天下制覇

Best B move ever.

Impressions:

And here I was nearly half way through the episode and still thinking that it’d just be relatively silly filler. Well, to be critical, very little did actually happen aside from Zuuma showing up, fighting for a bit with the gang, and then teleporting away. Maybe I’m misremembering, but aren’t teleports supposed to be extremely high level magic… as in… only Xellos class mazoku give or take. Maybe it was just meant to be ninja special effects, but leaping into the air and disappearing in the middle of the ocean is sort of stretching the boundary of ninja physics.

Zuuma seems a nice enough sort. Thanks to his evil magic dampening smog, Gourry and probably Zel (the whole stone skin thing) are likely the only ones that can deal with him on hand to hand terms. Pocotta can dispel the smog with the replica Sword of Light too, so he at least has use, though Zuuma wasn’t exactly fazed by taking one of Lina’s spells full-on in the face. He’s still a better villain than Gourry is normally matched up against, at least so far. I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be going any sort of comical route at all, which is good because the animals and Pocotta are silly enough as it is. Up until Zuuma showed up though, this was a pretty lame episode. Like I said, all signs pointed to weird filler and I was pretty much tuning out.

Good news and bad news for next week though. Good news is more Xellos… the bad news is more Wiser. Why is this doofus still around? *sigh* As long as he doesn’t team up with the animals and create an Axis of Stupidity…

Brief Summary:

Even though they’re cruising in style on their way to whatever the hell Giocanda’s kingdom is called, the party keeps getting attacked by various things. Pocotta has a fork thrown at him, a maid brings a monster to the buffet, a couple sailors seem to drop a ton of weapons on Xel and Amelia… and then roll a giant spiked ball at them, and Pocotta nearly drowns in the bath. After convening and discussing everything, Pocotta says "screw this, I’m levitating out of here" but is shot down. There’s a threat tied to the letter, so the group gets serious.

Which means that Pocotta and Lina stage a fight between the two, ending with Lina throwing Pocotta and the replica Sword of Light overboard to draw out whoever is after it. Unfortunately, it turns out that most of (all of?) the people on the ship know about Giocanda’s desire for the Sword and dive in after it, right into the waiting arms of Amelia and Zel, who fry the bunch. The only people left on the ship are Lina… and the assassin Zuuma. He attacks her immediately and she holds him off for a few moments, but he overcomes her before Gourry steps in. Knowing that two against one is poor odds, he corners Gourry and then starts emitting a huge amount of smog, covering the ship.

Amelia, Zel, and Pocotta return, but are lost in the smog. Zuuma manages to disarm Gourry and grab him by the throat. Lina tries to cast a fireball to dispel the smog, but her magic won’t come out. Pocotta brings out the Sword of Light and the smog dissipates. Amelia attacks and Lina follows up, blasting Zuuma, but he appears unharmed out of the explosion and teleports away. Lina thanks Pocotta for helping save Gourry, and then the two get into a fight over the staged fight from earlier.

Preview:

Booooooooo Wiser. Hooray Xellos.