Mahoutsukai is really starting to ratchet it up now, and given that this is a one-cour season I’m heartily glad of it.  On the one hand I’m obviously encouraged that the past two episodes have been the clear best of the season.  But it’s a bit worrying that they’ve been the ones that left Hogwarts behind and trawled in basically the same waters as the first season.  I guess if the series continues to make excursions like this over the next eight weeks that mix could work very well, but I have no idea if it will actually do that.

The headline here is the return of Rahab – which also means the delightful return of Sailor Moon herself, Mitsuishi Kotono.  We haven’t seen Rahab since way back in the first cour of the series, but she’s an important figure – master to both Lindel and Elias.  Since Lindel has referred to Chise as his granddaughter (which reveals his feelings towards Elias) that makes Rahab Chise’s great-grandmother, after a fashion.  Or grandmother-in law.  In any event, she’s summoned Chise because she’s been keeping tabs on  Elias, and realized someone else was wearing his bolo tie.

Rahab’s house, somewhere in the sea of time, remains one of Mahoutsukai’s most atmospheric locations.  The conversation between she and Chise doesn’t drop any earth-shattering bombshells, but it’s like a pleasant melody to listen to.  She obviously still cares an awful lot about her proteges (though she hasn’t seen Elias since he left; whether that’s the case with Lindel I don’t know).  We do get some interesting tidbits out of it, such as the source of Elias’ obsession with brides, and his somewhat offbeat definition of the term.

I don’t remember if we knew the reason Elias gave Chise the necktie, but I feel like I’d remember if we did because it’s actually kind of powerful.  He was concerned about her being broken because he places no value on protecting herself, so he foisted something on her and impressed on her the need not to break it.  A very clever and frankly quite parental move on his part.  Elias is still an almost total enigma, emotionless in demeanor but clearly not temperament, the most inhuman of beings who both Rahab and Lindel sense “a hint of human” about.

Rahab insists that Chise not tell her wayward son about their meeting, in part because she’s been spying on him but also because it’s important for Chise to learn how to keep secrets, and to hide the truth without lying.  Once returned to her own world Chise reunited with Elias, and he reveals that the two of them will take a “back passage” to the school so there’s no need to rush.  One needs a guide for that, and that turns out to be another old friend, Hazel.  The whole back passage (I’ll leave the double entendre alone) idea is a classic Mahoutsukai jewel, very mystical and cool and a bit creepy.

For better or worse the narrative does take us back to the college, where the surly roommate is having bad dreams about… making paper, maybe?   And Philomela is looking at Chise’s medicinal tea with a jaundiced eye and flitting around the corridors as a puff of smoke.  She seems quite taken aback when Zoe, in the midst of a medical checkup with caterpillar-sensei, mentions Chise’s name (as a source of unease).  Hopefully some of these threads in the new setting prove to be as enchanting as the ones in the old one.