Wow, that was one hell of an infodump (no pun intended). Nothing wrong with that in itself, and it wasn’t badly executed here. But devoting an entire episode to exposition – most of it by explanation – has definite drawbacks. I mean, I’d always prefer exposition to come out organically rather than like this. But the bigger issue is that compared to the previous few eps this was inevitably kind of a bore. Not much Helck or Vermilio, and a lot of sitting around and talking while diagrams pop up on the screen.
As to Azudora, we now know that he considers himself the weakest of the four great demon lords, but that Hon (who’s assumed to be pretty smart) fancies him the strongest. We haven’t met half of them so it’s impossible to say who’s right. We also know that the winged knights are so chill about dying because every time they do, they get teleported back to the human king and resurrected stronger than before. That presents an obvious problem for the demons, since winning a battle just means breeding a stronger group of enemies to fight next time.
Azudara’s plan to take out the king, presuming he’s casting the spell making this possible, certainly makes sense. But there’s obviously something deeper going on here, because on the face of it the humans being so obsessed with attacking demonkin doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’m not convinced the king is human at all, for starters, but that’s one bit of information we don’t get dumped on us here. Azudora also has a plan for Vermilio. He can’t open a gate big enough for her to return through (or for him to go to her). But he can open a gate big enough to send a few small items through – a homing device in the form of a wand, a letter, and a mandarin orange (her favorite fruit).
That’s all well and good (though the effort practically kills him – again). But Piwi makes short work of Azudora’s care package, eating the mandarin himself and then promptly throwing the rest on the fire Vermilio is using to (unsuccessfully) try and cook as well as Helck. This short pop-in is enough to remind us that Helck is most entertaining when Helck is on-screen, and Vermilio too – not to mention the peanut gallery of weirdos on the island. Hopefully we get a lot more of them – and the debut of the Great Witch – next week.
