|The First Time Getting Lost|

After the excitement of the last few episodes, I’m gonna be honest and say that this episode left me feeling very bored and very confused. Perhaps I’m expecting too much from this show. The thought of a school with humans who can summon supernatural spirits fighting each power for control over the school sounded very appealing. Can you blame me for expecting to see people making overly passionate battle cries as they charge one another with spiritual allies at hand? I’ve seen enough anime to know that this type of setup demands big flashy action sequences.

I’m not saying I’m disappointed in RDG for not being an action show, because it’s obviously not. If you’ve been paying half as much attention as I have since the beginning, you know very well that it’s about a meek young girl who wants to be able to stand up for herself and not be pushed around by others. The supernatural stuff is just secondary to all of the character development that will happen.

The latest episodes however take a slight detour from Izumiko’s character arc by focusing on the Souda siblings and introducing the political power grab going on behind the scenes at the school. It seems the winner of the “final battle” will become a “World Heritage Candidate”, and it has to do with the fact that humans with the ability to interact with spirits are becoming a rare breed. I guess that means the victor gets special benefits from being a Candidate; what those benefits are exactly and what that title entails is still up in the air at this point, although I get the feeling that Izumiko will undoubtedly get involved in this somehow.

Like I said earlier, I started to get bored in this episode because of how slow the pacing suddenly got. While we get to see the fight teased at the end of the last episode in the opening few minutes, it’s very one-sided and we don’t get to see Miyuki fight back. We still don’t know his full potential, so it’s really hard to gauge whether he actually has any exorcism skills. After that, the focus shifts onto Masumi taking Manatsu’s place while the latter goes off to take care of his horse.

This episode was pretty disappointing for me. Things had finally started to get really interesting once Izumiko started attending this school. I didn’t expect the political intrigue at all, and while I don’t fully understand what’s going on behind the scenes, it’s a development that I hope we get to see more of. As for this current arc about the Souda triplets, I’m just having a hard time caring about them. Hopefully the conclusion to this arc can change my mind.

Lingering thoughts:

• That ending was…interesting.
• It really felt like there wasn’t a whole lot going on in this episode.