Episode 12 – “Show: Evil Intentions”

For the most part, this episode felt like a big diversion to a lot of what we’ve been working up to. Sure, it was cool to see parts of the town built in Under Resort, but would’ve been even nicer if there was some plot significance to the area outside of simply being a place for our heroes to reside. As much I thought that watching every single girl in the series bathe in the river was necessary to the story, it’s hard to tell which way the narrative is trying to move given there are still so many loose ends when we’re this close to the end of the season.

Perhaps the biggest omission as of late is Freyja, who is supposedly the main antagonist of the series, and yet I feel like we know very little of her motivation or goals other than she wants to play around with Bell. Interestingly, Hermes’s intents this episode seem to parallel Freyja’s desire to test Bell with progressively more challenging obstacles, and I believe that these two characters may be more related than the series is letting on at the moment. However, whether they are working together or if Hermes has some personal reasons for testing Bell, that remains to be seen.

Secondly, there was that tease with Welf and the mysterious sword from the last episode, which was thrown away when, due to a stroke of misfortune, was cast into a ravine. We literally know nothing about the sword other than it is an important piece of the narrative. Lastly, is the mysterious figure that pops up at the end of today’s episode, which will be addressed in the next episode for sure, but how it will tie into the rest of the story is anyone’s guess at this point (unless you’ve read the light novels).

At the risk of being a big pessimist, this is the most disappointing episode, simply because rather than funneling a story to its conclusion, it opens up more questions and leaves old inquiries in the dark. I understand that this series is only covering a short portion of the light novel series, but I feel like the overarching narrative could have been paced better in some regards to fit the one cour that it’s running. That being said, I’m disappointed because I’m invested in the story. DanMachi has a great story and cast to work with, and I want to see more of Bell’s adventure to heroic glory.

“Bell-kun doesn’t know enough about the ugly side of humanity.” ~ Hermes