English Dub Review: The Water Magician “Ryo Returns Home”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Oscar sees Fiona in the hands of Ryo’s friends and mistakes them for attackers, but Ryo arrives to defend them. Unfortunately, he also gets so angry that not even Abel can talk him down, leading to a highly tense stand off.

OUR TAKE

And that’s a wrap on this season of The Water Magician, with what is probably one of the most frustrating and confusing ways to finish an arc and season. The battle at the Festival is concluded, but the attackers are never identified, Ryo only kind of notices them on the way to find his friends, and then just seems to go into an almost out of character rage at Oscar. To be fair, Oscar did rough up some of his friends a bit based purely on a misunderstanding, but things seemed ready to deescalate when Ryo showed he was clearly more powerful. But THEN he just inexplicably decides to go on the warpath and move in for the kill. Abel shows up to talk him out of it, but Ryo just waves that off and even THREATENS TO FREEZE FIONA, pissing off Oscar into starting the fight again. WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?! It’s only after Abel is willing to get in between them and risk being skewered by ice himself that Ryo decides to back down, but even after some admonishing, he still doesn’t get how much he royally screwed up and nearly caused a war to break out for no reason.

But that’s only half of the episode, and if you expected any consequences from any of that, well tough shit, because it’s just about Ryo talking more with Sera, who is very clearly crushing on him now, about archiving text and then starting to look into getting a new house. And THAT’S how this season ends, a shit ton of dangling threads and unanswered questions, but with the deity Ryo met when he first reincarnated here foreshadowing a more interesting plot in the future, including the inevitable rematch between Ryo and Oscar. Wow, I’m so excited. You know, we never got any info on what Ryo’s life was like before he was reincarnated, but after this, I’m willing to put money on him being some sociopathic killer. I’m sorry, I just can’t get over this, even if you say he was just pissed that his friends got hurt, he very much crossed that excuse when he threatened to hurt an innocent and already injured victim just to be a petty asshole. Goddamn man, what a flop of a finale, but at least it is finally over. Well, I guess aside from the Season Review, which will be oh so much fun…