Just a reminder: The future of LiA is very much in doubt, and it’s up to you to decide what happens next.  Thank you for all your support!

To give credit where it’s due, Tsukushi Akihito has set up a fascinating moral dilemma here.  I kind of sensed we were supposed to feel sort of half-conflicted about Bondrewd but to be honest I never did.  To me that guy was straight up evil, a pure villain whose motives never mitigated the nature of the hideous offenses against decency he committed.  This current situation is far more shrouded in grey as fas as I’m concerned, and I’m still not totally sure I feel about it.  But I know I’ve been seeing a lot of pretty bad takes these past couple of weeks.

At the center of all this is of course Faputa, who describes herself as “immortal” to Reg after he expressed worry about her having ripped a large piece of herself off.  She’s a creature born out of a desire for revenge that consumes her, but clearly she does have a soft spot for Reg.  It goes even beyond her desire to have him enable her wish –  the annihilation of Iruburu and everyone in it.  But that is important, make no mistake.  It really is the Mitty situation all over again –  Reg being asked to use his incinerator for a purpose he would never consider of his own volition.  For a being a kind as Reg, this power has been largely a curse.

There’s no sign that Reg has decided to keep his promise, though he does bring the Faputa steak inside the village, which sets things all ass over teakettle.  A part of Faputa isn’t supposed to be in there, even if it is detached from the mothership.  Meanwhile Wazukyan immediately recognizes Vueko and acts as if they’d just spoken a few moments ago, rather than the 150 years that we’re told have passed since the village was created.  He asks Riko if she hates him now that she’s heard the story – from Vueko’s POV – which is interesting in that it implies he cares about the answer.

The truth is if anyone would understand him, it’s Riko.  She’s a single-minded zealot like him, and pretty much unburdened by squeamishness or conventional morality.  She’s have done the same thing Wazukyan did in his shoes, in other words.  And she likes this village his actions made, and its villagers.  But she also understands that for Wazukan staying here for eternity is also a defeat, because it means he stopped short of his goal to reach the Golden City, and suspects that his long game is to use her to make that possible.  And it’s clear that Moogie – and probably Majikaja, and maybe a good chunk of the rest – were cave raiders who came to Iruburu and could never leave.

The sage that matters for the moment, though, is Juroimoh.  He’s not dead after all, and – given that his function is to emerge whenever the village is threatened – he’s none too pleased about the Faputa part being inside the barrier. Juroimoh goes on a rampage and appears quite willing to destroy much of the village in order to save it, so Reg takes it on himself to lead him away.  As for Vueko she asks Wazukyan why it has the same name as her abusive guardian, and he tells her that Irumyuui created Juroimoh from her memories.

Reg is in a tough position here, as usual.  He can’t rely on the balancing to cut Juroimoh down to size, as he’s cut from Vueko’s cloth.  The village is in danger and so is Reg himself, and the giant beast manages to wrest the Faputa shank away from him.  Reg doesn’t use the incinerator to pay off his dent to Faputa – he does it because he has no other attacks that will work.  But the effect is the same – he cuts a hole in the barrier just as she intended, and with that there’s nothing standing in-between her and her dream of obliterating Iruburu and everyone in it.

We still have three episodes left, but it seems to me as if the season really boils down to the question of what we think should happen here.  The matter of what Wazukyan did is admittedly a difficult one.  His sunny demeanor doesn’t help the cause of anyone arguing in his defense, but as I said, I think Riko would have done exactly what he did.  So would many.  And then we have the villagers, none of whom made that choice – it was made for them.  They’ve been living peacefully (as far as we know) for 150 years, in their own peculiar purgatory.  Do they deserve to be obliterated in the name of Faputa’s anger?  I’ve seen an awful lot of expressed opinion that they deserve just that, but that doesn’t make sense to me.

This is a devil of a conundrum Tsukushi has foisted on us here.  I understand why Wazukyan did what he did.  If I were in the villagers’ shoes, I wouldn’t want to be wiped out.  And if I were Faputa, I would be convinced that the purpose of my birth was to exact revenge for my dead siblings and my mother being turned into an apartment complex.  Of course, all of these perspectives can’t win the day – something has to give here.  I’m not sure exactly how that will break down, but I do know that strictly in narrative terms, it’s nice to have the main trio back to being involved – Made in Abyss is more compelling when they are, and they’ve been sidelined a fair bit this season.