Kinsou no Vermeil – 10

「問いかけ」 (Toikake)
“Questions”

Kinsou no Vermeil’s tenth episode finally gives Iolite center stage as he crashes the exam to fight Alto and Vermeil. But while most fights in this show are fought on auto-pilot, Alto will have to pull out any stops he can when Iolite is playing by his own rules.

HOPE THEY DON’T CHANGE THE QUESTIONS ON THE RE-TAKE

I underestimated Iolite. Not in his abilities, cause those were either going to be cool or weak depending on what the story expected of him. No, I underestimated exactly how thirsty I’d be for this character.

Evil twinks are kind of a weak spot for me, so now that he’s showboating throughout his fight with Alto, having Okamoto bring out his signature cackling, and letting his coat slink down low enough to expose his shoulders, he’s absolutely on my radar now. Between him and Vermeil’s assets, perhaps I was too harsh on the latter half of this show.

Sorry about all this. I know most people here (especially myself) are here for Vermeil and her assets. That’s easy to understand. Dedicating a full paragraph or so to Vermeil’s looks would be simple. But since we’re heading into more serious territory and the most chest we’re getting from Vermeil this time around is in her bat form, Iolite will have to do so.

ULTRA INSTINCT SUPER SAIYAN ALTO

Aside from that, this episode was mostly focused on Alto’s fight with Iolite since most of the side characters evacuated the building. Again, since we’re dealing with simple action sequences that throw magic around until the latest power-up appears for Alto, it’s not exactly the main attraction. This is particularly rough for the show since they want to incorporate more fights into the plot, but at the very least, Super Saiyan Alto and Bat Vermeil look far better than whatever monster-mash Professor Obsidian turned into.

Despite me gushing over Iolite’s looks earlier, he’s a crummy villain. He does the same “I’ll take your woman,” shtick the other bad guys do, except he just wants to use all the demons so leaning into the NTR jealousy angle doesn’t quite work here. Neither does Iolite’s dedication to taking over the world. He sets off Alto because he thinks demons are kinda mid, but if you think demons suck, why rely on them for global conquest? If you’re going to beat Vermeil into servitude, wouldn’t that be counter-productive to recruiting a strong demon who wouldn’t be a pushover during your global domination spree?

Yes, I’m nitpicking this common “Join me and I’ll spare you” trope, but if you want to take over the world and aren’t just looking to gather underlings to suck up to you, the move isn’t to recruit the weak ones who you could beat up; the move is to go for brainwashing. Professor Obsidian was close to getting it right if he could’ve prevented her from attacking Alto, but Iolite likely would have the power to command and control subordinates. Having mind-controlled behemoths would have to fare better than beaten-down mid-tier demons.

But I can’t claim that Iolite is a smart person because he’d let Alto have just enough of a conversation with the Mage of Beginnings to warp out of the Shadow Realm and into Vermeil’s mind. It’s hard not to imagine that the next episode won’t dip into Monogatari Series: Second Season territory as Alto tries to interact with grade school Vermeil. Hopefully, there are some actual terrible things Vermeil had done in the past and it wouldn’t just be something like being mean or destroying private property.