The series moves into it’s final stage. Kinji and Aria must break into Vlad’s vault in order to steal Riko’s Rosario. Naturally things don’t go so easily and it results in a showdown against the monstrous enemy.

Opinions:

Damn these last two episodes had some nice action, but some kind of disturbing moments. Honestly I know some felt differently but having that Rosario stuffed down Riko’s throat was disturbing in my mind. I mean sure she was about to have a showdown with Kinji and Aria, but certainly didn’t deserve that. From what I got from novel readers later it appeared that butei rules prevent from taking action without a request for assistance which explains why it took them so damn long to do anything. This kind of ties into my opinion that the Butei Rules are stupid and probably get a lot of butei killed. I mean you can’t kill a criminal under any circumstances which puts the butei at risk against seriously dangerous offenders and then you have things like this where you can’t take action. So if someone gets kidnapped with a gag on then you just have to sit and watch or call for the regular police….Wouldn’t be surprised if there are organizations that feel the restrictions on butei are unreasonable and dangerous.

In the end everything worked out alright. Still Vlad was a seriously dangerous guy and things were looking bad for a while. The strength that thing had was impressive enough, but being nearly invulnerable and having a howl that can cancel out Hysteria Mode just made him insanely tough. Having regular Kinji thrown into that fight was bad since he just can’t match up in that kind of fight. Still in the end it took a triple effort to take this guy down like with Jeanne though it was definitely a harder fight than what we saw before. What a twisted monster though.

It’s a wonder that Riko has any sanity left in her after what she’d been through. Being seen as a failure since she didn’t inherent the abilities of the Lupin family and just being seen as a breeding machine for the fifth generation. Plus lets face it living with a monster like that would be horrible. At least with Vlad defeated here she has a future and can find her own way. I wonder about that rosario, but I suppose her mother came up with it to help make up for her lack of ability. Or maybe it’s just a family device that boosts that hair ability and it’s enough to help Riko to just use it. Hopefully being able to help fight against Vlad will be a good boost for her going forward.

The whole sneaking into the mansion was simple enough and worked out fine. Of course when the enemy knows what you are doing and is pretty much laughing to himself the entire time it feels pretty pointless. The only real benefit was showing again how easy it is for Aria to trigger Kinji’s Hysteria Mode. Other girls need a bit more physical action to get the job done, but for Aria it’s fairly easy. Of course she doesn’t yet know how Hysteria Mode works and might explode into embarrassment if she ever did. Another interesting thing was this Kana girl that Riko impersonated. She is good at intel so probably knows a lot about Kinji’s past. Whoever this girl is she had a connection to him and apparently was walking around at the end of the episode. If there is another season she is bound to be a part of it. Naturally Aria was curious about her, but Kinji seems really defensive about bringing her up.

I have no complaints about how the episode ended up. They managed to give some more Kinji and Aria moments showing off that phone key-chain that was so big in the first arc. No doubt they will end up together, but it’s just a matter of time. Riko of course made good use of her clothing parachute and will without a doubt turn up again soon. First of course she has to do some testifying so Aria’s mother gets a break on her numerous fake sentences.

Series Review:

This series has been a pretty good ride. I know that they changed some things and didn’t do a good job with some fights which hurt the show overall. The Jeanne fight was a perfect example with a good amount focusing on Aria and Kinji talking rather than the action that was probably pretty good. Though they still did a fine job with Aria vs Riko and then Aria/Kinji/Riko vs Vlad. If you are going to do anything well it’s best to get the start and finish done right.

The characters are a big part of the series and at least Hidan no Aria had some solid ones. Aria sometimes strayed into the tsundere role that can get on some people’s nerves. Still a lot of the time she tried to be reasonable. It’s just that things related to love are a serious weak point for her and she can’t respond well. Still at least Hysteria Mode Kinji is able to handle her when she gets into that kind of state. Besides she is strong on him being her partner and really we know how that kind of partnership is going to turn out. Her goal to free her mother is a good one and it’s understandable that she is so desperate when it comes to going after these members of EU.

Kinji is a character who got better through the series. His issues with being a butei and Hysteria Mode were understandable and framed his interactions with everyone around him. He had to stay away from Shirayuki when possible because of that and the fact that she really drifted towards being a yandere stalker. Still he figured out some of what happened to his brother and couldn’t just walk away from Aria. He’s still getting his own feelings together, but things will work out fine there. Though maybe an issue could be his Hysteria Mode which may or may not line up nicely with being with only one girl.

Visually the series was alright though it had some weak spots at times. Still I think they did a fairly good job making the characters look good and handling the action when they showed it. Luckily the OP and ED were both solid which helped with getting into the mood and for when the OP was used for more action sequences.

Overall I enjoyed watching the series. The characters kept me coming back and made it enjoyable to watch. Hopefully it can get another season since a lot was left unanswered like Kinji’s brother and what bothered Kinji in regards to that girl Riko impersonated. In the end it was a fun series to blog.
Score: B+