A two-week absence is certainly too long for Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.  When it’s on its game (as it has been the last couple of episodes) this series is ridiculously fun.  I haven’t always liked the directions its taken this season, but now that the too-disparate Misfit Class threads are starting to be tied together and the focus is back on Iruma, things have gotten back to peak form.  And of course, any Ali-san appearance by its very nature makes the episode better, now matter how brief it may be.

This “Young King” revelation from Kallego-sensei is the first we’ve heard of this aspect of the Harvest Festival, I believe.  That’s certainly interesting – I think we know who the students are who might factor into that.  But the most telling part of that scene was Kallego-sensei taking the time to effectively speak to Iruma directly.  As someone with zero points he’s theoretically irrelevant to that announcement, butt Kallego is betraying an obvious rooting interest by beseeching Iruma-kun to step up his game.  A tsundere-sensei if ever there was one.

Iruma, if you recall, is in some pretty serious trouble.  And it would have been a lot worse if Ali-san hadn’t intervened when he fell off that cliff.  As it stands he’s still got to figure out how to climb back up, and with an injured leg as well.  Ali reckons it will take years, but then the resourceful Naphula shows up, wondering why Iruma-kun didn’t just fly back up.  That’s an awkward conversation he’s not prepared to have even if he can now understand their speech, but Naphula has brought some Nigi Nigi plant with them.  And a watering can to boot (that almost strikes me as suspiciously convenient, but we’ll see).

Even so, in his current state climbing that thing is no easy task.  Fortunately Iruma is ever-resourceful, and has a good memory to boot.  The power of human blood in the Underworld is nothing to be sneezed at, and to say Iruma announces his return to action in a big way is quite an understatement.  He also announces via camera demon that he’s found the Seed of Beginnings.  And not only that, he tells Lead where to meet up with him.  For a kid as smart as Iruma, that’s a pretty big lapse in judgment.

Poor Lead.  He’s about to take center stage in the story, but he’s got nothing but problems.  He’s been a busy boy while we’ve been away, going on a quest of his own and meeting a genie of his own.  And he’s ridden his gaming skills to procuring the Vase of Endings, the other half of the Legend Leaf magic formula.  But not only has Iruma announced their intentions to the world, Stolas-sensei has quite trollishly announced that the vase Lead is carrying is worth 20,000 points on its own.  He could hardly have a bigger target drawn on him than he does now.

As if all that weren’t bad enough, Elizabetta is the first one to find him – and I think if we know anything about Lead-kun, it’s that he’s helpless against Elizebetta 2.0 and her charms.  This is getting kind of serious now – it’s late in the game, and if Team Iruma-Lead is going to take the- er, lead, they’re going to need to get that vase and seed together.  In theory the Misfit Class are all allies, but Elizabetta and Clara have already plundered the boys’ stash once.  If this were Clara and Iruma I might think she’d hesitate about ruining his chances, but Elizabetta and Lead?  I don’t think he can expect any mercy there – so maybe Lead will show us depths that until now have remained mostly hidden.

Su…ki…ma