Uchi no Ko no Tame naraba, Ore wa Moshikashitara Maou mo Taoseru kamo Shirenai – 10

Unfortunately, all things must come to an end. And that includes good things. Their stay in Teathrow might have been short, but Latina and Dale seemed to have a fantastic time: meeting new people, learning so much along the way, finding resolution and closure to personal problems. And as we slowly trace their travels back to Kreuz, where we started from, perhaps the real journey was the friends made along the way: Dale’s family, the Soaring Wolf Tribe, Joseph’s family, etc. That said, nothing beats the lively folks at home. Seeing Kenneth, Rita and the rowdy regulars warmed my heart, especially the way they joyfully reacted to Latina’s return. And it’s not far off the mark. Some men can be extremely grouchy and rough, while being massive softies at heart. Soon, they’ll have another young kid to dote over once Rita delivers her child.

For the most part, the series took a break from world building and exposition, in favour of exploring touristic delights. The food and souvenirs make me crave a hot summer holiday by the seaside. And oddly enough, I know UchiMusume is set with a predominantly Western fantasy style backdrop, but on a cultural level, the depicted experience in this episode made me reminisce of my time as a tourist on the island of Miyajima. So in my opinion, you can definitely feel the quaintly Japanese influence there. Though I confess such a viewpoint stems from never encountering these kind of seaside markets around the UK or continental Europe — though anyone feel free to correct me on this one if I’m wrong.

Although there was very little world building, the series dropped a nugget of information about eye and hair colour, with regards to how they can indicate innate magical powers. In a world where Dale and Latina are considered extremely above average, especially with Dale being the strongest adventurer in Kreuz, it actually surprises me that a whole other echelon of power exists where people with brightly coloured hair/eyes can be stronger. Latina has a brief flashback to someone with bright hair, which I’m guessing has to be a demon related to her. For now, we won’t be finding out. But it throws open the door to vast swathes of new possibilities in terms of where the series can go. While Dale seems to be the most powerful adventurer in Kreuz, he probably has a long way to go before he can defeat a demon king if it’s for Latina’s sake, given the title of the series. One final note on the animation – I felt some of the stills were drawn rather oddly, continuing a trend where drawing quality has been slowly decreasing in consistency. But I suppose that’s to be expected the further we progress into a series, considering that production issues are more likely to come up along the way. Hopefully this changes over the next few episodes leading up to the finale. Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading my post and see you next week to see how Dale and Latina settle back to life in Kreuz!