Plot: Moroha is sent on another bounty mission to kill the Peril, Konton. However, Towa and Setsuna refuse to go with her because…*shrug* they don’t have to.
Once Moroha leaves, Jyubei reveals that he still has no information for Towa on the Dream Butterfly because he only gets results when someone issues a bounty. Consequently, the amount to set the bounty for information on the Dream Butterfly is the same as the reward amount on the bounty Moroha has, so they decide to catch up and join her.
When they arrive, they have a brief scrap with Konton, but find that his armor is impenetrable. They’re saved by a child Meioju, or turtle demon, named Meifuku. He has been trying to kill Konton for ten years, ever since his father died at Konton’s hands. Konton turned a piece of his incredibly hard shell into powerful armor, and Meifuku’s father can’t rest until it’s retrieved and reunited with the rest of his corpse. However, Meifuku, despite being 50 years old now, isn’t powerful enough to defeat Konton on his own.
The girls decide to help him out since it’s in line with their mission anyway. Meifuku uses his shell to become armor for Towa and the girls start the battle. Setsuna and Moroha are tossed aside rather easily, but Towa lasts longer due to Meifuku’s shell. It’s mostly a stalemate because Towa can’t pierce Konton’s armor and Konton can’t pierce Meifuku’s either.
In addition, the shell no longer has demon energy, so Towa can’t absorb it to give herself an opening to attack.
This fact gives Towa an idea, however. Using her blade, she transfers her demon energy into Meifuku’s father’s shell, awakening his latent spirit. He tells Meifuku to use his dark lightning cannon to attack the armor while he spiritually holds Konton in place. Despite being a weak shot, it’s enough to give Towa an opening to break the armor off of Konton.
Towa is too exhausted to continue, which is a problem because Konton isn’t defeated yet. Moroha and Setsuna come in for the assist to kill Konton, but he vanishes.
Without a kill, Moroha doesn’t get her bounty, but they’re still able to lay Meifuku’s father to rest.
Breakdown: Another day, another Towa power.
She’s really wracking them up, isn’t she? And isn’t it so convenient that it’s always a power that would be super helpful in that specific situation. I don’t even really understand what happened. She transferred her demon energy into the shell and it….brought back Meifuku’s father’s ghost to that one piece so he could possess it and give them an opening to defeat him?
It’s starting to get depressing how Moroha and Setsuna are frequently sidelined in the big battles so Towa can be the star. For God’s sake, Setsuna is a demon slayer and Moroha’s a renowned bounty hunter. Towa is a high school girl who hasn’t known actual battle since before two weeks ago.
You can say it’s because Towa is Sesshomaru’s kid, but, uh, so is Setsuna. The power imbalance isn’t terrible, yet anyway, but I’m starting to get concerned.
As for the episode itself, it was pretty decent for what it was aiming for. It reminded me a bit too much of Shippo’s debut episode, though. Like, it was nearing plagiarism. (Self-plagiarism?) Little child demon has father die of the main baddie of the episode who wears their pelt (or in this case, shell) and the main characters have to defeat the main baddie to avenge the father. In the end, the father’s spirit helps save his child and one of the main characters before departing to the afterlife…..I can’t be the only one who made that connection. It was really blatant.
I did like Meifuku. Kinda wish he’d stick around since he has a pretty unique support ability and he was pretty cute and entertaining.
Speaking of entertaining, despite Konton’s design being kinda boring, he had a decent personality at least. And, yay, he Naraku’d us! Wait, that’s not a yay. Dude seriously ran off in a puff of purple smoke right as he was about to be defeated. He couldn’t have Naraku’d any harder if he gave an evil laugh and prattled on about Sacred Jewel shards.
The team cohesion continues to be both good but also rocky. The other girls refuse to go with Moroha just because eh why should we? Moroha is legitimately upset about it because she’s lonely and wanted to be family with her cousins. Awww. I felt really bad for her because this is the first time Moroha has shown any sense of longing involving her past. She talks about how quarter-demons have it particularly rough in life, which is understandable, but how many quarter-demons could there be?
I was a bit annoyed that the only reason Setsuna and Towa wanted to go with Moroha is so they could mooch off of her bounty. It doesn’t even make much sense because the amount to set the Dream Butterfly’s bounty was the same as Konton’s bounty, but if they all went on the mission, they’d have to share the money, meaning Towa wouldn’t have enough to pay Jyubei.
Why is Setsuna even going if she’s sick of Towa’s Dream Butterfly nonsense?
The battles were pretty alright, and I’m glad we finally got a battle with a Peril without defeating it, even if he did Naraku them.
Next time, conjoined twin demons possess Towa and Setsuna and steal their rainbow pearls so they can fight each other to the death.
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