Score: A-

There’s nothing more frustrating than being driven back by a total joke. There’s no doubt this Jaguarman (lacking both the man and the jaguar) is strong. It doesn’t help that honestly Mash, Ana, and Merlin are kind of lacking serious firepower. Mash can take a hit, Ana has decent agility, and Merlin has some solid escape magic. But none of them can just bring the raw power needed to clash against Jaguarman. It doesn’t help that it sounds like this individual has an ally of sorts. So even if they could squeeze out a win here, it isn’t certain they could keep the ball rolling and actually free Ur. That leaves them with the rather awkward and frustrating position of having to bail out. No matter how difficult the decision, staying around to fight would have been suicide.

At the very least, this is a good reminder of the overall threat posed by the goddess alliance. The demon beasts are at the forefront because they are the most active. But it is clear that the threat goes well beyond that. It is a slower attack, but we can steadily see the city of Ur being driven to annihilation. Depending on the population they can probably hold up for a few months. But there isn’t any chance they can keep their population surviving with one person being taken away a day. Now maybe they aren’t being instantly killed and put to work. But I can’t imagine the workers have a good situation or a long life expectancy ahead of them. It is just a matter of time there.

This did a nice job trying to tie into the past events more. Showing a scene where the main cast faced off (sort of) with the King of Mages was useful. You really do need that kind of scene just to establish the level of the threat and the antagonist we’re not going to see much of. It was also a perfect chance to see characters that we’re probably never going to see in a Fate anime. This was the biggest moment of Tamamo’s character since her silhouette appearance in Last Encore. And hey we even got to see Mordred again, though clearly having a very bad day.

I appreciated that kind of scene since it ties into the main character’s arc. We’ve seen how he has run into walls before and had to struggle to keep going. It wasn’t an easy decision at all to back off when overwhelmed by Jaguarman, but he made it. He’s the normal person who is just trying to hang in there and not break down from the insanity he’s facing. While nowhere near Gilgamesh as a mage, he has his own strengths that have carried him through these various singularities. The important thing for him as well is not to get used to the tragedy. If he did then Ritsuka probably wouldn’t have been able to get this far. Desperately trying to save people he can is just part of who he is.

The episode wasn’t just about the threat in the jungle of course. You have the very unusual man that Ritsuka and Mash met that gave them a fairly cryptic warning. Although the visuals were pretty handy in attaching the meaning to various characters. No reason of course to spoil who exactly those warnings were about and what it all means. The surface level meaning of course is there in terms of how Ritsuka needs to act around these different characters, but no reason to spoil any further on that one.

And even though the First Order OVA was a thing, I am glad they did cover a bit more about the various losses suffered along the way. At the very least it captured the true frustration and despair at not being able to save her that I’m not sure was really there in the OVA itself. Here we get a much better look at both how Ritsuka feels about everything that’s happened and also how the journey has had impact on Mash. The story and the journey has been quite a bit about Mash as well. So good to see her getting focus where possible.

This journey has been pretty rough on Ana. She’s the only real attacker in the group thus far and has to bear the weight of taking on monsters, divinities, and elites. Not the easiest job and I’m in support of the retreat Fujimaru decided to go with. At the very least it seems a necessity to back off until they can either get support from Gilgamesh’s servants or recruit some individuals that have a bit more combat ability behind them. The great thing is that the action has held up great thus far and we can be excited about what is coming up later.