurrects Manon. At first Manon is confused why Moni would do this, she then remembers her mother telling her how she had a sister who was full of energy and loved movies. Moni was once just an ordinary movie buff from Japan, and she may now not remember who she was or that she had a sister. And yet she saved her sister all the same.

With the big battle taken care of not long after the halfway point of the episode, there’s adequate breathing room for some epilogues. A rapidly recovering Momo gets some quality time with Menou, who tells her about the Salt Sword. Menou thanks Pastor Sicilia, and as she walks back to her inn contemplates two different roads: one where she executes Akari with the Salt Sword, and the other where she discovers a way to “fix” Akari so she won’t destroy the world and herself if left unchecked.

And then, of course, there are the sweet, sisterly scenes between Menou and Akari, who greets her with a big hug and probably only grudgingly agrees to sleep in a separate bed from her. When Menou starts to say something like Akari is her…something, Akari is very vexed by her simply trailing off, gets out of bed and tussles her until Menou says she’s her “source of stress.”

The next morning, Menou and Akari take the first step out of Libelle and head back on the road to the “Sanctuary” hand-in-hand. The previous night, Momo resolved to execute Akari in Menou’s place, knowing that the more time she spends wth “Boobalicious”, the less inclined she’ll be to murder her.

The parting mic drop belongs to Flare, sitting on a throne and planning to kill her apprentice “for the zillilonth time”, crystalizing the reality that she’s been interfering in Akari’s attempts to get Menou to execute her by murdering Menou herself. It’s an enticing place to pause and hopefully not end, as there’s tons of material for this story to continue.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 11 – Let’s Get Nuts!

Pandemonium is the ultimate agent and wielder of chaos. None of the Jokers have anything on this mirthful, pint-sized Giallo buff. Haruno Anzu typically voices her with a singsong child’s meter with a healthy share of “Maa’s!”, which rides the line between ironically effective and annoying, but also makes it that much creepier when ‘Moni speaks more quietly and seriously.

While Menou expends all of her ether on a mere warm-up fight with Moni, Akari seemingly heals Momo with her power, which made me think Momo would possibly play a role in the battle. Ashuna also gets reports of around a hundred people in town suddenly melting into red goo, making the princess primed to get involved in whatever’s up on the island.

I’ll tell you what: nothing good! Giant four-eyed rats with human legs sticking out of their backs? No freakin’ thank you! But it’s par for the course for the B-movie-obsessed Moni. She’s not trying to take over the world. She’s just trying to be as entertained as she can possibly be watching humans try their absolute best…then die horribly.

When Menou does run out of her own paltry stores of ether, Moni shoves her out of the castle with a giant hand, but that’s when Ashuna officially joins the battle, pretending she’s meeting Menou for the first time and offering her own seemingly unlimited stores of ether for Menou, who is far better-equipped to use it.

The duo of Menou and Ashuna proves extremely successful, at least at first, as Menou connects the earthly and heavenly veins, builds a massive Pseudo-Cathedral atop the castle isle, and sucks Moni into a bloody singularity, then an endless loop of detainment. Logically, the battle should be over. It’s not.

That’s because with Moni around, chaos reigns. Kill her once or a hundred times, it may not even be the real one you’re killing. Moni not only survives, but summons a gigantic eldritch abomination from the fog in order to show just how tough a cookie she is.

The kaiju obliterates the castle isle in one blow (which is sad, that was a hell cool-looking isle; reminded me of Ico) but the dashing Princess Ashuna saves Menou with a princess carry—just before that, she showed genuine affection and concern for her reluctant bae Momo.

So the giant monster is out there, but Menou soon determines it’s not a real threat; it’s still basically trapped in its current location by the fog, and that fog soon starts advancing on both the monster and Moni. While all this is going on, Akari is kept from joining Menou and Ashuna in battle by another Moni, who prefers mind games to blood and gore.

