English Dub Review: Our Last Crusade or a Rise of a New World “Paradise: Rin’s Big Miscalculation”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Alice is reminiscing about saving Iska and Mismis from the vortex, and presumably how to encounter Iska again. Rin suggests, much to her princess’s surprise, that they attempt to meet with him in the neutral city of Ein. Back in the Empire, Mismis and Iska seem to be unharmed after falling through the vortex, but Mismis is apologizing dramatically to Jhin and the others for her mistake. After they forgive her (well, all except Jhin, maybe) Risya stops by to inform them that they’ll be taking on a secret mission that’s even more intense than they realized: infiltrating the Sovereignty and capturing Queen Nebulis. The team brings up the fact that to pass the witch nation’s borders, they’ll need a witch’s mark. After Risya leaves, they discover (conveniently enough) that Mismis has gained a witch’s mark from the vortex. They discuss whether she should turn herself in and be imprisoned, or if the group should hide this secret for now. Rin and Alice have been visiting Ein for three days, with no sign of Iska, and are starting to get frustrated. Of course, if a war can’t keep these two apart, bad timing won’t either, and eventually Alice finds Iska sitting on a bench near the fountain, and asks for a temporary truce. Rin appears and brings the two of them cans of “lemon apple” juice. Iska takes a sip, but then immediately faints onto the bench. Rin reveals she drugged the drink, intending to drive a wedge between him and Alice. The two witches argue, but ultimately decide to take him into custody, just as Mismis returns, reveals her newly acquired astral powers, and fails to stop them from leaving with Iska. Risya consults with the emperor about next steps.

Our take:

Despite quite a few things happening in this episode, it kind of seems like a weird filler? More questions arise as to how and why Mismis has risen to the position of captain within the ranks of the Empire despite constantly fucking up and having zero air of command around her, uh, ever, but I guess we’re just supposed to go along with it at this point. I’m interested to see how the group intends to hide her newly acquired witch’s mark, especially since it seems like the kind of thing that might come up (and come in handy) with their whole “infiltrate the Sovereignty” plan. Also, what’s the deal between her and Iska? They seem weirdly close for a captain and subordinate (hanging out in Neutral City on their off days, presumably so Mismis can show off her cat bag while Iska mopes about their mission) may not mean anything, but is she supposed to be into him, or what?

Unlike our adorably incompetent blue-haired Imperial captain, maid dress wearing Rin has proven herself to be more than competent in battle and generally, but takes her serious demeanor one step further in this episode by drugging and kidnapping Iska (and in the Neutral City, no less!) She seems to walk back the brutality a bit at first by claiming she expected him to notice something was off before taking a drink, hoping to re-establish some actual animosity between these two “enemies”, but after he goes ahead and takes a swig, she wishes she’d taken the chance to kill him outright. Hayden Daviau delivers this brutal lines with just enough edge to make me say “ok, Rin” despite not expecting the character to do something so drastic. With the Zoas at this point being the most “into” their powers of the astral mages, viewing their side as right in this conflict no matter what, and actually treating this situation like, y’know, a war, I’ve been left wondering if our protagonists had any strong feelings one way or another. Hopefully with Rin’s betrayal, we’ll get a more thorough look into Alice’s thinking next episode, if the story can resist filling the time with the two lovebirds exploring the more scenic parts of the Sovereignty together.

Also coming next episode is (hopefully!) the reveal of the emperor. The intro sequence may have given us a hint as to what they look like, but it’ll be nice to finally put a face to a name, and a voice to a face. But for this episode, despite a decent amount of plot development (particularly at the end, with Iska being taken prisoner), it’s mostly talking, cutesy fan service shots (especially when Alice pleads with Iska for a temporary truce), and unnecessarily long discussions that ultimately go nowhere, or serve to re-establish character traits that we already know about.

Not a bad episode, by any means, and definitely what I’ve come to expect from this series. If it weren’t for the little bit of actual plot at the end though, I’d be happy to skip it.