天下制覇

Note the strategic omission.

Impressions:

This episode was a work of art in much the same way that a grilled cheese sandwich is a work of fractal mathematics. To call it bad would be to sell short just how much of an experience watching it really was. I’m not really certain where to even begin here. Maybe with half a season’s worth of plot reveals crammed into half an episode? What about the five skipped fight scenes? Perhaps the Priecia/Hyaweh transforming mecha? Ooh ooh… the villains introduced in this episode and then just left hanging out in the castle? Hell, Litte and her betrayal didn’t even mean a damn thing. Nobody else even found out about it except Bridget. What the hell was the point?

So, to answer the question of how Prism Ark ends, it ends atrociously. They did manage to cram the high points of her story in… somehow, and even gave a little hint at Filia’s story in case they (god forbid) decide to revive this and actually make it to the start of episode 1. More on that in the final impressions. I cannot imagine that people who are unfamiliar with the game (ie, almost everybody in the western world) will be able to follow this at all since it was such a massive mishmash of just about everything with a MEGIDO satellite thrown in for good measure. Well, at least it’s over. I guess that moves Rental Magica up to the forefront of the Sunday lineup.

Final thoughts at the end.

Skip the OP and start directly with Kisarov announcing the start of a very special competition. In special attendance is Judas from the Tempel Ritter. The two competitors will be Priecia… and Hyaweh.

They’re both in preparations. Priecia is alone with Kagura, everybody else is with Hyaweh. Filia leans in and kisses Hyaweh on the cheek as the goddess of luck. Kagura tells Priecia that it’s time. The two walk out to the arena to bring an end to their competition.

As they emerge, Kisarov announces that the winner will be given the title of Royal Knight. Karin and Judas both comment on the matchup. She favors Priecia, he favors Hyaweh. Litte is silent between them. The two draw their weapons and face off. Priecia thinks that she’ll definitely win. She attacks.

Later, Priecia accepts the title of Royal Knight in front of all the other students. Hyaweh darkly thinks about Priecia standing over him in victory. Karin congratulates them all on their graduation. It’s the usual speech of ‘now go do something with your lives, knights of Windland.’ Priecia watches Hyaweh as Karin talks.

Litte gives her own final report to Fel and the others. Litte is especially surprised with how much Bridget was able to ‘learn’ about Sablum.

Hyaweh is lost in thought when Litte reports to him. She tells him that he’s been requested to join the Tempel Ritter. They were so impressed by his performance. Everybody else is impressed. The fanclub sucked it up. Hyaweh thinks again about Priecia.

Priecia and Kagura are dressing up for the dance party. Kisarov comes in and congratulates her, as well as making sure that she’s prepared. Priecia is still depressed. Kisarov asks if it’s about Hyaweh. She immediately perks up. Kisarov tells her that she loves him. She turns around in anger (complete with violently heaving bosom), but relents and tells him that she thinks she is, but she can’t afford to be.

Kisarov talks some sense into her and tells her that she needs to build a future for herself too, not just for Windland. This may be the last chance she has to be with him. She starts crying onto the watch in her lap. Kagura lays her hand on Priecia’s shoulder and simply asks her if she loves Hyaweh. Priecia nods through her tears. Kagura hugs her.

At the dance party, everybody’s all dressed up except for Bridget really. Hyaweh is looking around for Priecia and accidently stumbles into Judas, spilling his wine all over Judas’ pants. Hyaweh leans down to clean it up and cuts his hand on the broken glass. Karin yells at Hyaweh for disgracing Judas, but Judas cuts her off. He tells Hyaweh that he’s been watching him. Judas takes Hyaweh’s hand and licks Hyaweh’s blood. Judas tells him that Hyaweh’s the one he’s been searching for. No other human will do except Hyaweh. He asks Hyaweh to be part of his personal knights.

Priecia interrupts the man on man action and steals Hyaweh for herself. She grabs him and runs off. Judas laughs at them.

Hyaweh thanks Priecia for saving him from Judas… and also apologizes. She starts yelling at him again. He gets distracted by her plunging cleavage and the fact that she’s leaning over to stick it in his face. He pulls himself together and takes her shoulders, telling her that she’s beautiful. She looks away, and asks what’s so beautiful. He says the dress, then corrects himself, saying that she’s beautiful, just moreso in the dress.

Priecia, ever able to take a compliment gracefully, tells him that he just likes her because he thinks that she’s a princess. She shrugs his arms off and accuses him of being the same as everybody else. They can’t think of her as a person, as a human, just as some princess. They struggle and Priecia ends up pulling them both off the cliff and into the water below.

As they sink, Hyaweh leans in and kisses Priecia. She closes her eyes and accepts him.

Judas giggles like the evil madman that he is and salutes his god while Litte stands to the side. Bridget spies on them from above. Judas raises his glass to the army of Angels bearing down on the castle with the Darkness Knight at the helm.

Priecia and Hyaweh lie together, drying off. Priecia tells him that it’s all a lie. Hyaweh takes her hand and tells her that it’s fine, no matter what it is, everything will be okay. He’ll stand by her. Kagura watches them from a distance and leaves them alone.

Priecia stands up and prepares to give her secret to Hyaweh. She is Priecia fon Rosenberg. Her father was Kizard fon Rosenberg, her mother was Memory.

Litte asks why Judas needs to attack the castle when he already has the main objective, Hyaweh. Isn’t that what Judas was searching for? The change in the power balance by doing this could be disastrous. Bridget realizes that she knows absolutely nothing about anything. The Black Ninja appears behind her.

Back to Priecia’s past. It all started when the Princess was attacked. She was the Princess’ substitute. The real princess is still missing. Hyaweh thanks her for sharing that with him.

She reveals to him how hard it’s been, working to restore Windland as the ‘princess’ while still knowing that the real queen could appear and render her whole life a lie. That’s why she couldn’t allow herself to love anybody. She hugs Hyaweh as the tears start welling up.

The Black Ninja drops a bound Bridget at the feet of Litte and Judas. Judas tells Litte to prepare herself for the assault.

The fanclub sees a ton of shooting stars and the doofy one wishes for love between herself and Hyaweh. The others realize that they’re not stars as an Angel roars towards them.

Hyaweh holds Priecia and tells her that he loves her. He loves studying with her, fighting alongside her, how much she loves Windland, everything. He doesn’t know why, but he will be with her, as her knight. The two kiss again. Kagura smiles happily.

An explosion echoes in the distance and a red light glows from the castle. The Angels have landed and begin attacking.

Kagura walks out from behind Priecia and Hyaweh with their battle equipment.

Fel and Filia race through the castle on her staff, looking for Hyaweh. Kisarov tries to organize the defenses. Karin tells him that things are not good. He tells her to take the students and escape. She tells her that won’t do, not as a samurai. Kisarov firmly tells her to take them and go. He’ll be fine here on his own.

Gerot sits on a science fictiony throne and laments how things have gotten how of hand. Echo looks at him in disgust. The Sages give orders to Gerot, but it’s so distorted and echoy that I have no bloody clue what they’re saying. Something about becoming gods. Princea is tied up in one of their spheres.

Priecia, Kagura and Hyaweh fight the troops. Kagura tells them to leave it to her and go ahead. Priecia thanks her in tears. Kagura tells her that after this, they’ll all have lunch together. Hyaweh and Priecia run off while Kagura holds the bridge.

They come face to face with an Angel right inside the gate. Above them, Judas wants Hyaweh to show him the power of his sword.

The Darkness Knight cuts down a guard and demands to know where the ‘brat is.’ Kisarov walks out, talking about how disgusting the Darkness Knight has become. How dare he forget the name of his rival, Meister. The Darkness Knight repeats the name with difficulty and struggles to remember it. He declares to himself that he’s the Darkness Knight and will kill Hyaweh. Kisarov calls him a huge idiot (no, really). The Darkness Knight attacks. Kisarov strikes.

Priecia and Hyaweh stand back to back, surrounded by the enemy again. Hyaweh tells her that even if she’s not the real Princess, he’ll stand by her as her knight. The tears well up as he tells her that he’ll protect her with his life. His sword is her’s.

The two hold up Ala Gladius and a beam of light shoots upwards into a satelitte. It activates the MEGIDO System (Bwa-?) downwards back onto them.

The MEGIDO blast blows away all the nearby Angels and transforms the two into… some kind of blue glowing thing. It charges another Angels and beats the crap out of it. It uppercuts it high into the air, then grows wings and chases after it. Judas watches this with glee, this is the mythical MEGIDO.

Everybody is safe and watches the light. Kisarov has even defeated the Darkness Knight and has him in his arms. Priecia and Hyaweh fly upwards in the blue column of energy into the sky. She thinks to herself that she has a knight. It’s strange, but the two will be together.

After the ED plays, Sister Hell (oh yeah, remember her?) says that the first battle is over, but the next one will start soon. Filia looks at a pocket watch of her own in a church. Hell stands above Hyaweh and Priecia, who are passed out hand in hand. She mentally tells them that she’ll be back one day to fulfill their promise, but until then, Priecia should sleep safely with the one she loves.

Final Impressions:

So… yeah… as an adaptation, this was sinfully awful. Even without that, it was pretty bad. It did have some of the more impressive action sequences for this season, but those peaked at around episode two and by the end, all the battles were being skipped over. The pacing was awful, the direction inconsistent, the writers couldn’t even remember that they killed the head ninja before bringing him back in the last episode. Whoopsie. In short, while there were a few parts of amusement, and the futile hope that they knew what they were doing, I bravely soldiered on. I sort of regret that now.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t have gotten to laugh at the last episode had I given up. As far as finales go, that really was a piece of work. They just blew two episodes on having a play, and then they tried to jam everything that they needed to bring an end to Priecia’s story into the last few minutes. Let’s not even forget how the villains came out of nowhere and basically vanished just as quickly. This was just a trainwreck in slow motion. I cannot imagine ever recommending this to anybody. Just watch episode 3 and the second half of episode 9 and call it a day. You won’t get the full Prism Ark experience, but honestly, that’s for the best.