Moni felt like chatting with a fellow Japanese. Moni knows Akari can only use her Pure Concept of Time so much before it starts to degrade her soul into nothingness. There’s also the side effect of losing your memories from your previous life, but Akari, who was bullied at school in her old life, is only concerned with keeping her memories of Menou.

Akari destroys Moni with one shot from her fingertip, but Moni soon comes back and continues to mess with Akari, telling her that there’s a reason she’s failed so many times. Someone more powerful is impeding her efforts—someone with access to something called the “Astral Archive”, an entity composed of all the collected memories of the planet, the source of the power of ether, and the origin of the lord written in the scriptures of the Faust.

In other words, it’s probably Flare. So as Moni threatens to wear out her welcome by transforming into a CGI centipede girl (which while creepy and menacing, lacks visual mass and weight and is thus less impressive than the kaiju she summoned), she’s looking more and more like an intermediate boss on the way to the true big bad: Menou’s mordant mentor.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 10 – From Letdown to Taboo

Manon isn’t that surprised or intimidated by Akari Prime’s time magic, while it’s Akari who keeps getting surprised by this current iteration of the world. Manon was the child of a Lost One, a Japanese woman who was not intentionally summoned but simply appeared. Lord Libelle, Manon’s father, married the woman to bolster his power with her pure concept, but ended up never forcing her to use it, because he fell in love with her.

Manon is right that it’s a lovely story, but it has a cruel ending, as one day Flare executed Manon’s mom right in front of her, and didn’t even bother to kill her too. Manon grew up with everyone having great expectations for the child of a Lost One, only for her to have no magical power whatsoever. Branded a great letdown, Manon became mired in a life of uselessness an ennui…until she decided to embrace the dark side and become taboo.

This is why Manon doesn’t fear Akari in the least, nor Menou when she shows up to save Akari from certain death by Chaos magecraft. Not because she’s particularly powerful—Menou basically freezes her with her gaze then lops her arm off—but because, in short, Manon isn’t greedy. She’s had fun as a rebel and a taboo, but ultimately she’s just a vessel and sacrifice for something much, much worse…the little girl in the Iron Maiden who almost blew Momo up.

This girl is creepy and frightening as fuck, successfully toeing the line between twee and terrifying. Menou slits her throat, and she simply sheds her old skin and pops out of her dead body good as new. Then she twists her own head around dozens of times and stretches it vertically until it pops off to create a fountain of blood.

Out of that blood, multiple eldritch beasts emerge, and feast upon her corpse. Then she pops out of one of the monster’s mouths, once again whole. It’s an atmosphere-upsetting enough incident for Ashuna, still getting over Momo standing her up (though to be fair, Momo is bedridden), to sense from the mainland.

Yes, the girl herself is the Human Error Pandemonium, having escaped her prison of fog and is now ready to finish off the world she almost destroyed once before. Like Menou’s conundrum with Akari, how can you kill someone that won’t die when you kill them? We’ll surely find out in what’s looking like a season-capping final battle that’s sure to include more than just Menou as it progresses.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 09 – Too Much Is Different

Despite her priestess garb, Akari sticks out like a sore thumb among the aristocrats at the ball. Menou warns her not to eat or drink anything, then scouts around the castle grounds and ends up crossing paths with Princess Ashuna. Meanwhile, Momo again demonstrates her impeccable competence by knocking out the guard and gaining access to the Monstrine operation without breaking a sweat. Ashuna doesn’t know who Menou is (she hides her face with magecraft), but she can tell Menou is a strong fighter.

Unfortunately for Menou (but fortunately for us), that means Ashuna wants to fight her. A lusty battle ensues, with Ashuna hitting nothing but air and Menou showing her just how much more mastery over ether she has. Ashuna merely gets toyed with, but still has a blast…even when she’s almost literally blasted. Does Ashuna feels somewhat shoehorned in here just so she can spar with Menou? Maybe…but I don’t mind because even when she’s getting her ass kicked, Ashuna is awesome as hell.

