Hello everyone,
Here we are again to talk about the anime series Dantalian no Shoka that with this sixth episode mark the official introduction of the second Yomihime (A rather down-to-heart "girl" named Flamberge) together with her key master Hal Kamhout in a sort of parallel sidestory compared to the Huey/Dalian pair.
The story was finally back with this episode to the original quality of the first couple of episode with great action and an interesting mystery revolving some mysterious disappearance of foreign merchants in a mountain village. The culprit was clear since the start (she was the only character really shown with detail in the story), but her ignorance to the real reason of the disappearances was a little of a surprise...
The puppet factory discovery scene by our protagonist was somewhat scary with all that "puppet making new puppets" background. The battle shortly after between the army of puppets and Hal was quite a marvel of animation that combined with the fact that Hal's way of fighting is pretty different from Huey's one maked this whole episode of Dantalian no Shoka look fresher in my eyes.
Yes, because he doesn't read magical books, but burns them using their power to create a flame (using a special magical staff) that clear out his enemy. I honestly laughed out loud at the "cartridge loaded" line reminiscent of the Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha type of magical staff, but apart from that the whole scene was quite good to watch. He also has some quite good physical prowess and is able to fight against an assassin puppet with ease.
The personality of this pair of heroes is quite different from the Huey/Dalian pair and they look more like a religious group than a pair of friends. Especially Hal's personality is dark and estremely reserved giving me some doubts over his actions if he'll ever find Dalian.
Another important note is that he is searching for a Yomihime, but did not give enough details to understand if he's talking about Dalian or Rasiel (the red yomihime).
Ah, by the way we also got a glimpse of the red Yomihime Rasiel together with her key master in the flashback of the culprit. They look very eager to give magical books to anyone and with these new informations I'm able to divide the yomihime into three categories.
The one like Dalian, the neutral ones that do not care much about the magical books and their objective is just to collect them and preserve them.
The one like Flamberge, the good ones that don't want that the magical books affect the normal life of people. (They prefer destroying the magical books instead of preserving)
The one like Rasiel, the evil ones that just want to make chaos and give books to random people in the world. (not sure if they have other motives though...)
Its inevitable that Flamberge will fight Rasiel sooner or later giving their opposite ideas, but I'm not sure about what position will take Dalian in this whole incident...
Even with the lack of Dalian in this episode (I dearly miss her "Yes") Dantalian no Shoka is keeping up its medium-good status with great possibility to improve in the future. Especially if these three yomihime were to meet during some arc...
I'm looking forward to the next episode!
See you soon,
feal87