「灰色の魔女」 (Haiiro no Majo)
“The Gray Witch”

Well cannot deny Assassins Pride knows how to troll as well as split opinions. Featuring a filler episode while slashing and burning source material is not really the most advisable of strategies, yet here we are with the show’s version of girls gone wild and some choice scenery. A peeve worthy decision? Definitely. A wholly bad decision? I think the jury is out on that one.

The key for any successful filler episode is to combine both humour and development to patch over the lack of immediate story advancement. The episode may exist only to extend a series past its intended end point, but there’s no reason it cannot be fun, entertaining, and enlightening at the same time. In this regard Assassins Pride this week arguably hit as well as it missed. Sure, the setup was simple at best (I don’t imagine many were left wondering who the Grey Witch was upon first appearance) and we never really learned more about our main cast, but things were made up (somewhat) by the choice of humour. Never imagined for example that the show would actually poke fun at the obvious and undeniably intentional washboards gracing damn near every girl, or actually take Elise’s little sister status all the way and have her clock out in the best manner possible. Hell, we even got some tasteful fan service to broaden the flat selection! Nothing new or important really came out of these scenes, but at least it shows Assassins Pride has the willingness and ability to lighten things up when it so decides. Now the show just owes me an answer for why that underground waterway network is so damn clean.

Of course for all the lighthearted fun and games this week, the challenge for Assassins Pride will be leveraging the levity here into movement on its main story. For better or worse only six episodes remain, and so far at least nothing of critical importance outside of Melida’s awakening has really transpired. It’s easy to think we’ll start seeing fireworks now that the magical cat is out the bag, but until we see the results I’m inclined to play it safe. Adaptation choices are permanent after all, and the choice this week only reinforces the point.

Just have to hope the positive mood from these festivities carries over into this season’s second half.

 

Preview

12 Comments

  1. Apparently this ep covers the Secret Garden sidestory LN volume, which focuses on the downtime moments of Melida and the other girls.

    Author’s going to release another Secret Garden volume soon.

    zztop
  2. Honestly, I’m enjoying this series. I read the manga and know how rushed it is but the way I approach this series is that it complements the manga and the light novel. And for that, it’s actually really fun seeing them interact and in motion.

    Anyways, this episode definitely was still fun and a nice break for the more serious plot points behind the scenes.

    Silver

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