This episode focused on three different characters. The amount keeps growing. We haven’t seen any episodes lately which were focusing towards one specific character, and only that character. Of the protagonists, the episode focused on Baru. Of the antagonists, the episode focused on Hansel. Of the guest characters, the episode focused on Rapunzel.
Baru was really meant to be fleshed out a bit in this episode, and the creators do this to actually make him fall in love with Rapunzel. Not only was this outright hilarious, we get more and more clues that he actually has a human form as well. He just refuses to show it. I just loved it when Rapunzel called Baru “Baru-chan”, after which he took out two Nightmarians at once. ^^
Hansel’s case is a bit more serious. He’s finally ready again to move to the battlefield, and on top of that he received a power-up from Cendrion. Still, that didn’t make him strong enough to defeat Akazukin in princess-mode. I’d say they’re about equally as strong now, though it does seem that Cendrion has taken a liking to him. I’m suspecting that she’s going to keep feeding him power-ups like that, until it goes wrong at one time. Randagio’s and Gretel’s role also is becoming interesting. They’re becoming quite useless, now that everyone is growing, while they aren’t. Still, something tells me that they both have their own role to play.
Though most of the episode’s focus went to Rapunzel, and her story. Akazukin, Ibara, and especially Shirayuki and Ringo keep fangirling over her desire to see the prince she loves return. Because of this, Souta rather remains in the background. In any case, Rapunzel does have a great character design. In the end, it appeared that she worked together with Hansel, so that he’d return her prince to her. In the end, it seems that the creators combined the story of the prince, who turned into a frog with the story of Rapunzel. As Souta has read this fairy-tale, he actually knows that with a kiss, the prince will return back to normal.
Overall, this was a very good episode, but after seeing the preview of the next episode, I’m actually looking forward more and more to it, as it’ll continue with the mirror-arc. We see the girl from the mirror return again, and with a bit of luck, we’ll get some more clues about Souta’s father, and what exactly he is. The Hansel and Gretel-arc will also continue, now that Turude has been put out of the picture for a while, being defeated by Akazukin and all. I love it how every episode is so diverse, but still the same.