Akari is lamenting how the ball is no fun alone when the big boom and column of flame occur. Then Lady Manon sidles up to her, wanting to know more about where Akari comes from. Akari tells the truth: there’s very little she remembers of Japan, but there’s something about the way Manon likens Akari’s hair her mom’s that suggests some kind of connection. After Manon leaves her, Akari Prime awakens, and is concerned: way to much is happening in Libelle that has not happened in previous loops.

Akari really wants Menou to kill her in this loop, but not having the advantage of knowing how the future will unfold will make that tougher than she’d like. Speaking of tough, Momo soon finds the Iron Maiden and lets her guard down when she frees the young bloodied girl inside.

Helping the girl—not opening the Maiden—springs an explosion trap, and Momo gets a poison spike to the side. Manon is alerted to the trap being set off, and revels in the possibility this could be the day she finally gets her revenge.

The next morning Momo wakes up in rough shape, but with a proud senpai standing over her and patting her head in gratitude. Either the spike or the poison would have surely killed weaker folk, but thanks to her massive stores of ether, Sicilia believes she’ll pull through. Menou, meanwhile, is fed up with half-measures. She wants the Fourth rounded up and their drug ring shut down.

Sicilia, noting how Flarette, unlike Flare, isn’t afraid to rely on others, grants an operation and goes to negotiate with the knights. The Fourth nobles are holed up in Manon’s castle, but suddenly they’re all frozen in time. Akari Prime emerges from behind a cabinet, intent on talking in private with the Lady of Libelle.

Is Akari trying to mitigate the fact she’s no longer sure what the future holds by securing an alliance with someone who can mess up her plans? We may not know what exactly Akari wants with Menou, but we do know her goal, and that she’ll stop at nothing to achieve it.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 08 – Better the Watermelon You Know

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Giving up on killing Akari in Libelle for now, Menou instead takes her target to the bustling marketplace, which is not only a festival of new sights, smells, and tastes for Akari, but establishes both ancient etheric tools as vessels for ether and the penchant of this new arc’s villain for using food as a means of control.

That villain, Lady Manon, is standing not ten feet from Menou when some members of Fourth attack and take Akari hostage, but Menou can only sense their boorish intent on attacking her. She dispatches them easily, but they soon transform into vicious monsters the knights have to then put down.

Libelle’s chief Faust Pastor Sicilia isn’t happy with Menou’s expense reports talking of delivering the still un-executed Lost One to the “Sanctuary”, and isn’t willing to spend further church funds on such vague and dubious promises. Instead, she’ll fund Menou’s pilgramage if she investigates a new drug called “Monstrine”, which the Fourth members took and turned them into monsters.

After delegating part of this investigation to Momo (who is all too happy to make life easier for her beloved Menou) and Menou defensively leaping out of bed when Akari tries to curl up with her, Lady Manon tightens her grip on the city’s elite by informing them she laced their food with Monstrine, then has one of them transform and strangle heself to death. The child she put in the iron maiden provides the Sin Magecraft source of the drug.

I’ll admit I was disappointed by the dearth of Princess Ashuna last week, but while her scenes with Momo are very choppily edited and suggest possible animation issues or shortfalls, it’s still great to see our swole queen, who can’t help but compete with Momo (whom she clearly likes) on the Monstrine investigation. Just seeing them having drinks at the bar…they just look right together, even if Momo’s heart belongs to another.

Speaking of, when Ashuna brings up an evening ball Lady Manon is holding tomorrow night, Momo learns in her next meeting with Menou that her mistress also got a ticket. Momo won’t let her pose as a simple priestess, but instead uses the opportunity to dress Menou up to the nines. To Momo’s later envy, Akari also tags along in an elegant priestess clothes.

As soon as Menou spots the hostess Lady Manon, I would hope she’d be extra-careful about what she eats or drinks. That said, Menou has no idea the lengths and depths to which Manon has gone specifically to take her revenge against Flare for killing her mother.

I imagine Akari’s presence at the ball may portend the use of time magic should Manon succeed in killing Menou. In any case, these two episodes did an adequate job setting the table. Knowing this series’ ability to ramp up at the drop of a hat, the resulting meal should be a good one.

