It turns out that next week will be the beginning of the adaption of the source material of volume four and five and this episode marks the end of original anime content. I rather like this episode as it breaks away from Waver solving cases and has a fun little shopping adventure with the three main female characters of Grey, Reines and Luvia, The classroom lesson about wealth coming from the underground and Grey’s curiosity about Waver’s past is just a thin cover for Studio Troyca to play dress up. I don’t mind the fun cutety stuff but it turns into a literal slideshow and I would like to see to see a little animation in those scenes. Thankfully, the story goes back to the main points of Waver’s past and a bounded field going up.
The main case of Luvia’s store was far less interesting than the other ones but it was still serviceable as it enabled the personalities of Reines and Luvia to rub off of each other. It comes down to the pair sharing common interests of living the high life and being decent magus while subtlety roasting each other. At first, I thought the bounded field was a failsafe put in place by the previous owner to prevent a takeover by another magus but was just the magical security system going a little overboard. Fixing the problem involves just smashing all the golden robots to bits but it was the perfect opportunity for Luvia to showcase her pro-wrestling moves much like how she and Rin went at it in Unlimited Blade Works. The store valuing Grey so much is quite the segway into her backstory/personality as she doesn’t see herself being much despite processing a divine artifact on the level of Excalibur.
When all is said and done, the final scene is where the source material will begin its run as the Rail Zeppelin comes into town and invites Waver for a little chat. Overall, a fun little sidestory before diving into the really serious part of the main plot.
Nice post