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「地獄なら知っている」 (Jigoku nara Shitte iru)
“I Know Hell”
Are we enjoying the suffering-go-round yet? Because you know full well it ain’t even halftime. Well, maybe. We’re still down and dirty in the realm of education through death, but the first signs of change are finally upon us as more answers are gleaned, foreshadowing is introduced, and one character gets set up for a major shift in importance. Kind of makes you wonder what’s going to ruin this turn of fortunate events.
Although the mysteries of Sanctuary are still very much unspoken for, we did get a decent tidbit thanks to the little pointy eared cutie Ryuzu. Probably no surprise the area is (was?) Echidna’s playground, but a playground with the purpose of creating a vessel for her soul? And Ryuzu meant to serve as the vessel? Now that’s getting spicy. It does explain the various appearances of Ryuzu over time though, and also likely what drives Garfiel to try and protect Sanctuary so much. If the whole purpose of Sanctuary was to provide one Witch immortality and you’re head of security, naturally you’d want to avoid having others come in and crash the party—especially other Witches wanting in on the action. Still need to figure out what specifically has Garfiel so invested, but hey, halfway there as Subaru brazenly shows.
The main point of contention for the moment, however, is going to be with Subaru as it looks like we’re about to learn what makes the Beatrice-Roswaal duo tick. While I firmly expect a good deal more foot dragging on major reveals here (got to hype that second cour you know!), the indication of Sanctuary’s purpose alongside Beatrice falling in with Subaru pretty much confirms our little guardian has direct ties to Sanctuary and likely Echidna to boot. It’s anyone’s guess just how Beatrice ties in with Echidna and how Roswaal fits in the middle of this magical puzzle right now, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if everyone’s current situation all comes down to experimentation gone wrong or someone else crashing the immortality party. After all, considering Echidna has not yet deigned to speak on Sanctuary’s importance and Satella just happened to be able to stroll on in after Subaru met Daphne, Minerva, and Typhon, you can bet there’s at least one more important secret left for us to discover.
Well, at least right after we get to round three with everyone’s favourite bowel remover.
Subaru realized when he was in the shadow that Echidna knew what was going to happen. That’s probably why she meddled with the handkerchief and turned it into a special knife/blade. But if she did know what was going to happen, that means that she too can see the future. If Beatrice and Roswaal have the two copies of the not-quite-Tome of Wisdom (Beako reveal episode 7, Roswaal reveal episode 9), that means Echidna must have the original Tome of Wisdom. I wonder what her endgame goal is since she’s deliberately helping Subaru, and if I’m right, even changed up Emilia’s trial three times two loops ago in an attempt to get Emilia to break out of her shell. Why would Echidna help Emilia considering that Emilia is the spitting image of Satella, who killed Echidna back in the day?
Judging by Beatrice’s reaction at the end of the episode, she expected Subaru to come back through her not-quite-Tome of Wisdom and is expecting Subaru to free her from her current contract of being the guardian of the Forbidden Library. Let’s see if adding Beatrice to Subaru’s party will change anything. Does Beatrice even have any offensive spells?
Wow, that was interesting episode. Sanctuary creator – and purpose – were laid out along with reasons for existence of multitude of pointy-eared lolibaba’s.
I have some MIGHTY spoiling information, but will just offer a hint here:
If anyone doubts Beatrice is somehow linked to Echidna, look into her eyes…
And, then there is revelation about Garfiel taking trials in the past, and possibly being no less than lover to Echidna? That would explain a lot of his behaviour…
Anyone who hasn’t spoiled themselves yet is certainly in for some fun, especially regarding Roswaal and Beatrice. Don’t know how much we’ll get to this season though, I suspect the juicy stuff will pop up next cour.
Am I the only one having an hard time understanding what the heck is happening this season?
There is so much to process every episode that I am having difficulties keeping track of all the plots, subplots, new character introduced.
IMO it’s not that bad, it’s arguably more that it isn’t too clear what Subaru is trying to do. We’ve bounced between getting out of Sanctuary to protecting the mansion and now suddenly dealing with Rabbit and Witch appearances. As such it’s hard to keep things straight.
I will say matters will clear up though, especially once some important information starts being dropped concerning certain character histories.
Intriguing episode. Satella seems to be out of her mind.
Is this what Emilia could have turned into if she had been left all alone for hundreds of years? Is this just a plot of “mastermind” Echidna?
Subaru’s speech about saving “her” was a bit confusing. Was this about Emilia similar to what he said in season 1 or is he going for the double half elf ending? 😀
What happened is that Subaru thought Emilia was possessed by Satella because their faces are pretty much nearly identical or identical, but Subaru is wrong because he only paid attention to Satella’s face.
If he had looked at other differences, he would have noticed that Satella was wearing a veil over her head, which Emilia does not wear. If he had been paying attention, he also would have noticed that Satella wears a strange thing on her neck that Emilia doesn’t. And what he really should have noticed but didn’t was that Satella wears an 8-petal hairpin on the right side of her head while Emilia wears a 4-petal hairpin on the left side of her head.
I was actually thinking that just the shock of seeing the same face might have prompted this reaction of his.
The art seemed kind of off this episode.
I think i know how they’ll defeat the bunnies. Ryuzu’s clones are made of mana and they explode so put 2 and 2 together you get the idea.
Thought the same. It felt like it had more still shots than usual.
It was, but it wasn’t particularly egregious compared to what we could’ve received IMO. This series has been pretty well endowed with animation funding so far.
Ryuzus were probably what lured the bunnies there in the first place…
or whatever magical machinery creates them
)which begets question, where the mana does come from?
Probably not just Ryuzu, but also Subaru. Not much of a stretch thinking his repeated deaths and rebirths at Sanctuary have attracted malbeast attention.
“…education through death…”
Was that a roundabout (unintentional?) reference to Disney’s World War II propaganda short, Education for Death? NGL, seeing that animated short sent shivers down my spine seeing Hans’ “journey” in that. (And sadly ironic considering the recent controversies with the new Mulan film. Though the lack of a Szechuan Sauce tie-in/re-release from McDonalds also confounds me.)
Anyway…
– “Also, what the heck happened to Emilia after Subaru awakened from Echidna’s tea party? Talk about ‘nothing is scarier’… And I’m taking a guess Subaru also dies in this timeline.”
Turns out Emilia, Ram and the rest were already swallowed by Satella’s shadow (with Garfiel getting devoured later). And Subaru manages to kill himself to escape that timeline. But he got out with more knowledge that he (apparently?) got while inside Satella’s shadow, so I’d say that death wasn’t a waste. (And I suddenly had an image/doujin-fodder of Satella basically “forcing herself” upon Subaru, IYKWIM…) That aside, it was still a chilling experience for Subaru, especially now that he found out (up close) how much Emilia resembles (and sounds like) Satella.
And meta-wise, how many “I love you”s/”Love me”s did Rie Takahashi (as Satella) have to say in this episode? *shudders* And yeah, instead of feeling sad seeing Satella cry after Subaru killed himself, it still felt creepy. It’s less like she’s crying over losing a loved one and more like, crying over losing her “plaything,” if I may dare say so. Then again, only those who’ve read the latest LNs would have an inkling of what Satella’s ultimate plans are.
– “Whatever the heck Garfiel and Frederica’s gemstones are.”
Well, at least this scene kinda answered what those gemstones are for: They grant access to the chamber containing the original Ryuzu Meyer. Who’s actually part of one of Echidna’s experiments, if not the main experiment.
And to cap off my comments for this episode:
Subaru: “Compared to you, I’d have an easier time loving Echidna or any of the other witches!”
326395. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)