Zero no Tsukaima F – 05

“The little nyan-nyan wants to be teased by the big nyan-nyan. Nyan!”

Last week ended with Louise, Saito, and Siesta moving in together, and even Tabitha coming in to join in on the action. And with the preview showing Saito getting very close with Queen Henrietta, surely more harem antics are coming, right?

Saito watches over his slaves peasants.

Saito and Louise have their friends – the red headed Kirche and the blonde Montmorency – visit their newly acquired land and mansion. Everyone’s having a good time, Saito even almost gets some action from Louise before Siesta butts in, but then Louise’s older sister Eleonore comes to crash the party. She refuses to allow Louise to elope with a commoner like Saito (if only she knew how (not) far they’ve gone with each other), which kicks off a The King and I bit where Louise tries to teach Saito how to act like a proper gentleman.

Siesta seems all too supportive of Eleonore getting in between Louise and Saito.

Naturally, their guests get bored at the couple focusing only on each other and catch a ride back to school with Tabitha. And fortunately for the audience, this training bit doesn’t last long, as Saito gets fed up with Louise’s violent teaching style before the day is over. They end with one of their typical arguments, and Saito decides to sleep in the basement.

This is important, because that’s where Saito accidentally discovers a secret pathway which leads to a bedroom. And within is a mirror which is a portal to the mirror in queen Henrietta’s bedroom. The queen is just as bewildered by this as Saito and theorizes that this was a hidden room for a mistress. Which starts giving her some ideas… like using that room for its intended purpose.

Smoking hot bod, AND she’s the queen. It would be a sin to say no.

Meanwhile, Louise is feeling bad about the argument and gets out of bed (which she was sharing with Siesta for some reason) to look for Saito. As a last resort she tries the basement and discovers the same secret hallway and reaches the secret room just in time to see through the ajar door Henrietta and Saito kissing. Instead of questioning how Henrietta got there, or even try to get a sense of the circumstances, she concludes that they are in love with each other and decides to leave Saito. Nothing happens beyond the kiss before Henrietta makes her leave, and that’s when Saito discovers from his sword that Louise had seen them. Unfortunately, she’s already on her horse by the time he catches up with her, and he can’t convince her to stay.

Easily the most passionate kiss in the show yet, AND Louise has to watch. Life can be cruel.

Louise arrives back at her academy the next morning, where she’s greeted by the same 3 who had left her and Saito the previous day. She tells them that they’re broken up, which leads to Tabitha telling her that she intends to go after Saito, that she’s entitled to take him by force as queen.

Afterwards, Kirche comes around to Louise and explains that Tabitha was trying to make the point that royalty are different because of the pressure that’s always on them, and that if she really loves Saito, she should forgive him. So Louise goes back home to Saito, forgives him, and they’re back together again.

Shortest break up ever!

Physical abuse is fun!

If Louise is always gonna get that embarrassed any time she’s heard saying things for Saito, Saito’s never gonna get that threesome with Siesta. What’s Tabitha doing there…?

I don’t think Eleonore was in S1. I can see how Louise might have learned to be so stuck up, though.

Passive-aggressive or genuine accident?

Now we get to see the ugly part of the harem antics, when people get possessive and selfish and their feelings get hurt. Yeah, if last episode was exactly what I wanted to get out of this show, this episode was the opposite. The incredibly fast pacing about which I’ve commented before didn’t help things; it stretched the suspense of disbelief that Louise, who’s been told time and again by Saito that he wants to be with her, would decide to break up based on one glimpse. And it was all resolved in less than half an episode! This show simply doesn’t have the solid romantic content to make this sort of angst work.

On a positive note, I liked seeing some more of this feudal system that they have going in this world. Like Saito getting his own set of peasants with the land. Of course, they’re happy to have a new young lord, not angry and with pitchforks for the poverty they must live in. Hey Saito, killing bad guys is great and all, but how about using that reputation as leverage to get into politics and put some progressive policies in place? You can’t go back home to bring back the future technology, but your brain still holds future ideas like equality and democracy, right?

Plus, the conversations with Henrietta and Tabitha about the bounds of royalty were interesting, and it took this fluffy light comedy to a slightly more cynical direction. Henrietta is good friends with Louise, but she’s willing to be the 2nd woman to Saito because of the frustrations of her position. That’s the kind of dark, selfish crap that you don’t expect in a show like this but goes on all the time in real life.

And Tabitha’s immediately going after Saito – not even comforting her just-broken-up friend – goes even further than what you’d expect in real life. That’s just a plain old being a bitch. Of course, Kirche’s explanation after the fact tells that Tabitha was just trying to teach Louise a lesson, but I don’t know. She was awfully eager to have Saito’s baby during the cold open, and she was stalking the couple when they were supposed to be alone in the field. Will Tabitha take Joseph’s crown and become the new villain? Does this show have the guts to do something like that?

Oh yeah, and where was Tifania? Does she have her familiar yet? Will she even matter to the story going forward? Was that ring Henrietta gave her in the 1st episode just a red herring?

Preview

Hot springs episode!