Well this definitely turned out to be the meat-grinder episode. Figures after an upbeat rescue of Io the following episode is just a pure massacre. I don’t even want to count the bodies of characters that we never actually met. If you can imagine the amount of people who are dead right now it’d be pretty staggering. Pretty much everyone on the planet except for Yamato, Hibiki, Io, Daichi, and Makoto are dead. So kind of cut down the population of the world from 6 billion when this all started to 5. Though have to say this is the rare time when almost the entirety of humanity has died and I haven’t been overly phased. Maybe because I’m already assuming Hibiki is going to get his way and just restore everything to how it was.

This whole episode was full of death flags. The dead-face clips didn’t help either. Everyone was chatting it up cheerfully and becoming united as a team. Then you had the introductions which only made it more obvious that most of this cast was going to die. Then the final stroke was everyone going out with the plan of “we can overcome the death clips without having a plan!” I mean we’ve seen over and over again that without outside interference the clips can’t be undone. If they are all being shown clips then it’s probably going to be hard for them to interfere and stop it from happening. Though really they were on the clock and didn’t have time to think about it. I can’t exactly blame them for just going for it knowing that they had to face what was going to come.

“Should probably be giving a damn about now…nope not happening.”

What a hax opponent though. A classic boss that takes on the qualities of all the others faced before. Luckily of course it didn’t exactly copy the one that could replicate endlessly. It just used that power to replicate the first Septentrion endlessly, using it as a portable bomb. Still this guy was a pain to deal with. The ability to cancel out their abilities was the key piece though. It made all of them sitting ducks except for Yamato.

I found the whole Kanno segment slightly funny. I mean it seems like they have this brilliant two stage plan with some summoners hanging back. Their big move? Just Kanno by herself….Yeah, that’s totally a good plan. In the worst case scenario when your team can’t summon anything let’s only have one person distanced and able to fight. Unfortunately that person was Kanno who has no self-preservation instincts whatsoever. I really do wonder if she was a sociopath or something. What kind of person can just sit there and go “I’m going to die…whatever.” I mean that’s just nuts. I really never got her character at all. While she occasionally seemed to have a friendship going with Makoto the rest of the time she didn’t seem to give a damn about anything. It really made her death the most anticlimactic. Kind of forcing the audience to react the same way as Kanno herself, just detached from her death.

It probably didn’t help that we found out that Polaris will grant a wish. I mean while it does set up the conflict of who’s view will become the standard, it does take away some tension. I mean there’s almost no chance Yamato is going to get his way which leaves pretty much Hibiki or one of his friends to make the call. It’s kind a tough spot. With the episode count and the Polaris encounter it does make it hard to have that tension, but at the same time you need to know of the wish so there is something for the characters to be fighting for. Survival isn’t bad, but if it’s going to be in a dead world it kind of loses a bit of punch.

Still, my condolences to the characters that died that I cared even a bit about. Hinako, Jungo, and Airi gave their best to the end there. They couldn’t avoid getting killed by the replications of the first Septentrion, but they did all they could to survive. While we didn’t get to know as much about them as I would have liked, I still felt bad when they died. Those deaths at least gave me something that would allow me to support Hibiki in his goal to restore the world to how it was. Those three really tried their hardest out there and survived right until the last day.

I have to say Yamato really is a piece of work. He doesn’t see the others as being useful anymore and simply leaves them to get massacred while he tries to solo the most powerful Septentrion of them all….His insanity would have gotten humanity annihilated. I don’t know how long it would have taken for their demons to be usable again, but trying to hold out until then is a whole lot better of a plan than trying to fighting alone. They really couldn’t make Yamato look anymore selfish. The only one that needs to survive is him so he can introduce his new world order. He has to be messed up to think a world order made by someone who sacrificed all the other humans on the planet is going to work out well.

Though I don’t think it was the right time for Hibiki to make a stand and criticize Yamato. He came out there guns blazing and trying to protect everyone he could. Though I have to say Hibiki could have used more demons. He has Byakko and Suzaku, but I really wonder why he never got anything else. It seemed like common sense to pick up Genbu and Seiryu, but they never went that route. Instead Hibiki was also forced on the defensive after losing his demons.

Then Daichi descended upon this series XD. I mean really everything else kind of lost purpose when Daichi made his move. I liked that a lot of the episode focused on the friendship between him and Hibiki. We don’t know about Daichi’s background, but it’s something that he was always the guy protecting Hibiki. He saved him from bullies and his own loneliness. It’s no wonder Hibiki is the way he is in this series. His parents made life at home solitary and practically dead. It was all about not causing others trouble and living the way they thought was proper. Maybe why Hibiki never stood up for himself against bullies, he didn’t want to cause more trouble for anyone.

But Daichi was a guy who just didn’t care about that kind of stuff. He’d step up for his friend and give Hibiki a life. Hibiki would have been alive, but he wouldn’t have really been living at all without Daichi. It wasn’t like Daichi brought Hibiki down either. He worked as hard as he could to go to the same school as Hibiki and of course his friend helped him out to make sure he’d get there. Daichi was the one bright spot in Hibiki’s life and it had to be killing Daichi that he couldn’t do anything to help. He was good moral support for Hibiki, but he couldn’t help in combat. Hibiki had to bear the burdens of fighting mostly on his own.

And so finally Daichi managed to summon one hell of a demon. He proved right then and there that the weak do have a purpose. When they are pushed into a corner people can do incredible things. It’s not a surprise though. We saw Airi summon one hell of a demon when she was emotionally charged as well. Daichi saw his friend about to vanish before his eyes and just forced out the power needed to summon Black Frost. I don’t want to say the power of friendship won them the day….but it did XD.

Now everything is set up for a huge conclusion. Alcor did interfere with Yamato trying to start a final showdown, but we’ll see where this goes. Maybe they will all argue their cases before Polaris. Should be one heck of a conclusion though. The Septentrions have fallen and now the only question is what kind of world is made. Humanity won….but by the narrowest of margins. The next episode will be big. Also have to recommend people watch the ED this week if any. It’s a jarring experience seeing it so empty.
Score: A