Gate – 16-17
And she’s back!
The flame dragon arc comes to a close.
Assassination Plot
I guess they’re perfect for each other?
You know, after General Hazama made a big deal about not helping Yao due to the political implications of crossing borders, Yanagida sure makes it look easy by simply negotiating with King Duran of Elbe (one of the allied countries). All he had to do was maneuver Duran into asking them to escort him back to his home province so that he could retake it from the crown prince. Along the way, he even managed to secure rights to mine for and export oil from Elbe. What a handy guy! Anyway, Yanagida happens upon Delilah, who has been manipulated by Tyuule into assassinating Noriko. How Tyuule planned on pinning the blame on Piña is not made clear, but it doesn’t matter anyway because Yanagida and Delilah take each other out before any harm can come to Noriko. An investigation is launched to discover who was behind the plot, with the primary suspect obviously being Prince Zolzal. But I have a suspicion that it will eventually be discovered that Tyuule was behind everything. So the former queen of the warrior bunnies may be in serious trouble pretty soon.
The Fire Dragon
Tuka summons lightning.
As for the actual battle with the fire dragon, Gate manages to create quite an intense experience even though it’s clear to us that the main characters are wearing a heavy layer of plot armor. A complement of dark elves are sent to assist Itami and the girls with their task. And we discover that Yao’s bad luck is shared among her fellow dark elves, as the poor whelps are summarily wiped out by the dragon. I almost felt a bit sorry for them, but I digress. Itami’s plan is to kill the dragon with a C4 trap laid in its nest. This fails initially when the dragon returns earlier than they expect and damages the cord to the detonator. All hell breaks loose and the dark elves are killed. Lelei even goes a bit off-the-walls as she overuses her magic to throw the magic swords left behind by the dragon’s victims at the creature’s tough skin. Things are looking pretty grim, but seeing Itami and the others in mortal danger finally motivates Tuka to face reality and act. She uses her magic to summon lightning, which strikes the dragon and flings the electrified magic swords to the ground, setting off the C4. The result is spectacular, and the fire dragon is no more.
Hardy’s Apostle
Giselle is very… blue da ba dee dabba da-ee.
In the aftermath of the battle, the heroes’ plot armor is slightly lampshaded when we learn that Rory took all of Itami’s injuries as a part of their contract, allowing him to survive being blown around in the front lines of the dragon’s nest. The girls we can just write off as being father back, away from the dragon. So they didn’t really take the brunt of the dragon’s attacks. And as for Yao, I guess she got lucky. Which, by the way, is probably the first time in her entire life that she has been lucky. Anyway, the gang emerge from the nest to find an injured Rory (she didn’t follow them because she is afraid of being underground). Before her is a gloating, blue dragon girl. She identifies herself as Giselle, an apostle serving Hardy, the god of the underworld. It turns out Giselle was responsible for waking the fire dragon for the purpose of breeding it. She would then use the dragon’s hatchlings to help defeat Rory and bring her before Hardy. As you may remember, Hardy wants to marry Rory for some reason. Unfortunately for Giselle, the JSDF arrives at this moment and decimates the dragon hatchlings with a combination of air strikes and ground artillery.
Given the introduction of Giselle at the end of this episode, I was kind of hoping that the show might focus more on the gods of the special region and their apostles. But it seems that is not the case. Instead, we will be visiting a magic city next week. Perhaps this means the show will instead focus more on Lelei, as she develops her own brand of magic (mixing our science with their magic). Or maybe she’ll even teach this style to other magicians the gang might encounter in Rondel.
Don’t fuck with Lelei.
About Sumairii
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Awww, Leilei’s attack looks much cooler in the manga version. She essentially grasped and applied the princple behind firearms using the swords as ammunition. Basic levitation and acceleration magic wasn’t enough to allow the blades to pierce the dragon’s hide, so she used explosion magic to launch the blades and accelerated them from that point. And in the manga the dragon was a mess afterwards. Its wings had been shredded, its entire back blasted full of blades, some so deeply that they’d gone entirely into its body. Leilei seriously hurt it.
They also cut out Giselle’s bit asking Itami if he was the sort of person who had a problem with women getting married (regarding Hardy trying to marry Rory). That whole conversation is the point of incontrovertible proof that Hardy is female (a lot of translators just assume she’s male by default).
Anyway, I have no idea what they’re going to do next. In terms of manga chapters we’ve already gone over almost the same amount of content as the entire first season. Although the nature of the content may be what’s allowing it to take up less time. Also they’ve trimmed out some bits (assuming everything that was in the manga was also in the LN they’re adapating from). But the manga has not reached the magic city yet. There’s another whole side-adventure on the way to getting there.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I thought the deception was that Tyuule managed to get hold of or use of a royal seal from the guy in Italica, which made it look like Pina had ordered the hit on Noriko. But that was uncovered by the rest of the staff in Italica, cutting off that implication and leaving Pina in the clear. It was quick, but I thought it was thorough enough. Now, whether that guy who sold out will get linked back to Tyuule is a different story.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
The battle with the fire dragon wrapped up quicker than I thought it would. I thought it’d end an episode on a cliff-hanger, like just after the Dark Elves are wiped out, then finish up in the next episode.
Speaking of the Dark Elves, their (mis)use of the weapons Itami gave them shows why soldiers are drilled incessantly in the use of their weapons. It wasn’t done just so Itami and his harem could be the ones to kill the dragon. It was realistic that troops with unfamiliar weapons (of a type they’d never even heard of before) they’ve had little training with would blow it in the crunch.
Since the manga I’ve been reading doesn’t have the trip to Rondel I’m looking forward to seeing something new to me.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Spoke too soon. The online site where I’m reading the manga just started the Rondel arc. However, the anime ought to pull ahead of it, then I’ll be in new territory.
Never thought I’d see Lelei break out in a cold sweat.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Wow, were these two past episodes badass. Too bad all the dark elves aside from Yao ended up buying the farm. Some of them looked really young. Dealing with the Fire Dragon went quicker than expected but it didn’t shy from raising tension regardless of a foregone conclusion.
Tyuule’s going to be neck-deep in trouble. Not only did she put the empire in a vulnerable position, she also ended up slighting one of her clansmen, only said clansman doesn’t know it yet. If she intends to scheme further, she’d best tread carefully.
Giselle’s appearance was a wild card and she looks absolutely freaky. She and Rory make 2 of the 12 Apostles. I wonder what the other 10 will look like.