Today is the first day of the rest of your Bahamut.

There’s very much a sense that we’ve entered a new phase with Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul.  It looks like we’re going to see a three-act structure to this two-cour series, with the first third having been devoted to setup, the middle likely to the meat of the plot, and the final act probably the major conflict, resolution, and denouement.  It’s not exactly clear just yet what that final conflict is going to look like – I’ve seen it theorized that the Gods and Demons will revive Bahamut in order to try and put down Charioce (which would likely bring Amira (remember her?) into play, and that seems pretty credible to me – but at this point all it’s just that, a theory.

Undeniably, this is an important time for “Virgin Soul” because there are no guarantees this show-within-a-show will be as boffo successful as the first one.  Plus, it’s also tricky to spin the narrative when almost all the main cast are in prison (which they are here, though not all the same one).  One way to attack that problem is via flashback, one prisoner telling their story to another – and that’s exactly what happened here between Favaro and Kaisar.  And it just so happened to give us our fullest look yet at Nina’s backstory.

The chemistry between Kaisar and Favaro was (for me at least) the single best thing about the first season of Shingeki no Bahamut, and we got just a tantalizing glimpse of it here.  Mostly this was about that flashback though, Kaisar’s meeting with Nina.  And it happened more or less as one would probably have guessed – Favaro swaggered into Dragon-town looking to blow through his earnings, and made quite an impression on young (though I’d guess no more than a year younger than current) Nina.  She insisted he take her on as an apprentice, but he was understandably reluctant – agreeing only when she proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was hellishly strong, fast, and dragon-y.

Back in the present, it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that Nina is adjusting to life in prison better than anyone else.  Nina is relentlessly cheerful and – let’s be honest – dumb as a sack of hammers, which is a good combination (especially factoring in freakish strength) for prison life.  She soon befriends Jeanne, and eventually tells her about her adventures and arrest – which of course brings in the subject of Mugaro.  It’s confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt here than Mugaro is a boy (that sack of hammers thing again), so we can dispense with the whole pronoun confusion – and Jeanne, knowing her son is alive and has been taken by the Gods, resolves to break out of prison and rescue him.  Of course one could cynically point out that Nina should have been able to escape at her leisure with her strength, but it’s feasible that would never have occurred to her, I suppose.

There are some interesting questions hanging out there, that’s a certainty.  For one thing we don’t really know why Favaro was arrested in the first place – he doesn’t seem to have done anything specifically to challenge Charioce’s authority.  We also don’t know what the “ascension to Godhood” that the Angels have in mind for Mugaro is, but it seems a safe bet it involves losing the essence of who he is – and Jeanne will be keen to get to him first.  And finally we have Rita, never to be forgotten, parachuting onto the prison island Mary Poppins-style with a cheeky smirk on her face.  With most of the gang reunited inside those walls, it’s a safe bet the feathers will fly next week, even with Hamsa all the way up in Heaven…