「魔道書戦闘(バイブルバトル)と過去記憶(スイートメモリー)」 (Madou-sho Sentou (Baiburubatoru) to Kako Kioku (Suiitomemorii))
“Bible Battle and Sweet Memory”

For once, I actually wasn’t sure whether Arata and friends were going to make it out of this crisis.

Mira Tsundere Bonanza

This episode was a veritable smorgasbord of Mira being adorable. From her getting stripped to her getting meek, and capped off with the white dress shirt and nothing else look OH MAN! *nosebleed* C-critical strike. Medic… *collapses*

I’m not going to spoil it with analysis. Yes, Arata trying to be respectful and not ogle her when she didn’t want it was good, and him being unable to stop himself a few times is understandable. But really, just enjoy the Mira. Life is too short not to enjoy a little Mira.

Pay Attention to the Little Things

Speaking of little things, I wish Trinity Seven would pay more attention to details. Nothing trips me out of my immersion faster than characters yammering on at silly times, and that’s something this show has been repeatedly guilty of. This time it was Mira pouring out her backstory while Arata was climbing up a ladder with her on her back. If the story spent as much time as it does justifying why Arata can’t climb up the ladder first explaining the magic system or putting dialogue in sensible places, this would be a much better show!

Or at least a more coherent one. I know, I know, we’re all really here to watch cute girls blush, but the ladder wasn’t the time for it. That just made my arms hurt in sympathy. Also, that was way more dangerous than Arata just going up the damn ladder first.

Creepy Yandere Grimoire to the MAX

So apparently Ilia (Ilias Fragment) (Akasaki Chinatsu) is yandere as fuck. Which was fun and all—Akasaki Chinatsu is getting really good at doing yandere, mean girl, or total bitch—but the biggest thing I noticed was that I actually wasn’t sure how they were going to get out of this jam. With Mira and Arata unable to use their magic and Sora reduced to a loli in a box, short of Arata pulling out a gun, they seemed pretty screwed. Which is great!

Er—it’s not great that they were screwed, but it’s great that we finally had some real tension. As someone who has been reading The Dresden Files lately, I recognized that little trill of uncertainty, though it was nowhere near as powerful as with the Dresden books, nor has it appeared as often. Nonetheless, there was finally some real tension as Arata put on his “you’re trash” face and made good on all that Demon Lord Candidate foreshadowing.

Looking Ahead – Big Bad Hijiri & Dark Arata

One of the things that (still) hasn’t been explained well is that whole Demon Lord thing, but it appears the Demon Lord Candidate is another being that sleeps inside Arata. The Astral Trinity doesn’t look nice, and Arata is looking mighty Tokyo Ghoul in the preview. (I should probably finish the first season of that soon.) But all the other bombshells were about Hijiri, who is sounding more and more like the eventual Big Bad all the time. Which I did not expect! Though in general I prefer my ladies to be badasses rather than damsels in distress, so bring it on.

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – It’s a bonanza of tsundere Mira while they fight a yandere grimoire. Hijiri is bad & Arata is worse? Uh oh #trinity7 09

Random thoughts:

  • I’m surprised that Hijiri had a grimoire. I always thought Sora was her grimoire, and she gave her to Arata to save his life. Then again, there were apparently a lot of things we got wrong about Hijiri, so having two grimoires doesn’t even register anymore.
  • Did the Trinity Seven exist even before Mira joined? I thought it was an arbitrary nickname they all earned when there happened to be seven of them, not some kind of enduring institution with rotating members.
  • You know, if Hijiri didn’t want Arata to be friendly with other girls, she probably should have just boinked him a while ago. I’m just saying, he totally would have been down for it. You know the first girl wins, right? (trope!) Amateur.

Check out my blog about storytelling and the novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: The brick walls, The allure of magic, Import, don’t recycle, and Impostor syndrome. For book updates, sign up for my mailing list.

Full-length images: 03, 08, 28.

 

Preview

31 Comments

  1. Hijiri’s grimoire is another grimoire that she acquired after she vanished. It’s not the same one as Arata’s. As for the new grimoire’s physical manifestation… That should appear next episode.

    lytterbug
    1. As far as I understand, Trinity Seven is a group of students that gained the highest mysteries of their respective archives. As there are seven archives (based on the 7 sins), the name is always Trinity Seven, even if not all archives have a mage of that level of power.

      Its possible that Mira replaced another student (who graduated, or Mira simply surpassed her at a point), or that the spot was still left open.

      Faolan
  2. I don’t know what is it about bright characters suddenly turning into a raging demonic monsters that keeps me coming back for more. Maybe it’s the fact that Arata hasn’t been badass until now but for the first time I screamed when the show ended on a cliffhanger. Give me next week!

    gawrshness
  3. Too bad they left out the part where Ilia showed Arata a vision to tempt him to stay in the dimension. Here’s the page in question if anyone wants to see. Warning: may induce nosebleed.

    And Mira is in permanent blush mode from this point on so prepare your hearts whenever she appears.

  4. Hijiri is one of the most interesting enigmas of Trinity Seven. And probably one of the most tragic, in many ways.

    At least we’ve got an answer this episode as to how Hijiri was able to live a double life as both Mage and Arata’s cousin. Presumably, the Ilia fragment covered for Hijiri whenever she had to leave for Mage Business, probably for days or even weeks at a time.

    I also detect some kind of rivalry between Astil and Ilia. I wonder why they seem to dislike each other – and get the sense that they may well have had been old rivals for Hijiri’s recognition and affection.

    Andmeuths
  5. Everytime a girl gets developed in this series they jump to first place for best girl for me. Mira became #1 at this episode of the manga, then Akio next when she gets developed in her arc, and the never ends, cant decide on best girl!! Other than Levi and Riese still being my favorite 2.

    YanDaMan
      1. Curious, but are you a manga person? If so, I highly suggest the manga over the anime. Both are enjoyable, but I feel that the manga conveys the story much better than the anime.

        bakakubi
      2. I like manga, but seeing as I’m an anime blogger and a soon-to-be author, anime & written fiction get first dibs on my time, and manga plays third fiddle at best. Which amounts to my only reading like 2-3 manga consistently … and they’re all comedy and/or 4-koma manga, lol

        Stilts
      3. @bakakubi: Agreed, though I’m not so sure about the story. I’d say the anime and manga do a similar job in that respect.

        If I had to put my finger on the biggest difference between them, it’s that the anime just doesn’t convey the same feeling of enjoyment that the manga does-“where’s the love,” one might ask.

        I’ve never met the author of course, but the genuine sense of care and devotion he puts into Trinity really shines through, and that’s what makes it such an enjoyable read for me, even if the story itself isn’t anything spectacular.

        Ryan Ashfyre
  6. Sorry for the kinda off-topic comment, but the remark about the “dress shirt with nothing else” thing made me remember that one time back when Divine was blogging Amagami, and how a funny discussion erupted about one of the girls’ white shirt being visible under her uniform’s sweater, making it seems as if it was a “dress shirt with nothing else” look, or something like that. Good times.

Leave a Reply to Stilts Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *