First Impressions / Strike the Blood

「蒼き魔女の迷宮篇II」 (Aoki Majo no Meikyu Hen III)
“Labyrinth of the Blue Witch III”

Long story short, the character reactions this week tell you everything you need to know about themselves and what Strike the Blood offers:

  • Vatler: Yo! Kojou, lookin mighty fine! Don’t worry about the prisoners, when they come out I’ll take responsibility! (Ha. Ha. Ha.) ARE YOU ENTERTAINED!? I SURE AM.
  • Sayaka: Wait, who the heck are you? You ain’t Kojou!
  • Kojou: Yeah… long story…
  • La Folia: Awww @#$%!, now I can’t produce a heir with him! But yeah, seriously though, you can go on ahead. I’ll take care of these witches. Cause you know, I’m such a boss. Oh yes, I called over Kanase Kensei (you just knew he was going to come back at some point, rocking his Millennium Ring) here to help, so you may as well use his services.

    • Basically, Vatler’s as crazy as usual, Sayaka’s constantly getting surprised, Kojou’s getting tossed to the curb in terms of impressions again, La Folia continues to win the best girl sweepstakes by a mile, and it all comes together to form one of the better series this season.

    Switching over to the more serious side of things though, I have to say that I didn’t see the events of this episode coming. I had sensed there was something off about mid-way through the episode (it felt like our cast was fighting a final battle for some reason), but I never expected this to happen. After all, things were going pretty smoothly, and it looked like Kojou was about to expand his harem even further. Then it’s like, SURPRISE! WE GOT YOU! and suddenly we get both Natsuki and Yuuma taken out at the same time, and it’s like NO WAY. I had to rewind a few times just to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me, and you really have to give credit where credit’s due.

    The show’s just done a superb job of luring you into believing that it’ll be all happy endings, fun and games, and harem expansions, and it capitalizes on this in style with multiple shockers in the span of a 30 seconds. At the same time, it continues Strike the Blood’s steady second half rise, and the series is starting to get better and better. The question remains though, whether or not both Natsuki and Yuuma are out of the picture permanently or not, and I’m not sure what to think. I want to believe they’ll both survive, but the fact that the OP foreshadowed darker developments and the fact that both of them were impaled seems to imply that at least one of them won’t make it. It also has to be noted that this episode broke the tradition of the series having four episode arcs, which doesn’t bode well at all considering how conclusive the chapter end’s have been so far. Gosh darn it, next week’s episode can’t come soon enough!

    Full-length images: 01, 14.

     

    Preview

    50 Comments

    4. I was worried about the ‘ol body swap plot line, but I must admit the story turned out much better than I feared (and much better than most of the times I’ve seen it used). Kudos to Strike the Blood for maintaining focus on the central story rather than gets swept up in series of generic, formalistic body swap skits. IMO, the show was one of the more consistent shows last season, and with good, quality episodes like this one, is proving to be the same this season as well.

      Lastly, IMO without a doubt La Folia is indeed the best girl. Nothing against the other girls by any means (Kojou has very HQ harem going IMO) – it’s just that La Folia brings her A game week after week. Really wish she’d stick around the city permanently. I’m sure she’ll be back soon, but can’t be soon enough for me.

      daikama
      Reply

      1. One thing good about this series, LN or anime is that most of the time, fan service is done not just for the sake of fan service. This body swap is one such example. There is anothet prime example in the second half of this arc. So glad the author did this instead of giving us chessy fan services lol

        jrj
        Reply

    9. So why were the Meyer sisters at Itogami?
      Were they there to help Yuuma break out Aya, to carry out another mission, or just to get their butts kicked by Sayaka and Lafolia?

      Could jrj elaborate on this?

      zztop
      Reply

    18. The LN author, Gakuto Mikumo, has released a STB short story involving the future, which

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Spoilers for the future:http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4988672&postcount=1004

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Short story cover: http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4988704&postcount=1008

      Show Spoiler ▼

      zztop
      Reply

      3. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the other hatem mates are also there. Since the main story is not over yet, he can’t write an ending that alienate a significant fan base haha. Though I am surprised just as much to see both daughters haha.

        jrj
        Reply

    20. I have so much to say that I bettwer make a list:

      1.-NATSUKI-CHAN!!!.

