It’s been an interesting start to this third season of Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.  I suppose it’s a sure sign a series is confident that it’s willing to go away from its sure things for an extended period.  And there’s no reason for Iruma-kun not to be confident – the franchise has two manga regularly pulling big sales numbers and an anime which seems to have an open-ended ticket.  Still, five episodes in we’ve had effectively no Ameri, Sullivan, Opera, Clara (she didn’t even intro the “Sukima” this week) or Ali-san.  No musical numbers, no big action set pieces.  In fact, in relative terms we’ve had precious little of Iruma-kun himself.

Generally speaking there’s not much that this adaptation does that it doesn’t do very well, and these episodes reflect that.  But I do think there’s been a bit of a dropoff in my enjoyment – with this show as with most there’s nothing like the classics.  We got almost no Iruma for the second straight episode, as the focus was on the other three areas of the Harvest Festival battle.  Azz and Sabrock prepare to do battle with the Dorodoro brothers, who want to reclaim their master – though it’s not specifically stated who he is, apart from a connection to the Misfit class.  Meanwhile Kerori and Caim are using her mastery of beasts to master their quadrant, as she revels in being able to be the center of attention without surrendering her secret.

The main focus here, though, is on the two misfits who’ve been conspicuously anonymous all season.  That would be Jazz and Allocer, about whose training we’d been given no information whatsoever.  They’re relying on deception – well, outright stealing to call a spade a spade – to secure their points.  Allocer is a member of the botany battler, and using that skill to partner with another to gather points of the non-ambulatory variety.  But Allocer has a grander plan – he’s working with Jazz, who’s posing as a collector who exchanges points for ingredients.

This subplot is a reminder that this is after all Hell, and these are demons.  It’s easy to forget that with all these cute girls and boys bonding and fighting for each other, but to succeed in this world you have to have some hard-edged skills – combat, trickery, manipulation.  And that’s what these two boys have been learning in their mysterious training regimen, with the heretofore unseen teacher Furfur (Taniyama Kishou – this thread is quite the TTGL reunion).  At first it seems pleasant enough – he takes them to a nightclub, where they get a chance to experience things they’re really too young to experience.

But – and I think this is quite a clever little twist for Iruma-kun – the real lesson of this training is “don’t trust anybody, least of all adults”.  All these training regimens have been unique, but most have reflected the rather cutthroat nature of the setting.  Jazz and Allocer learn first-hand how adults here operate – they cheat, they lie, they bully.  And it starts with Furfur himself, who set them up to be sold as forced labor at the club in order to teach them that lesson.  It’s a side of the world they certainly didn’t see at school cocooned by the Misfit class, so you can’t say it isn’t effective as a level-up.

This was certainly one of the more interesting eps of the season, and I very much enjoy it when Mairimashita! Iruma-kun shows off its harder edges (normally very well-hidden).  That said, I’m more than ready for Iruma at least to feature in the story again, and it looks like that will start next week.  Clara may even have a bit of a role to play too.  Versatility is great, and this series has that in droves, but sometimes it’s also nice to play to your strengths.

Su…ki…ma