English Dub Review: The Drops of God “In the Great Flow of Time”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
The battle for the Third Apostle begins, and a new member comes to the wine division.

Our Take:
I was initially concerned I would have to wait a couple more episodes to get to the Third Apostle challenge, similar to the gap between the first two.  I’m glad to say that this wasn’t the case in this week’s episode.  It still provides viewers with a bit of a detour, with Shizuku assisting his new employee, Kido, with his dislike of alcohol.  However, this scenario didn’t last an entire episode.  Instead, the remaining runtime gets the hunt for the Third Apostle started right away, with Yutaka’s latest clue having something to do with nostalgia.  Although, because of Loulan’s strong sense of smell, Shizuku would have to step it up with his own talent to stay ahead of Tomine and his new strategy.
With its tenth episode, “The Drops of God” aims for a balanced narrative by giving equal focus to the Twelve Apostles contest and the wine division segments in between.  While I can still acknowledge Shizuku’s problem-solving scenarios for the show’s education on wine history, I think it risks slowing the plot a bit.  Thankfully, the pacing of those detours was good enough to maintain my interest beyond the show’s accurate reflection of the wines, especially those relating to nostalgia.  Given that we’re close to the end of the season’s first half, this approach couldn’t have come at a better time.  Yes, that pun relating to the episode’s title was intentional.