P.S. Manon is voiced by Iwami Manaka, whom I will always remember as the voice of Honda Tooru, one of the kindest, gentlest characters in all of anime-dom. Lending her voice to an evil villainess must have been fun.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 07 – Going Fourth

With the Orwell ordeal behind them, Menou commences her pilgrimage with Akari, a two-month journey all the way to a purported “sanctuary” for Lost Ones. And if she comes up with a way to execute Akari along the way, so much the better. Akari wouldn’t have it any other way. Their first stop after two weeks is the port town of Libelle, which sits in the shadow of a perpetual curtain of fog known as Pandemonium.

Menou and Akari trade the ominous fog for the steam of a public bath, which constitutes “splurging” for someone like Menou who lives in “honorable poverty.” Notably, Akari neither tries any hanky-panky nor compares her boobs to Menou’s—both points in her favor. Instead she simply revels in being in the presence of her “emotional oasis”.

It’s not a role Menou is particularly comfortable or experienced in playing, but she continues to play it nonetheless. Momo, who arrived at Libelle sooner by a more dangerous route (and claims to have gotten Ashuna killed in the process), gives Menou a report on the “Fourth”—a terrorist group who reject the three other classes of society—in the town. She also suggests Menou try to kill Akari with the Pandemonium.

Menou didn’t even think to do such a thing until Momo brought it up, which adds fuel to the argument that she’s now actively hesitating in execution Akari in any kind of timely fashion, using what’s at hand. That’s remedied the next day, as Menou takes Akari out on a boat ride to get a closer look at the imposing Libelle Castle, home to Countess Manon Libelle.

Akari takes her “anti-nausea medicine” without question and soon passes out. Menou, in what is an oddly Wile E. Coyote-style move, tosses Akari on a rubber raft and lets her drift into the Pandemonium. There, Akari Prime revives, immediately recognizes where she is, spots an odd beam of light cast on her head that wasn’t in previous loops, and is then gobbled up by a monster. She resets right back next to Menou, reminding her that fulfilling her solemn duty isn’t going to be so easy.

Still, that odd beam of light Akari Prime did not expect is just one of many little odd things that fill the episode’s periphery. The other odd things involve the aforementioned Manon—the leader of the Fourth in Libelle—who isn’t taken seriously by her court of older adults but may well be poisoning them with spam sandwiches while paling around with a little girl with wide eyes who is always humming…even when she’s placed into an iron maiden and gooshed. I have no idea what Manon is up to, but I’m definitely intrigued…and a little weirded out.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 06 – Killing Her Properly

A part of me was disappointed with how relatively cleanly Menou’s path to redemption became when Orwell went full Genie Jafar levels of evil. But I shouldn’t have worried; Virgin Road pulls off a rip-roaringly epic mid-cour finale that’s both ass-kicking and heartwarming.

While Menou fights Orwell down below, Akari’s “blanching” is interrupted by an automated time magic spell, which revives who I’ll call Akari Prime, who knows everything that has happened in all the previous time loops she’s experienced.

It’s thrilling to see this knowing Akari easily dispatch her captors, as well as to learn that she knows Menou has been trying to kill her, but she loves her so much that if she must die, she wants no one but Menou to kill her.

Akari ZAPs herself back to a simpler, earlier version of herself, but keeps a sense of deja vu and her love for Menou, which is clearly the most important part of her existence. No wonder Akari fell for Menou so hard in such a brief time together. Akari Prime also does something pretty “mean”, but also necessary to defeat Orwell.

In the bowels of the castle, Momo and Ashuna are stalemated against the demon and red dragon. But then Akari remotely ages Momo’s most prized possession: the ribbons Menou gave her when she was little. Now, we know Menou is excellent at wielding ether but has a very short supply. But her aide is no slouch in the ether-wielding department, and possesses vast stores of the stuff.