      2.-How sweet and innocent Sayaka, You actually belived that La Folia was joking, listen harem-girls this princess is serious!. XD

      3.-Yukina is such a tsundere, like she doesn´t enjoy giving Kojou her blood, she practically gave him the green light in the From War King´s Empire arc.

      4.-Is it me or Vatler looked twice as crazy this week? The Forgotten War Lord needs to put this guy in some serious medication.

      5.-I want the Witch of Latonia´s head in a silver platter and her heart in golden platter.

      haseo0408
      Reply

    24. I wasn’t paying enough detailed attention to notice the millennium ring on Kensei lol.

      The preview seemed a little bit too non grim dark, the loli teacher supposedly getting killed along with Yuuma and then Kojou’s mother is coming to town now all of a sudden. Nothing in that preview said anything about a prison break that was apparently going to happen when Natsuki-chan gets killed.

      Didn’t even see any tears in that preview, I won’t fall for fake death flags.

      Magoiichi
      Reply

      1. The preview is never serious in this one, remember last time Kojo got “one-shotted” by the fake angel? The preview wasn’t even trying to be distressed lol. So I wouldn’t bank anything on it except Kojo’s awesome mom is coming lol

        jrj
        Reply

    27. Please, let Natsuki-chan survive… she had it hard enough spending decade as de-facto co-prisoner at the Dimensioncatraz, having only been able to use illusionary projection to interact with the world. To have her die now is simply, outrageously cruel and unjust – and at odds with everything we have seen so far in this series which is generally very upbeat and optimistic.

      ewok40k
      Reply

    28. Leaving all the rest of the OMG moment aside, there’s something else bothering me. Nagisa has been missing since Kojou woke up. It was presumed that she left the apartment with Yuuma who was posing as Kojou at the time, yet Yuuma and assorted witches were found and defeated with no sign of Nagisa anywhere.

      What have they done with Kojou’s sister?

      Wanderer
      Reply

        2. At this point only Kojo’s mom. Kojo’s dad Gajo won’t show up till vol.8, aka the backstory. But both parents are indeed awesome haha.

          If I remember correctly, meya sisters are supposed to help Yuma, but they suck lol

          jrj
          Reply

    32. Nooo Natsuki-chan! Yuuma! D: Here’s hoping nothing happens to them.

      Prior to the post-credit twist scene, the whole thing did seem to end way too easily.

      ALTIMA never fails to impress. It’s only the second week, but the new OP is growing on me. Ditto for the ED, with animation choreograph done by AnoHana director Nagai Tatsuyuki (he’s also involved in the impressive Nagi no Asukara 2nd OP).

      echykr
      Reply

    35. I don’t think this show has the guts to kill off the good guys. Someone brought up a point in another comments section that kind of made the impact lose it’s meaning for me.

      “Why not turn her into a blood servant so she could survive the wound like he did with Astarte? … or better yet, why didn’t Natsuki use her magic to warp the space around the stab point so it didn’t injure her?
      I mean she can control both time and space so I don’t see how a stab through the back and out the chest would be enough to kill her off.

      I know it was a surprise attack but she could just warp time or space to either make her body survive or stop the stabbing in the first place.”

      I kind of hate space-time powers in general because they just seem to work properly when it’s convenient for the plot.

      leatherhead333
      Reply

    37. can i be random and point out that kujou NEEDS to keep the long black coat look. and i think nagisa and kanase are under astarte’s protection somewhere safe. and im so willing to bet kujou’s gonna bite our favorite loli witch. and now we know why she’s a loli. she was stuck in suspended animation in the prison since she was 13, so she simply hasn’t aged for the last however many years, so we can see why being treated as a kid would REALLY piss her off

      nyanlol
      Reply

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