Short Synopsis: Ouri vs. Keisei & Keisei & Keisei & Keisei & etc.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
I’m really glad that my fears that the extra shounen roots would ruin the second season proved to be unnecessary, because the creators have found more than enough inspiration to keep this series interesting and exciting, so in the end the only big problem of the second season is simply the lack of subtlety in the fanservice.
This episode eliminates one of the seven stars, and what I especially liked was that the creators managed to squeeze in a bit of background about her before she died. Her death also had quite a bit of impact due to some particularly nice voice acting. Next episode should prove to be even more fun, because finally “boob”-sama is going to play a big role. It’s very nice: the past few episodes have so emphasized that shikabane aren’t humans, and because of that Ouri had no problems with killing all of the fake Keiseis. But here we have the case where a living being has been possessed by the balloon guy (who looked really scary this episode, by the way). Now that’s going even further. On top of that, it’s revealed that Akira and Mabuhiro are planning to kill the head priest, so there’s plenty of fun stuff left for this series.
The only thing that’s a shame about this second season apart from the fanservice is that the animation has also become much worse. It’s still good enough, but nowhere near as dynamic as the animation of the first season. That second episode got me hungry, but apart from the visual effects most of the eye candy isn’t as impressive anymore. Still, in order to make up for it, the creators decided to focus much more on the music. It’s strange, most of the tracks were also there in the first season, but somehow they sound even better right now.
Looks like Ouri was accepted as a contract priest. Since Makina finally got over her guilt she’s also made her feelings clear to Ouri. It’s no coincidence that we now get a nice arc with “boob”-sama and the clarity of the relationship between Makina & Ouri. I wonder if down the road we will see the departure of Makina and “boob”-sama takes her place as Ouri’s hime. Total guess on my part.
Having looked over ep 18 again there is one other interesting possibility. Can Ouri create a shikabane hime? Isn’t that a singular distinctive power of the bishop. We know Ouri has some sort of innate ability so it may not be impossible in his current state to turn Nozomi. Could get really interesting at that point with the monk order.
Shikabane Hime Harem! D: