Dragon Crisis is back, with the first of back-to-back episodes. And as this series usually does, it delivers exactly what you expected – no more and no less.

Another new character this week, and with it another mega-star seiyuu, Emiri Katou. This series is full of above the title voice talent, and there’s no doubt that it does elevate the material a little. She plays Sapphie, the newest dragon to be introduced. The difference is, this one is pretty useless in combat – she’s a water dragon but can’t do anything more useful than get her opponent slightly damp (when she isn’t accidentally dousing herself). The gang meets her on a camping trip, and she claims to be Onyx’ bride-to-be. She’s seeking revenge on Ryuji for his defeat of her fiancee’, but that doesn’t work out so well.

Being that Sapphie is a ditz as well as a pushover in battle, Onyx doesn’t seem to take her too seriously – but she makes up for it in how seriously she takes herself. She ends up being asked in by Rose – conveniently unchaperoned for a change – to dry herself off after a self-soaking, and fulfills her role in the story – telling Rose about the dragon coming-of-age ritual. Seemingly innocuous – the boy kisses the girl on her “dragon spot” – it seems to launch a rapid-fire insta-puberty. And just like that, Rose is all hot flashes, tears and sultry glances – and she can’t have Ryuji touch her without boiling over. Fortunately Eriko is there to deliver her twisted adult wisdom in the form of a birds and bees talk for both.

So it looks as if this episode filled two roles – it launched the romance onto another level, and it set up the return on Onyx as the final boss. My question is this – knows that she’s a real teenager, does that mean Kugimiya Rie is going to turn into a Tsundere?