There was lots of cool stuff happening in that episode, but to be honest I think an anime-only watcher really wouldn’t have much of a chance of understanding what was going on most of the time. I had to read a lot of spoilers after the fact just to give myself some idea of what I’d just seen, but I guess this is just one of those shows that’s pitched to the core audience. Pacing was insane and exposition non-existent.

So we did find out that the reason Vento coughed up blood is because of a spell that causes anyone who uses magic in Academy City of overload and (theoretically) die. This was after the intro scene with Tsuchimikado explaining (OK, so there was a tiny bit of exposition) that the invasion of Academy City was being accomplished using a trick from Pythagoras, and how odd it was to see pre-Christian “magic” being used. Meanwhile, Touma is searching for Last Order and manages to find Accelerator on her contact list, though neither of them recognizes the other’s voice when they speak. Accelerator is profoundly dismissive of Touma’s offer to help, and when Touma ends up having to chase after the “Fuse” Hyouka crisis he can’t help, anyway.

Not that Accelerator needs much help. As last week, much of the point of this episode was watching him be preposterously powerful and waste a lot of pawns in a very messy fashion. Apparently he even used the power of the Earth’s rotation to hurl that building (thank you, internets – I wouldn’t have known that because they sure as hell didn’t tell us how he did it in the anime) about a city block. There seems almost no limit to Accelerator’s power when he’s switched-on – they guy is the biggest badass there is, and totally ungoverned by a sense of shame to boot. Kihara seems to enjoy the interplay, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.

It’s pretty much all about saving L.O. for Accel, but Touma has bigger fish to fry and meets up with Index and Railgun on the way to where Hyouka has been turned into an Angel. While Railgun runs interference they dash off to try and save her, though neither seems to have a plan on how to do that. The lasting image of the episode is Hyouka’s face at the core of that thing – Vento’s right, it is an abomination. Profoundly disturbing.

That was fun, but a blur.  I hope they give us a few seconds to catch up next week, and actually explain some of what’s happening…