Finally we have the Akazukin-episode, though she didn’t get any character development like Shirayuki, Ibara and Ringo did when they got their own episode. This episode was rather meant to show what would happen to Ibara and Shirayuki if Akazukin was absent from the three musketeers. Well, they’d get their ass kicked. ^^;
Basically, what happens is Akazukin getting sick due to the poisonous spores of another Nightmarian. Then it seems that Souta and the others ended up in another village with its own legend: Salamandra-sama. There’s a huge statue of a dragon at one place in the village. The villagers believe that it’s actually a good spirit who protects the village from all sorts of harm. In order to show their appraisal to Salamandra-sama, the villagers have come up with a very strange ritual, they perform in front the statue. Even if there’s a bloodthirsty monster right next to it.
Gretel then gets to be the one to track the group down, with the same basketball Hansel used in episode 6. She comes in, breaks the statue and remodels the rubbish in order to turn it into a giant seahorse, who charges after Shirayuki, Ibara and Baru. The interesting part in this episode was the way the villagers reacted. Taking into account that the spirit they believed for so long suddenly turned into a giant seahorse, destroying everything on its path, it’s no wonder that they’d get angry.
In the end, the Souta and Akazukin (who managed to wake up in the end) are able to concince that Salamandra still is a good being. Gretel then gets defeated, with a little help from Salamandra-sama himself. It’s quite ironic. While it was clear that Akazukin beat the Nightmarian at the beginning of the episode, the glory gets put to Salamandra-sama, while when Salamandra-sama destroys the giant seahorse, Shirayuki and Ibara thought that Akazukin had become so good that she was able to shoot huge fireballs in the form of dragons. ^^
It’s also strange that Gretel was the only bad guy who appeared in this episode. The villains from the previous episode are nowhere to be found, even Randagio and Cendrion were absent. Ah well, it does add some versatility. It’s great to see a villain again who’s been absent for a couple of episodes.
Also, never let Akazukin, Ibara and Ringo sleep at one place. ^_^;;;
This episode was a good one indeed. But I think I was more interesting about the next episode. From the preview it was like a Gretel’s episode and for some reason I felt that she might join the group in the near future, or at the least become their’s secret ally.
I never looked at that preview, but if that’s true, the next episode will probably be a great one. 🙂