Touma and company try to stop Bishop Biagio and save Agnese.
Major ice golem FAIL.
Summary:
Angelene is hurt by the falling ice but isn't in mortal danger. Lucia and the Amakusa stay to hold off the battle nuns, and this allows Touma, Index and Orsola to board the flag ship using the Amakusa's bridge spell. The flag ship doesn't have any battle nuns, but Touma's trio are quickly confronted by ice golems. Touma and the girls run into the ship and split up with Touma drawing off the golems. After losing the golems in the chase, Touma is confronted by Biagio himself who uses the magical crosses on his necklaces to attack. After a brief battle, Biagio buries Touma under a pile a large crosses.
Is it that hard to hold your right hand up to catch the second cross?
Meanwhile, Index and Orsola make their way to the entrance to the central chamber where they are confronted by more ice golems. Index draws away the golems, and Orsola enters the chamber to find Agnese standing beside the spherical magical apparatus related to the Queen of the Adriatic spell. Orsola tells Agnese to escape with her, but Agnese decides it's time to do the "why save me? I'm better off dead" act which allows Biagio to get back to the chamber. Biagio then proceeds to explain that the Queen of the Adriatic spell can be used to destroy any city, and he is going to use it on Academy City. After Biagio attacks Orsola, Agnese seems ready to fight and picks up her staff (which Orsola was carrying), but Biagio easily restrains her and Orsola with his gravity spell.
First with the right hand...
...then surprise: Touma can actually punch with his left hand.
At this moment, Touma shows up and punches Biagio in the face. Touma then proceeds to talk about how to destroy the magical device, but Biagio activates the chamber's self destruct which puts Agnese in a lot of pain. Orsola carries Agnese away, and Touma stays behind for one final battle with Biagio. Biagio launches crosses big and small at Touma, but Touma manages to deflect/destroy most of them and punches Biagio in the chest which destroys Biagio's remaining crosses along with the self destruct explosion. However, the flagship itself is damaged and sinks into the sea, but Touma is rescued and taken to a local hospital. At the hospital, Index hands Touma his phone with Heaven Canceler on the line, and the frog faced doctor orders Touma to return to Academy City since it'd bad if another hospital examined his body. Heaven Canceler also tells Touma that Mikoto wanted to remind him of his "punishment" which prompts Touma to scream that he doesn't want to go back.
Right in the sternum... actually that would hurt pretty bad.
Some time later in England, Kaori is in her room on the phone talking to Motoharu, and Motoharu once again teases Kaori about owing Touma another favor and suggests that Kaori dress up as fallen angel maid to pay Touma back. Kaori hangs up on Motoharu, but she entertains Motoharu's suggestion by standing in front of her reflection on a fish tank and holding a plate above her head to visualize. Kaori's fantasizing is interrupted when Orsola returns with Agnese in tow.
Oh Kaori, why are you listening to Motoharu?
Somewhere within the Vatican, a person from God's Right Seat orders the Pope to sign a document authorizing the investigation of Touma Kamijo and his assassination if need be.
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Not a bad finale to the story arc, but it wasn't particularly good either. Nothing major to complain about, but plenty of small issues. There was plenty of action, but the ice golems were laughable (the first getting stuck at the entrance and then stabbed by the next golem was hilarious), and Biagio's cross tossing wasn't exactly visually impressive. He had some attacked that worked, but Touma was able to punch him out without too much difficulty at the end. Touma was pretty dumb during the first battle though. He could have easily just held out his right hand to stop the falling crosses, but instead he tries to swing at the crosses and ends up getting hit. And of course, Touma still never checks whether if the enemy is actually knocked out; as long as the enemy falls down, Touma and all his friends will ignore the enemy until the enemy regains footing.
Animation quality seemed to have taken a major dip in the latter part of the episode especially when it came to character faces. Touma just didn't look right during the second half battle against Biagio, and then Kaori looked weird in the ending scene. Kaori was cute though at the end when she was fantasizing about repaying Touma with Motoharu's suggestion.
Being the focus of this arc, Agnese was pretty disappointing this episode. I don't get why she was stalling on Orsola and then suddenly decided to stand up a fight after Biagio attacked Orsola, but what was worse was that Agnese was defeated so easily without even launching a single attack. I guess the task of beating up the bad guy has to be left to Touma. They also didn't explain how Touma was able to destroy wall and floor panels on the flagship but not able to do anything on the other ships, but perhaps explaining it might be even worse.
So in the end, this arc was about another kooky Roman Catholic magician trying and failing to destroy Academy. Given the last scene in the Vatican, these Roman Catholic related story arcs are building up to something bigger and hopefully better.
From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
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