Saruman (re)enters the picture.

That was a handsome bit of misdirection there – something which, the attentive will have noticed, Mairimashita! Iruma-kun is rather good at.  This looked for all the world like a laid-back, comedy-driven episode to wrap up the arc.  But – and again, the series has done this before –  we get the next (or at least future) arc teased as the old one wraps up.  That’s a nice narrative practice – Togashi is certainly as good as it gets at it.  We only have a couple episodes left so we’ll have to wait till Season 4 for this seed of destiny to birth that legend leaf.  But I’m confident that will come – Iruma-kun’s popularity has been on a steady rise since the anime premiered and that shows no signs of stopping.

The main theme of that misdirect is the Harvest Festival teachers after party.  It’s a classic school noumikai, which means lots of folks who can’t hold their liquor getting hammered and the new teacher being tasked with organizing everything.  That would be Robin-sensei (who can’t be as young as he looks and acts, or at least I assume not).  And one of his challenges is to get Kallego-sensei to come, which he never does (a few teachers always ditch the noumikai).  Robin (who one gets the sense is much more formidable than he appears, though that’s a low bar) smartly assigns Balam-sensei to the task, with a successful outcome.

We meet a flood of new-to-us teachers here – either background characters or never before seen.  The most important seem to be Momonoki-sensei, whose gramps is also a teacher (and overprotective) and Dantalian Dali (Mark Ishii).  He has the distinction of having been Kallego-sensei’s mentor when he first arrived at Babyls, and he has a few embarrassing recollections of that new teacher to share.  He also shares the faculty motto (in the form of a toast, which annoys Kallego – like just about everything else) , I believe the first time it’s been mentioned.  It makes it clear in no uncertain terms that the faculty of Babyls are not to be trifled with.

That’s exactly what Ocho did, of course.  And as predicted Robin’s mysterious absence from the awards ceremony was directly connected.  We knew Robin – like his cousin Bachiko – had an archery skill (an archer named Robin dressed in green?  I just got that) for his blood magic.  His is called “Perfect Shot”, and it’s powerful enough that it allows him to locate Ocho and dispatch him with sufficient precision as to avoid his vitals.  That was on instruction from Kallego, who wants this to be a warning to Ocho and whoever sent him.  The next time, he promises, he won’t be so nice about it.

The cat is out of the bag, Ocho’s master was Baal.  It’s revealed that Ocho is a devotee of the Second Faith, but I don’t recall Baal having any reported connection – his deal was the Six Fingers, I thought.  I’m not sure how these underworld secret societies fit together but I wouldn’t be surprised if Baal is pulling the strings on all them in service of his dream of dragging demon society back to its profoundly evil ways.  There’s someone else present, too – Kirio.  And that’s most welcome because it’s another chance to hear Ohsaka Ryouta deliver one of my favorite performances of recent years.

This is where things get really interesting, because one of Ocho’s tricks was planting a mic on Iruma.  And thanks to that, the trio learn that Iruma is human.  Kirio (always a fascinating one to watch) is almost orgiastic at the idea, because now in addition to terrorizing Iruma he can eat him too.  Kirio is just a sick dude any way you slice it – I actually think his obsession with Iruma is based on affection, and this is the only way Kirio knows how to express it.  His knowing is fascinating, but so is Baal – the one with a political agenda which almost certainly puts him in direct opposition to Derkila (and by extension, Iruma).  This has the air of “final arc” to it, but I suspect there will be a lot of build-up before it really kicks in.

Su…ki…ma