I guess it’s not officially a new season of Mairimashita! Iruma-kun until Clara does a musical number. She’s been in short supply this season (Ameri even more so), but it was definitely building up to something. In purely practical terms Clara’s presence – especially paired off with Iruma – is like a narrative B-12 shot. But this also seems to hit the reset button on the main romantic subplot, although you get the sense that’s never going to be then primary focus for any extended period of time.
I’ll give Raim-sensei credit – her assessment of Clara’s charm was spot on. I’m not sure if “unrestrained and surprising” are the exact words I’d use, but they get the point across. The truth is of course that Clara isn’t especially interested in seduction as a general weapon – there’s only one target that interests her. In that sense her toy box is basically tailored-made for Iruma even if it works on other people too. It’s filled with lots of interesting stuff, like the mother-in-law thing and the hide and seek Reversi – so much so that Iruma-kun finds it as irresistible as Clara hoped. But is it exactly why she hoped?
The toy box (she has to get her target in her “pocket” – thus the costume, to make the pocket as big as possible – turns whoever enters into child form. Of course in Iruma’s case it’s almost hard to tell the difference. He knows intellectually what’s going on here, but can’t help himself – he just wants to play. The insidious part of this attack is that the toy box drains the mana out of whoever is enjoying it. Thus Clara is rather surprised when Iruma seems perfectly fine apart from normal exhaustion – fortunately she’s easily distracted and doesn’t ask any awkward questions.
In terms of the nominal goal here – use their charms to steal Iruma and Lead’s points – Clara’s mission is as clear a success as Elizabetta’s. But what of Clara’s real goal? Well, there’s no doubt between the toys and games and floor show Iruma was fully enraptured. But did she make any real progress in the area where it really matters? Well, I think Ameri has more reason to worry than she did before, but I still don’t see these two adorable little Brussels sprouts being able to make the jump from playmates and pals to lovers. I just don’t think Iruma sees Clara that way (and I do think he sees Ameri that way).
Meanwhile, as night falls on day one of the Harvest Festival the carnage can begin in earnest. And in fact, Babyls doesn’t just leave the students to suffer whatever fate befalls them in their efforts – they actually go out and rescue the exhausted kids when they get themselves into trouble with the seemingly endless variety of deadly inhabitants of the playing field for this game. That involves a forfeit – sometimes voluntary, sometimes not – but one-fifth of the students drop out on the first night in this fashion. A key to their rescue is Orias-sensei (Kajiwara Gakuto), whose good luck ability allows him to find students in need seemingly at will.
There’s one more interesting little interlude here, as Dosa-chan and her friends flee one of the forest’s many menaces to a “castle”, where who should be waiting for them but Agares himself (asleep of course, and pissed at being woken up). They immediately proclaim him as smokin’ hot and compare him to Endymion (the shepherd boy from Greek mythology so beautiful Zeus put him to sleep after Hera fell in love with him). What’s Agares doing in there when he’s supposed to harvesting, I wonder – apart from sleeping, I mean.
Su…ki…ma
Rob Barrett
November 23, 2022 at 2:27 amI will leave the innuendo-laden “pocket” language to one side and just note how sad the first half of the episode made me follow. I fear that Clara is heading for heartbreak where Iruma-chi is concerned.
Guardian Enzo
November 23, 2022 at 9:00 amNot to mention it’s a reminder of how Iruma was deprived of a real childhood where he could actually just play until he passed out.
Nicc
November 23, 2022 at 9:13 amIt looks like this episode was pushed back to Monday, but it was worth the wait. We get to see what Clara’s powers are all about and it’s toy box world. It makes sense to me that Iruma would be so enamored with playing and considering he didn’t get to do this sort of thing in his childhood. I also wonder how his mana didn’t get drained is specific only to him and Clara may not have been aware of it. I mean, if his mana isn’t drained, then the two of them can play lots and lots. That’s just my guess and it would have been fun to have Asmodeus in the mix too and have the trio play together.
It is a cute ship, but I also don’t know if it’s going to sail. In any case, it doesn’t seem likely there’s going to be any other progression on that front, at least not in this arc. If the daytime was arduous, the nighttime is dangerous. It looks like there could be a good number of dropouts over the next few nights. Keeping their wits about 24/7 is definitely going to weed out a lot of students. And, then we move on to the next group of students as we see what Agares is up to… Or, not up to as he isn’t doing much. That means that Gaap won’t be far behind and I’m hoping that Agares isn’t making him do all of the work.
Eitarou
November 23, 2022 at 11:46 pmThe subbed version was pushed back (apparently it was an issue involving the streaming rights), so there’s no production issues in case you were wondering. As for Iruma not being affected by the mana drain, it’s simple. He’s human and has no mana to drain. Luckily it doesn’t seem to do anything to the ring.
Nicc
November 24, 2022 at 4:24 am*cues up M. Bison GIF*
Of course! You’re right, it is a good thing that this ring was not affected.
I just looked into that and it appears that there was some kind of dispute between NHK and Netflix over the latter’s new ad-supported tier. So it seems that NHK didn’t want to see ads at all or they were going to pull their shows from Netflix. I guess that the negotiations are still on-going, but Netflix may lose some major titles if they can’t work things out.
Guardian Enzo
November 24, 2022 at 7:52 amWell yeah, I thought the reason Iruma was fine was rather obvious, as I implied in the post. Didn’t see a need to spell it out.
Marty
November 25, 2022 at 7:19 pmI don’t know if I’m reading too much into it, but I feel like the show hinted at the idea that there are a few fatalities in this test. From what I remember, one of the teachers commented that their losses fell rapidly before Orias joined the staff, implying that the teachers couldn’t bail every student out before the predators got them.
Now, this is a personal theory of mine, but considering how this arc has shown a diversity of tactics, and the fact I HIGHLY doubt Agares is going to waste his training on just sleeping, I’m going to assume that the Castle he is in is some sort of safe haven from the monsters. I think he might use it as a sort of “tribute” based system, where weaker students can stay if they give up some of their points. Otherwise I don’t see the point of making a mansion in the Middle of nowhere.
Guardian Enzo
November 25, 2022 at 11:52 pmI took that comment to mean injuries more than fatalities…