She is so freaking pissed when the dragon’s flame burns away what’s left of her ribbons, she goes absolutely ballistic, unleashing an attack that brings half of the castle down on top of her. For one terrible moment I thought she’d ethered Ashuna, but not, the swole princess not only escapes, but has never had more fun.

Following Momo’s lead, she whips out a mega-blade to defeat the demon with no regard for the corrupt castle where she was brought up. Then it’s Game Over for Orwell at the halfway point of the episode, because Akari and Menou are reunited. That means Menou’s ether supply is no longer of any concern.

That said, it’s her against Orwell and her Red Angel automaton, but the advantage doesn’t last long when Momo, still super pissed, brings down the cathedral’s barrier and beats the red angel to a pulp. Momo takes advantage of her competent aide’s distraction to create a diversion of bubbles…and etheric camouflage.

By appearing as Flare, she’s able to make Orwell hesitate for just the few moments she needs to throw a knife at her unguarded head. But it still is guarded, as the apparently not-too-judgey cathedral itself protects her simply due to her position as Archbishop. This even surprises Orwell, who thought for a second she was a goner.

She isn’t, which means she’s still quite a handful for Menou what with her RGB wand, and Menou knows it. In order to defeat her she’ll have to use Akari’s Pure Concept and delve deeper than she ever has into Akari’s subconscious.

I lit up when I heard that, because that means Menou is going to catch a glimpse of Akari Prime, who is still in there somewhere. A trippy dream sequence ensues as Menou enters Akari’s mind while dealing with her own subconscious, which admits she was never able to become the villain Flare taught her to be.

Just as Akari always has Akari Prime in the back of her mind ready to protect her, Menou always harbored a desire to be a non-sarcastically pure, just, and strong priestess. And in a way, she has remained that, as she didn’t go along with Orwell’s scheme.

Subcon Menou is ready to take her own life with her blade when she’s stopped by Akari in the classroom of her school. There, Akari tells her she’ll be her best friend, no matter what happens.

This acknowledgement of their bond allows Menou to unlock her and Akari’s combined powers, against which Orwell’s RGB wand is absolutely no match. The white beam overwhelms the rainbow beam, and rather than her planned de-aging, Orwell’s aging is ultra-accelerated to just a few moments before her death.

She almost seems to regret having cast aside all that was just and pure for her own path, and considering it led to her ruin, I can’t blame her. But this isn’t her story, it’s that of Menou and Akari, and of Momo and Ashuna, the latter of which finds the former sleeping off her berserkness. She tells the slumbering Momo that she genuinely enjoyed fighting by her side.

In the aftermath of the battles that claimed both the Noblesse’s castle and the Faust’s cathedral, the public report is that Orwell died in battle, her heretical crimes never to be revealed. She wasn’t too big to fail, but the Faust are, which means Menou still has a job, and still has values to uphold.

In a beautiful callback to last week’s shopping, which feels like a dang year ago, Menou instantly cheers a contrite, weepy Momo up with twin red scrunchies, which immediately become her new most prized possessions. Menou also explains how the Akari now among them is a regressed version of one from a distant future, but despite “resetting”, she maintained her affection for her. As we saw, that’s a feature, not a bug, of Akari’s magecraft.

Menou decides she’ll stay by Akari’s side in order to find a way to kill her. After all, Akari is still an existential threat to the world, something Prime Akari is aware of. Because of that and her love for Menou, she not only doesn’t hold it against her, but welcomes the day Akari will kill her.

We catch a glimpse of that future in the form of a nightmare non-Prime Akari has before waking up in her hotel room with Menou. It’s definitely a nightmare for Akari Prime, because it’s the day Menou dies before she can kill her, leaving the deed to Flare.

All Akari Prime can do is keep going back, making adjustments, and maintaining her faith that one of these times around, her beloved Menou will kill her properly.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 05 – Old Age Having a Go at Youth

Having seen where Menou came from and who trained her, it’s entirely possible her bonhomie is merely a carefully practiced act. Hell, even her sense of style, which Akari admires, was developed as one more arrow in her executioner’s quiver. But gosh darn it all if she and Akari have the most adorable date in Garm on the eve of Akari’s ethering.

