Dantalian no Shoka – 03

“I was robbed by two men”

This is late due to the same reason as Sket Dance. Pants, pixels, etc, you get the picture. This was a really interesting episode this week too, so I’m feeling extra guilty at the moment. Oh and a character from the opening was introduced. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see albino Dalian this episode though. Maybe next week.

Forget about the books for now, the episode starts off with a bunch of scary children in some purple place. They talk about the faults of adults (rhyme unintentional) and uprising because of some law. Cue opening.

Finally, there are books again as Huey and Dalian are in a book shop browsing. Huey is neglecting Dalian, so she decides to spoil the endings for all the books he picks up until he stops ignoring her. However, as the two argue, a blonde woman comes up to them. It turns out that Huey knows the woman and that her name is Camilla. Dalian immediately reverts to tsundere mode and Huey introduces Camilla as the daughter of an acquaintance of his grandfather’s, also she is a childhood friend.

Apparently people know Dalian as the girl Wes adopted, so Camilla doesn’t find Dalian’s presence odd at all.  Camilla invites the two over to her villa to catch up, but Dalian refuses until Camilla mentions she has candy and scones over there. Note to self, candy is a demon library’s weakness.

M-moe!

At the villa, Dalian unleashes all her tsun on Camilla by insulting her hair and outfit that she apparently bought in New York. While talking, Camilla asks Huey if there are any books out there that can make students smarter because she runs a school.

She brings up the fact that Mildred (someone they both know) created her own school to compete with Camilla’s and said that she had a Phantom Book that made her students smarter. However, apparently Mildred one day said that her students became too smart and then became a hikkikomori.

Huey asks Dalian who she thinks and she begins a long winded explanation of books in ancient Greece (while she drowns her tea in sugar). Eventually she figures that the children have the Book of Wisdom, but she says not to worry because the original is within the Bibliotheca. She goes on to demand the scones she was promised, but Huey wants to leave immediately to find the book.

At least Huey knew better than to interrupt two women talking about fashion.

Dalian doesn’t get her scones and they talk to Mildred instead. However, Mildred says to just ask her students because they know everything anyways. So they go and talk to the children, who know exactly who and what Dalian is from the start. They also tell Huey that they know all, but have no ambitions to use their knowledge and let Huey take the book.

Dalian says that it was obvious that the children wouldn’t do anything because they would know that best way to avoid failure is to not try to achieve anything in the first place. Camilla also has no use for the book, so Huey burns it.

Sometime later, Dalian is in the greenhouse watering a giant plant (that’s right, their mansion has a greenhouse). When Huey commends her for looking after things besides books, he receives a kick to the back of the knee for his compliment. Dalian then explains that the cactus belonged to Wes and that it should finally bloom that night.

My question is how they managed to import it from Africa

As they sit down for tea, they are visited by two men claiming to have an item his grandfather ordered. Huey lets them in, only to be attacked. Normally, Huey would kick their asses in no time, but unfortunately Dalian is held at gunpoint as a hostage. Huey tells them to take anything they want that he has nothing of value besides books.

Turns out that the men want a rare book that his grandfather owned anyways called ‘Queen of the Night’. They search the house for it, but Huey doesn’t know where it is and Dalian says that no such book exists. In the process of interrogating the two about the book’s whereabouts, they ruin a book Dalian was reading. She then proceeds to verbally abuse them, which is pretty entertaining.

Finally, one of them goes to check the back of the house near the greenhouse, but Dalian warns them not to. They don’t listen of course. After hearing a yell, the other thief goes to check what happened, leaving Huey and Dalian tied up in the library. He makes his way to the greenhouse to look, which would normally be an incredibly stupid idea because who in their right mind would hide a book in a greenhouse? However, in this case he finds a book on a flower attached to the cactus Dalian was watering earlier.

Because this doesn’t scream ‘suspicious’ at all

Huey gets them out using a letter opener and Dalian says they should hurry before it’s too late. However, they hear gunshots and when they get to the greenhouse, the two thieves have disappeared. Huey notices the book and Dalian explains that the flower itself is called “Queen of the Night” and that the book is actually the flower used to attract the adventurous and greedy. Apparently it only blooms once every 13 years and it is carnivorous because it doesn’t get many nutrients out in its native habitat.

So yeah, the two men are slowly being digested inside the flower and Dalian expresses her disappointment that she never got to read the book flower. The pages are supposedly supposed to contain the thoughts of it’s victims, but Dalian will have to wait another 13 years to find out because it withers away after it’s eaten. Huey just kind of stands there looking unimpressed through the whole explanation.

Later, Camilla is over and Huey tells her that he was robbed, but they disappeared after they found nothing of worth. He feels a bit guilty for their fate, but Dalian says they deserved it. Also, Camilla bribes Dalian with cookies. Awesome.

Final Thoughts:

This episode was fantastic, even without Huey and Dalian leaving a house of corpses in their wake. In fact, nothing was really solved in this episode aside from the thieves becoming plant food, but it was still great. Dantalian is keeping its dark image while still changing up the storyline. Even better, there was no awkward Dalian unlocking scene this episode. I was actually satisfied with how each of the stories ended here because they were realistic in a sense. I’m not saying that giant carnivorous plants with book flowers are real, but the fact that it wasn’t a cliché happy ending with the bad guys having some tragic circumstances and everyone holding hands while singing at the end was nice for a change. Or at least a nice change from the other shows I’m watching.

Dalian was great this episode and I’m starting to really love her character. I found her lines while talking to the burglars extremely entertaining and just made of awesome. Also, her reaction to sweet things is adorable. Props to Camilla for knowing how to bribe her and I’m liking the relationship those two have so far. Sure it’s more of Dalian being a tsun, but Camilla also brings out her dere so it’s amusing to watch.

I think there was a great lesson here with the children and Dalian not being able to solve their condition. Just because she has powers doesn’t mean that the Dantalian is the solution to all book related problems. The same goes for the books in the fact that even though they’ve been portrayed negatively so far, they’re just objects that people misuse and that they don’t have any intentions themselves (though this was kind of taught last episode as well). I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg here and that more people’s lives are screwed over permanently because of Phantom Books because that made this episode really interesting for me. …Lord that sounds sadistic.

Preview:

Snow and Dalian talking about dead authors. However, it’s titled ‘Book of Soul Exchange’ so who knows what it’s actually going to be about. Hopefully the other Dalians from the opening appear soon.