This Dark Souls spinoff looks terrible.
— Off to the side, Astaroth is happy to hear that humans will begin to write their own history. Why does she care so much about humans? Who died and made her the protector of mankind?
— Also, the premise here is the same as it has always been: mankind will not be ruled by gods, mankind will choose its own destiny, blah blah blah. Boy, it’d be a shame if it turns out that we live in a deterministic universe.
— Two episodes ago, Jeanne said that the rules didn’t matter. She can become a Ulysses as often as she wants. In last week’s episode, she and La Hire worried that they would run out of time if the battle dragged itself. Right at the start of this week’s episode, Jeanne tells Montmorency to give her some of his precious elixir juice so that she can become a Ulysses again. Shrug.
— I don’t even know what’s going on in this screenshot.
— It hasn’t even been five minutes but the bad guy is already dead.
— Astaroth starts listing off a bunch of names; they’re Ulysses that she has guided in the past. They’re Ulysses that couldn’t do what she hoped they would do, but by golly, she thinks Montmorency and Jeanne can finish the job! Now, let’s peep that list: King Solomon, Clovis I, Otto the Great, Jesus Christ, King Arthur. I… I can’t even.
— Montmorency and Jeanne have collapsed out of exhaustion. Philip, however, gets up. She wants to walk away, but Evil Dad wants her to murder! What will she do!
— She begs for what’s-his-face to put her out of her misery. But the last time this happened, the helmet revived her dead body so what’s even the point? Oh right, the rules don’t matter. I doubt she’s going to die anyway. The light novels haven’t ended, right? These stories almost never kill anyone off. They’re absolute wusses.
— The guy decides to spare her life and aim directly for the helmet. As a result, she can no longer be Ulysses Noire. That’s not her hell, though. Her hell isn’t the helmet. Her hell is the fact that her creepy dad continues to haunt her and will haunt her until she dies. So yeah, I feel like nobody on this show thinks anything through.
— We then cut to the English army and see that they’ve been ordered to retreat. Lord Bedford, the creepy guy who assaulted Richemont, has a plan to prevent Jeanne from becoming a saint or whatever. So y’know, this war will continue long after this series is over. It’s just like I said in previous posts, though: after overcoming a god, going back to fighting England will feel weird.
— Later that night, the streets are filled with celebration. They feel thankful for our heroes. Well, Montmorency may have gotten them out of this mess, but he started it to begin with.
— For some reason, the trap now has a harem. But this despite his newfound popularity with the ladies, he’s apparently gay?
— Oh, he’s just faking it to get out of this situation.
— La Hire can’t stop eating ever since she became a Ulysses herself. One would think she’s pregnant.
— Meanwhile, Jeanne gives Montmorency the cold shoulder for even kissing La Hire in the first place. Yo, you kids won’t even screw so forget about it.
— Wait, he actually married Catherine back then? I thought the only conditions were that he had to have sex with her, which he faked. Ah, whatever.
— The next morning, Charlotte runs right up to Jeanne and kisses her. Just full mouth-on-mouth action outta nowhere. Um, okay. Also, Charlotte has been completely useless all series long, but they still want her to become queen. Pretty funny.
— She then makes Montmorency a general. This is kinda boring, isn’t it? I’m not exactly having a blast here. I can’t believe this entire episode is a wrap-up episode.
— Astaroth tries to depart in the middle of the night because she’s ashamed that she couldn’t protect her friends, but technically, she’s one of the waifus. Montmorency’s not going to just let her go.
— Well, there’s just one waifu left: Richemont. But instead of dealing with that, we cut to Bedford and Glasdale. The latter wants to free Philip from this war, so he pretends that she’s dead. We then magically see, however, that her stupid helmet is now back in one piece. God, nothing changes. This entire episode is dedicated to hammering home the point that the status quo will forever remain the same. The war continues, France is still not united, no one is dead, so on and so forth.
— The only solace is that Philip suddenly now has the strength to ignore her father’s orders. But why? All series long, she’s fallen pray to him and his manipulations. Where did this tiny bit of character development come from? Is it all because Glasdale spared her life? C’mon, man.
— Plus, this show tried to squeeze so much material into one cour, so none of the characters are remotely fleshed out. I should care about Philip. I should praise her for finally being able to resist her father. But I mean, the story never even tried to get me to care about her in the first place. We got one episode between Montmorency and his friends when they were young. One. After the timeskip, we saw Philip once before she turned into Ulysses Noire. She has no development, no characterization, no nothing. Her triumphantly telling us now that she will fight her weakness thus carries no weight.
— Instead of meeting with Richemont, we now see Montmorency talking to Catherine. Loli waifu meets cousin waifu.
— Jeanne isn’t the type to bicker with random girls, though. She just complains to Montmorency behind closed doors. So when she meets Catherine face to face, she tells the girl to please be there for Montmorency when the time comes. I guess the girl accepts that she’ll one day be burned at the stake. See, that’s what I’ll never understand. Oh yeah, we humans will totally forge a utopia and seize our own destinies. But this horrific future in which I’ll be persecuted can never be changed. Our utopia will totally involve a witch hunt.
— Montmorency then tells us yet about another dream of his — a dream in which the war is finally over, but Jeanne is dead. What’s the point of living if you can’t even protect your waifu?
— In front of a jubilant army, Montmorency announces his oh-so-grand strategy to advance towards Reims and anoint Charlotte as the queen of France. Jesus, they still aren’t close to getting that done. But this gives Richemont the chance to finally show up and make amends with the spoiled princess. It’s funny… at the start of the show, I thought she would be contending with Jeanne for the top waifu spot. She hasn’t had much of a presence at all in these last few episodes, though.
— Then outta nowhere, the show just outright tells us that they win a crucial battle and Charlotte becomes a queen. Welp, if that isn’t the number one indication that a sequel will never see the light of day, I’ll be very, very surprised.
— Dumb anime, but it was easy to blog about.
Final grade: D-