I honestly didn’t know why so much attention was spent on Menou delegating her investigation mission to Momo, but now we know: because as Menou skips around town with Akari, Momo is scouring Garm’s massive underground tunnel network. There, she not only finds forbidden Faust tech under the Noblesse royal palace, she also finds Ashuna, who is conducting an investigation of her own.

Ashuna and Momo’s dynamic continues to get better and better, especially here where they don’t take up arms against each other but simply co-exist as two people with a shared goal: uncovering the truth, whatever it is. Meanwhile, the absolute truth that Menou feels nothing for Akari starts to show its cracks the closer they get to zero hour in the creepily white ceremonial hall.

As the apparent magecraft to eliminate Akari starts up, Menou’s scripture lights up, indicating a call from Momo. Momo, along with Ashuna, have already discovered that there are Faust conspiring with the Noblesse for some dark purpose. Menou is just a little too late to realize it, for Orwell is right beside her when she does, and she can tell Menou’s figured out she’s doin’ some dirt.

So no sooner does Menou know than Orwell knows she knows, and after that, Menou finds herself in a hopelessly lopsided battle against the Archbishop of the Faust. Her most powerful attack is leisurely swatted away by Orwell, who then unleashes a terrifying counterattack that destroys Menou’s book. She tosses it at Orwell like a bomb, but ends up falling through the hole Orwell makes below her, leaving Akari on her own against eight priestesses.

Orwell follows Menou to the space below the hall, where Menou finds all of the missing women who have literally had the life and vitality sucked out of them. Orwell’s face game is epic, as she gives her bad guy speech about how she’s sick of helping people and wants something in return: her youth back. She’s planning on using Akari’s Pure Concept to make that happen, and was willing to conspire with the Noblesse to do so.

The scripture-less Menou is probably already toast in a one-on-one battle with Orwell, but Orewell still decides to make it interesting by summoning a red automa in angel form to do her dirty work. It’s not just Akari she wants for her Pure Concept, but Menou she wants as a catalyst, revealing she’s played the long game for ten years.

The title of the episode is “Goodbye”, but it’s not about Menou saying goodbye to Akari. It’s about her saying goodbye to the righteous life she thought she was living. With Orwell not just turning heel, but having been a heel all along, the bottom has dropped out from Menou’s world. She and Akari are down, but they’re not out…not as long as Momo and Ashuna are still out and about.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life – 04 – The Only Bad Guy

You need people like me so you can point your fuckin’ fingers and say, ‘That’s the bad guy’.—Tony Montana

As Akari naps on her shoulder, Menou reflects on how she got to this point, on a train to the execution of what seems like a perfectly ordinary and nice young woman but for her potential to end the world with her unchecked powers of time manipulation.

We’ve seen where Menou’s old life ended and where Flare found her; a haunting blanched world of pure white destruction. The first half of this episode expounds upon that scene, and how the landscape was very much reflecting Menou’s own state at that time: a blanched, blank slate.

Like Fushi in To Your Eternity, this Menou didn’t feel anything; she was simply there…until Orwell assigned Flare to look after her. Her first words to Flare were “who are you?” which might as well been a question to herself. Flare’s response, that she’s a “pure, just and strong” priestess, is delivered with a villainously twisted face and dripping with sarcasm Menou takes at face value.

Menou came to learn that Flare was an executioner of otherworlders and other enemies of the Faust, and is eventually taken to an entire continent of nothing but salt slowly dissolving into the sea, the result of one of the Four Human Errors. Upon learning the solemn duty of people like Flare, Menou decided on the spot that she wanted to be one of those people.

To this request, Flare warns Menou that executioners like her are little more than villains to be loathed and discarded when at the end of their usefulness, someone willing to do anything to anyone, good or bad, man or woman, in order to keep the world safe. Someone strong, but bereft of purity or justice. A tool.

