Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi – 10

「魔」 (Ma)
“Demons”

This episode was something special, both the animation and story were in their most heightened state this chapter. So much happened in the little span of 22 minutes, my jaw dropped so many moments this episode. It was honestly incredible. I’m genuinely in shock. This episode showed why Heion is largely underrated this season. Or in other words, why I think it deserves more attention.

I must admit, every episode I’ve struggled to talk about this show concisely, I always feel like what I write is somewhat floaty and out there. And that’s probably is because this show is certainly out there. The fact it wasted no time killing Buzz and Meliano might be one for the books. How Ysley just leveled up this episode, he has charm and can swindle his way into conversations but has that science side of him, wanting to know more about the physiology of the demons. All their eyes turn inward so they don’t really know how many they have, this certainly explains why unfused demons look like a primordial denied-of-humanity blob, the demons reject their human form and in the two-week mark are unable to fuse. More and more I see mao-sama as that quirky dictator who doesn’t really have any idea of how to lead, and instead just leaves everything to Miku. Miku is the one who has the ideas, she’s the one everyone looks up to. Splattered on the nose by how Merku realized that in fact, Miku had everything planned up to this point, and it wasn’t a whimsy plan either, it was written down somewhere in a journal of hers, it was set in stone basically.

Miku is really the standout character for me here, along with Ysley as well because of how much I actually like him. And Hayato is in there too. Ysley is into the nerdy stuff, but he’s not antisocial, even if those same antisocial tendencies end up putting him in weird situations with Piscalat. That might be interpreted otherwise. He doesn’t know boundaries, but he’s not a bad guy! She has an eye in her mouth, of course, Ysley was going to be curious about it.

On the other hand, the other thing that really surprised me during this episode was how much Hayato has grown, and in turn, how much Gil grew too. Gil was born alongside Hayato, she shares those traits with him, hence why they were able to dance in sync to the rhythm of the battle. This episode was just impressive from head to toe. I do get the sense however that the anime is probably very different from the manga. I feel the manga probably takes its own sweet time building up these maybe hard-to-grasp concepts that the anime just blatantly decides to throw at your face. And expects you to understand. Which can make it a little bit of a hard weekly watch without some kind of proper recap. But Heion doesn’t have time for that! The little guitar riffs and music accolades it plays at the beginning of each episode do however a fantastic job of putting me in the mood to watch this show.

And the music! The soundtrack that played during the Buzz and Piscalat scene just kinda really impressed me, it was weird and haunting, which instantly made me love it. It distracted me a little bit since Piscalat was giving such a detailed explanation as to why they were Lovecraftian spineless blob monsters running around the middle of the ocean. Also the point Ysley made about there being a ton of species out there and hence why we wouldn’t actually see a predator like this one coming until maybe it’s a little bit too late. There would be clues to the puzzle here and there, but it would mean people from many different fields would have to come together to actually figure out what was going on. Sounds like a movie in the vein of Cloverfield to me. Except without the shaky cam.

And Rin just decided to stand there for 7 years, until the blob monster finally showed on her shore, I wonder what’s going to be of her.

That’s probably all the things I’ve latched on to this episode, this chapter was just incredible, episodes like this are what I crave from most anime. Unexpected surprises, and little gems here and there that really stand out and look like they’ve been crafted with tons of love. Or on the other hand, it’s just mastery at work. Animation is all about the people you know after all.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and as always hope to see you next week for the season finale of Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi.