We’ve secretly replaced our usual damsel-in-distress with Folger’s CrystalsBell Cranel. Let’s see if anyone notices.

Where is the series going? The first season covered five books worth of story in 13 episodes, which despite the breakneck pace actually worked pretty well, because they had a natural stopping point. Eight episodes in, and we’re not done with book 7 yet, with both Takemikazuchi and Aisha delivering some desperately-needed exposition, plus bonus flashback-y goodness. After refreshing my memory of book 8, there’s some potential there, but they’d have to dispose of Ares pretty quickly to get to the good stuff.

Books 9-12 would make a good second cour, with a much flashier finale than padding out the fox-girl reclamation project, but I’m seeing references to this being a 12-episode series, which leaves me wondering where they’re going to end it.

New game character this week is good/bad-girl Amazon Aisha. I’m just going to hang onto my Iris for a while, in hopes that some of the time-limited units I’ve already got a few bonds for will get a rerun soon. Some of the time-limited characters in the current event are interesting, but it would take thousands of Iris to even have a chance to max-limit-break the new Lunor and Asfi, and I’m not going to spend money on it.

Not that she shows up in this episode, but I confess that seeing the name “Cassandra Illion” just makes me want more episodes of The Librarians.

Unrelated, to my surprise they managed to fit quite a bit of fan-service into the “tales of Homare’s dad” episode of Sounan Desu Ka?. It seems our girls are comfortable enough in their exile to worry about washing their underwear and rubbing on sunscreen. Shame they actually spent time on Dad…

The Haruhime storyline advances. Are they going to make it the whole rest of the season? I’ve kind of forgotten what happens after that, so I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

This week’s new character in the game is Lena; cute, but the only reason I remember her is because she recently starred in the “Bete’s would-be baby-momma” story in the side novels.

Related, it’s refreshing to see Lili drawn at the correct scale again. In the game, everyone is shown at more or less the same size, which is a good thing, or Lili would be covered by the dialogue boxes and Hestia would be cut off at the boobs.

Largely due to the voice actresses enthusiastically embracing their roles, and the girls being well-drawn, Sounan Desu Ka? (“Are We Shipwrecked?”) is actually an amusing little show, and episode 8 finally delivers more than token fan-service, courtesy of a conveniently-placed hot spring.

…Mayu Yoshioka gives it the old loli knight elf try.

And here’s the OP animation for comparison.

The “full length” versions of these songs suffer from the usual problem with padding out something that was carefully designed to be 90 seconds long, but they’re not bad. Hers works better than his.

Update

Been too busy braiding to watch this week’s Cop Craft episode, but the phrase “Tirana goes undercover in a high-class brothel” has definite potential.

Also a bit of a surprise, since I was pretty sure that they finished off book 2 last week, and book 3 has her going undercover in a high school. Side story? Leftovers from the end of book 2? Dunno. Maybe she does both as part of the same story?

In which Bell discovers Orario’s red-light district and a princess in need of rescuing, and Hermes gets more than he bargained for. And I don’t mean rubber ducks.

(this week’s new character in the game turns out to be Ishtar; perhaps they won’t add Haruhime until her power is revealed in an upcoming episode)

This is actually a bit disturbing…

Cop Craft spoilers, ho.

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After last week’s Dire Menace From Another Time (with a side order of foreshadowing), it’s time to kick back, relax, and develop some characters! This story was the second half of book 2, and it feels pretty wrapped-up to me, which means they’re really pushing to get through the source material. At least it worked pretty well this time, the relationship between Our Heroes is solidifying, and Tirana got some entertaining culture shocks. Still no sign of the cute elf photojournalist from the OP, who isn’t in any of the light-novel illustrations, so I don’t know when or where she shows up.

Unrelated, I’d like to state for the record that I have never had any information about alleged financial, sexual, or criminal acts undertaken by or on behalf of anyone related to, employed by, or associated with Bill and/or Hillary Clinton. Never never. Absolutely sure of it.