When Menou says she wants to be one anyway, Flare takes her to a monastery to train with other young girls. They learn how to fight and kill, and also learn about the otherworlders and how they influenced this world and threatened its very existence at least four times in history. The iconography on display in the classroom is wonderfully dark and medieval.

It’s here where Menou learns that she must “speak of friendship, whisper words of love, be dirty and underhanded” in order to kill one’s targets. She also meets the younger Momo, who like some other girls is not taking the indoctrination into merciless killing machines smoothly. Menou comes to Flare, who seems to be sleeping uneasily in her dark and musty chambers.

There, Menou asks her to make her “the only bad person” so the girls who don’t want to don’t have to be. It’s clear their hesitance is a result of past experiences Menou no longer has due to the calamity she survived. Flare proceeds to evaulated Menou’s strengths and weaknesses, adding up to a “slightly below average” candidate for such a role.

Then Menou surprises Flare (something I’m sure doens’t happen often) by  taking her face in her little hands and asking her not to make her like her, but to make her her. A little Flare. A Flarette.

Flare, long ago resigned to her fate as a loathsome villain who will never find vindication or peace, is half-lamenting and half-admiring in stating that a “twisted personality” has emerged from Menou’s “blanched out soul”, and that one day she’ll surpass her when all of it is destroyed by happiness and she still survives.

That segues nicely into the present, with Akari waking up from her nap to see Garm growing larger through the window. She’s too distracted by the big shiny capital city to noticed Menou’s pained expressions, the result of having time to herself to reflect on her past and present. Flare knew Menou would come to this point, when happiness threatened to destroy the villain she’d become.

Menou promises to go on a sightseeing date with Akari, but they first pay a visit to the Faust cathedral (which is right next to the Noblesse’s fortress…keep your enemies close). The ceremonial hall that will “take Akari home” is there, and Akari meets Archbishop Orwell, who says the hall will be ready in two days.

Akari is apologetic and appreciative, the only person not in on what is really going on. Orwell plays the role of kindly grandmother figure to a T, while Menou does not flinch in the presence of this deeply upsetting charade. She also agres to take on a side job for Orwell investigating missing women in the city in exchange for funds for taking the pilgrimage route once her business in Garm is finished.

The fact that this job conflicts with the promise Menou made to Akari to go sightseeing together, and also looks ahead to the time when Akari is back “home”, irks Akari to no end, and she makes her anger plain once the two are set up in a fancy hotel room. She storms back inside to take a bath, slamming the door behind her.

Menou is seemingly taken aback by Akari’s anger, forgetting that while she’s always kept a professional remove due to her ultimate mission to eliminate her, Akari considers Menou a friend, and for Menou to treat her like a “stranger who will be gone soon” truly hurts, even if Akari is being a little immature about it.

While Akari bathes, she has a chance to reflect on how she reacted, and concludes she was indeed too harsh on Menou, who has many responsibilities to juggle. To whit, while she’s in the bath Menou meets with Momo on the balcony, and basically delegates the investigation job to her.

As she was on the train, Momo is obedient to the big sister she loves more than anything, but also very weary of Menou’s continued interactions with someone she deems an extremely dangerous otherworlder. Menou laments forcing “the messy stuff” on Momo’s plate, but still does it, because she needs and wants to keep Akari happy.

Upon going back into the room, Akari meets her there, having emerged from the bath in a towel, and apologizes for how she acted, saying she’ll sightsee on her own while Menou takes care of her duties. Menou in turn says their sightseeing date is back on, and Akari embraces her, loing her towel in the process.

As much as Akari may like Menou, the fact of the matter is she’s being lied to, and proverbial knives are being sharpened for her demise, not her return to Japan. Menou is using their nascent friendship to keep Akari docile and content until the knife can be slipped in. It’s heartbreaking, compelling character drama.

Next week’s episode is titled “Goodbye”. Will it mark the departure of Akari, or Menou’s departure from villainy? Judging from her past, the latter seems more likely. But then again, she’s never met an otherworlder quite like Akari.