Brynhildr in the Darkness Ep. 11: The harem lead breaks down

Alright, let’s just get this post out of the way.

– The episode kicks off with Valkyria conjuring up a ball of antimatter to annihilate one entire side of a small hill. That’s right! Antimatter is literally a glowy, purple ball of energy that in no way resembles matter at all!

– Elsewhere, the cops are trying to clean up Valkyria’s handiwork, but they’re too distracted by the burning hill. Just look at that awesome censoring though. If we’re going to censor everything that can potentially traumatize us, I’m not sure why Brynhildr‘s badness is being ignored.

– Somehow, one of the previously dead witches manages to stitch her severed body back together. Damn, that’s pretty powerful! We find out later that she can even survive her head being crushed. But yes, she’ll still die if she doesn’t take her meds every once in a while. That’s just stupid.

– Our heroes hear about the explosion on the internet. They instantly suspect that Valkyria is behind it. When they talk about her, however, it sounds like they’re talking about some kind of goddamn Pokemon.

“…the ultimate hybrid. She can use eight types of magic. … But she should be asleep deep in the lab.” Mewtwo, please!

– But remember, Valkyria isn’t supposed to be able to do as she pleases. Ichijiku claimed he could keep her under control. So much for that. He now gets a scolding from his… well, I assume they are his superiors, but I have yet to see him them exert any goddamn influence over anything. They only ever appear in the anime to sit around in a circle and say a bunch of cryptic shit. This time, though! This time, one of them totally has instructions for Ichijiku. Uh-huh. We’ll see.

– Valkyria is so powerful, she can detect that four witches — our four witches — are hiding out in an observatory. Stitchy — I’m going to call her that from now on — tries to use this information to locate Ryota and his girls. I’m guessing someone is itching to join the harem. Unfortunately, there is eight goddamn observatories in a single prefecture. Yeah. But as you can see, she ends up stumbling upon the right observatory anyway, so why even bother mentioning that there are eight observatories in the area?

– Stitchy walks into the observatory to discover everyone playing possum:

So a super powerful Mewtwo with eight different types of magic at its disposal wouldn’t have been able to notice that the people in front of her are merely playing dead? I believe it. I just hope they at least used real blood on themselves. Preferably pig’s blood.

– Conveniently enough, Stitchy is already friends with our witches. Well, that’s nice. We won’t have to test her loyalty or anything.

– None of them even knows who or what #1107 is. This entire time, I thought Kuroha might have been the special witch that the bad guys are after, but who even knows anymore. It might be one of the othe–… whoa, I just remembered I don’t really care.

– Even though it’s true that Ryota would readily die for his witches, he’s offended to hear Kazumi say it: “That’s fine when I say it myself, but would you please not?” Jeez, calm down, man.

– Ryota notes that Kazumi has become less selfish since he’s gotten to know her. U-urusai, baka!

“S-So what if I have?”

– It’s not even real blood. GG.

– Valkyria hot on our trail? Let’s all get naked at the onsen!

– Maybe she is.

– Stitchy: “But by tomorrow my boobs’ll be back to their beautiful selves.”

– Stitchy also intends to “size [Ryota] up” herself. Oh boy, another haremette! You just know she’ll fall in love with him. I still don’t know why she’s questioning his loyalty, though. Why would a normal person risk their lives over and over for these witches only to betray them in the end? What does he even get out of it? But honestly, this is just an excuse for the anime to kill even more time. Need I remind you that Valkyria can still show up at any moment to kill our witches? But not until Stitchy tests Ryota’s loyalty!

– So Stitchy throws herself off a tower in order to test Ryota’s compassion or something. Our bland harem lead’s protective instincts kicked in and barely hangs onto the tower as he grabs a hold of her hand.

What a tense scene. Obviously, if he doesn’t jump after her, she’d still survive. But what if Ryota had tried to save her and failed? What if his hand gripping abilities weren’t as good as Wander’s from Shadow of the Colossus? What would Stitchy have done then? After all, she can only save herself. Oops, sorry, but I kinda killed your harem lead!

– But Ryota is such a good harem lead, that he doesn’t even believe Stitchy that she’ll survive the fall. What if the girl is just trying to save him by sacrificing herself?! Ryota won’t allow any potential haremettes to escape his grasp! And thus, Stitchy is even more impressed. So heroic.

– These two got into this predicament nearly two minutes ago. Ryota is still holding onto that goddamn bar. Even so, he intends to swing her to a nearby platform. He’s not Wander. He’s Nathan fucking Drake.

– That’s a helluva swing, bro. After safely landing, however, Stitchy looks back to see Ryota plummeting towards the ground. Whoops, someone didn’t think this shit through. But just in the nick of time, Kotori shows up out of nowhere to swap places with Ryota. I can only imagine that by somehow swapping places, our bland harem lead loses all of his momentum. He lands in his new location with a thud, but certainly not enough to injure himself. But whatever. Saved by the most useless witch again.

– Uh oh… is someone in love?

Add another girl to the list! She kisses him, Kuroha gets mad, Ryota chases after her, Kazumi chases after him, etc. Just the same ol’ shit every episode.

– The next day, Kogoro calls Ryota into his office to tell him all about why the witches melt when they don’t take their medicine. It’s the build up of protease, you see. Using a former colleague’s research, however, Kogoro will be able to fashion a pill in a month’s time. And that colleague’s name?! Ichijiku! Wow, we’ve come full circle!

– Speaking of Ichijiku, we see a scene between him and Valkyria. We learn her real name, but it doesn’t really matter what it is. She tries to intimidate him, but he flatout slaps her across the face. And this… this somehow tames her. It makes perfect sense now! Ryota and Ichijiku are just two sides of the same coin. Except, y’know, our protagonist has been pilfering from Ichijiku’s collection.

– Ryota tells his girls the bad news, so Kazumi proposes thatintend to draw lots to see who gets to survive. Pfft, as if Kuroha would allow that. She thus removes herself from the lottery, setting in motion a domino effect wherein no one wants to become a part of the lottery. In the meantime, Stitchy leaves the room because she too doesn’t feel that she deserves to be a part of the lottery process. In reality, she has a bunch of pills on her, and she’s just holding out on everyone. She tested Ryota’s loyalty, but who’s going to test hers?!

– “Minna~ let’s just enjoy our last week of summer vacation together!” Alright then, back to fanservice-y hijinks! Quick, someone tear off Kuroha’s dress!

Good ol’ Brynhildr in the Darkness.

– But you know what this does, right? Ryota finally finds out who Kuroha really is, so he grabs her and goes, “You were alive. Kuroneko, you were alive! Lord, strike him down now! If you’re really up there, strike this wretched shounen down now and end all of our misery!

And that was the last we ever saw of Ryota. Byrnhildr in the Darkness as an anime series ended abruptly here, confusing fans across the world. But seriously, this show has fans: