Undead Girl Murder Farce seems to specialize in the melee format. The two major arcs of the story have both ended up that way. As in London, it’s Banquet who arrives late to the party and really elevates the whole affair to pure chaos. But there’s plenty of mayhem to go around before then, what with Aya starting to close the loop on the mystery and Royce doing their best to turn everything into a bloodbath for monsters. It always seemed like the werewolves were going to get the short end of the stick, but it may just have been one of their own who sowed the seeds of Wolphinhel’s downfall.
Victor proves to be an interesting wildcard here. He saves Tsugaru and Aya (though the whole thing may have been a setup), demanding that they reveal the location of the werewolf village as payment, then extracts the Penultimate Night from them as collateral in case their info proves bogus. One gets a strong sense in watching this play out that these three are very familiar with each other, possibly even friendly. I don’t know if Victor is acting independently of Moriarty in any way here, or simply acting as his agent, but it feels like there’s more here than meets the eye.
Aya is definitely getting down to brass tacks, already confirming theories rather than searching for answers. She and Tsugaru manage to see Shizuka in Wolphinhel thanks to the help of Vera, who’d been sent to watch for their arrival. Busting her out is not an option at this point,, but the investigation continues. Finding the underground (under rock) passage was the key. It runs from the human village to the lupine one, reducing the duration of the trip massively. It provides a plausible theory for how the murders were committed without the werewolves with their super senses hearing or smelling anything.
Given how fixated Aya was on the werewolves sleeping during the day, it seems at the very least she suspects the same person was using the passage to pose as a resident – and commit the murders – in both villages. And let’s be honest, there’s really only one person who has the motive to take advantage of this opportunity, and that’s Jutte. The fact that one end of the passage is at the burned tower only strengthens the bonds tying her to the crimes. At some point I suppose she murdered Louise (I’d guess she was the one on Bewährung in the tunnel), and took her place in the human village, where she was never seen at night.
If this is all down to Jutte and the motive was straight-up revenge, she must be pleased with what she helped orchestrate. Royce has brought the humans to Wolphinhel, and al-out slaughter is the order of the day. Moriarty’s dark army has arrived and is wreaking havoc among the wolves themselves, and they presumably only need one to fulfil the stated purpose of their declared interest in the species in the first place. Aya gives Shizuka the green-light to go and try to save Kaya, but at the rate things are going I’m not sure there are going to be any werewolves left to save (and three of their strongest are certainly no match for Tsugaru).
Ronbb
September 22, 2023 at 2:26 pmThis is the first time I feel rushed. There is no deducing, and it felt like someone pushed the fast forward buttons. It’s still very interesting though.
Guardian Enzo
September 22, 2023 at 3:03 pmA bit, yeah.
Yann
September 23, 2023 at 6:21 amThis really didn’t work for me. Aya is basically responsible for the destruction of the village by carelessly divulging the entrance to the tunnel, and Tsugaru is needlessly killing a bunch of werwolves on his own? What the hell… On top of that, the whole episode felt rushed, disjointed, and not that interesting. Huge shark jump vibe for me on that one… I didn’t expect that.
Nicc
September 23, 2023 at 8:05 amWhew, that was a packed episode. Indeed, Banquet showing up throws everything into chaos and with help from the two Royce agents. They also bring along an angry mob to the mix and the end result is lots of death and destruction.
Victor does indeed help out Aya and Tsugaru, with the bonus of getting the Royce agents off their backs. They did seem rather chummy with each other and it seems like it wasn’t their first meeting (At least for Aya. Considering that she’s lived for centuries, her Rolodex must be extensive). Victor gets his “payment” for the rescue and information and the other two move along. After being nearly absent from the previous episode, Aya and Tsugaru take center stage again. With the help of Vera, they are guided into the village and where Shizuku is imprisoned. Shizuku informs Aya of her findings. Shizuku will have to stay in prison for a little longer as the male werewolf guardians already know that there are intruders in the village. Aya and Tsugaru make their way to the latest crime scene and with three werewolves on their scent. Aya is looking for something at a rock and bingo, it’s an underground passage.
This helps to answer a lot of questions, such as how and where the murders took place and why the culprit could not be tracked. It’s an underground passage that goes for a long way and there’s even a water source. Somebody could live down there and there are signs of that. They make it to the other end of the passage and it leads to the human village.
And, what a shortcut it is as it bypasses that artificial diamond ritual and the careful walk down towards the waterfall and significantly reduces the travel time. When they head back, it seems that somebody already went through before them and cleaned up a lot of the physical evidence that was there earlier on. The Royce agents spot the entrance too and they decide to bring in the villagers.
Okay, so Moriarty wants some werewolf blood to complete his chimera, but the werewolves seemed weak, even when considering their specific weaknesses that were exploited. The fight with Tsugaru was decided by poor tactics as the three werewolves didn’t move or attack as a pack, allowing him to defeat them one-by-one. Only that golden werewolf seems to be worth capturing. I have to agree with the others that this episode did feel rushed. The season finale is going to be stuffed with Royce vs Banquet, the second round of Carmilla and Shizuku and the mystery being unraveled. There’s that, and then there’s also Jack and Moriarty being no-shows in this arc so far. I can’t venture a guess on what they’ve been up to for all this time.