Halfway through this episode, I got the feeling that this was going to be the last semblance of a lull episode in the show before it ran down climax alley. And it did a good job, at both being a lull episode and fooling me into thinking not much else was going to happen in the b-plots. Boy, was eye ever wrong there.
It’s not exactly uncommon in an anime for the main character to be the most interesting one, but it is more of a rarity to have one who’s as chronically underconfident as Arata is in an action show. It surprises me that I’m actually enjoying the resulting contrast.
Arata Kangatari didn’t really fix its terminology problems this week, but the dull monologues this episode explaining what in the whoozits a Hayagami is were plentifully offset by the key scene establishing the Shinshou as – so far – the best villains of the Spring 2013 season.
Animetics 