Overview (Spoilers Below): The Divine Visionary Selection Exam finally begins. Traditionally, only those who have collected five or more coins were allowed to take the selection exam, but with Innocent Zero interfering and the exam being accelerated this year, anybody with three or more coins is qualified to take the exam. Mash, Finn, Lance, and Dot, now qualified to take the exam, challenge themselves to a dead-or-alive qualifying round, also known as “Deadervant’s Haunt.”
Our Take: The first task from the Divine Visionary Selection Exam has begun! However, this peculiar challenge doesn’t involve any written questionnaires. Instead, it goes straight to the more challenging part, where the competing students must retrieve the keys trapped inside the balloon bags shaped like a Troll Swim-fish’s bladder. To make the task even more difficult, the supervisors added three monstrous minotaurs immune to magic and can regenerate when injured. That shouldn’t be a problem for Mash since he can’t use magic. However, that doesn’t stop the muscular bonehead from assisting his new partner, Max, who can alter an object’s proportions, to accomplish this challenging test. Most of the episode consists of Mash and Max joining forces to find and get the key out of the alarm-sounding balloon. Of course, they’ll have to do so without making too much noise, as the minotaurs are attracted to sound. Unfortunately for Dot and Finn, it’s easier said than done, considering that Finn is a wimp and Dot is the hothead of the group. However, we soon find out that that’s not the only problem Mash and his friends are confronting during the exam, as another Orca dorm student, Carpaccio, seeks to eliminate Mash after doing so to Max. The episode also briefly teases the exam’s second stage, a team battle event in which three teams attempt to smash each other’s crystals. Unfortunately, Finn wound up teaming up with Mash and Dot, who accidentally gave themselves a disadvantage. We’re only four episodes into the second season, and I already found one that cranks the show’s hilarious meter to an eleven. Of course, the humor will still depend on people’s preferred taste in comedy. This was the hardest I’ve ever laughed at an episode since the “Home Visit” episode regarding its parodic slapstick, especially Mash and Dot’s clumsiness. It’s how I know that I’m going to be in for a wild treat this season, especially since Finn now holds the only key to his team’s victory.