English Dub Review: The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy “The City Ruins Appear”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

After secretly bringing some of the stray Demi-Humans over to his side, Leonis returns home to a relaxing day off with his platoon. This leads into a practice match with another platoon, which they narrowly win. Meanwhile, a mysterious gray haired man gathers discarded Demon Swords in offering to a “goddess of prophecy”.

Later, the platoon is assigned to investigate the traveling 3rd Assault Garden, where Riselia and Regina used to live before it was destroyed. Leonis is also curious, as this may point him towards whatever erased most of the previous history, and takes his maid Shary with him in secret. On the ride over, Leonis takes a nap and has a flashback to a moment with Roselia, who once told him that their time together would be ending soon and that she would be reincarnated a thousand years in the future, so Leonis promised to find her then no matter what. Once there, the group splits up to investigate. They soon get readings indicating Voids, only to see a giant winged being descend from the sky.

OUR TAKE

We’re at the final third of the season and the start of the final arc, and I guess the stuff about the goddess is actually going to get followed up on sooner than I expected! The first half of the episode is really more of a cool down from the last arc, both to show Leonis making moves in the shadows to recruit Demi-Humans and show how he has learned to enjoy spending time with his roommates/platoon mates as friends, as well as how the group has improved in combat. He still oddly doesn’t seem to trust Riselia with knowing Shary’s existence, which is strange to me considering all they’ve been through and what she knows so far, but maybe that’s something they explore in the light novels I’ll never read. This leads us into the meat of the arc, which brings Riselia and Regina back to the place the terrible Void attack led to them losing their family (or at least adopted family in Regina’s case). That actually makes for a pretty good setting for a season finale arc, as it cuts to the heart of what were Riselia’s main insecurities at the beginning of the season: feeling like she was powerless to stop people she loved from being killed, but now having the power to fight back.

If the preview is anything to go by, there’s also plenty of stuff on top of that to get into in the remaining three episodes, including the gray haired guy we get a glimpse of gathering fallen Demon Swords, and whatever the hell that Bayonetta looking monstrosity is that started flying in at them. It’s either a very advanced Void or the goddess they’ve been mentioning, or possibly both! Oh yeah, and there’s that flashback about Roselia telling Leo that she’ll reincarnate in a thousand years, leading to him waking up to see RIselia over him, making it rather obvious that the two are connected to the point that I’ll honestly be surprised if Riselia ISN’T the reincarnation. Like awww, isn’t that sweet that they’ve found each other again after all these years, only now one is a teenager and the other is a ten year old! And the ten year old is a demon…hm. I guess the author of this was rather into Seven Deadly Sins when they were writing this. But yeah, three more episodes to go, hopefully with enough going on to get us a decent enough ending. Honestly, it’s kind of a fifty fifty split on how all of this shakes out.