Arcana Famiglia’s second entry waters down the action, taking a more gradual path towards the grand tournament much awaited – sentiments settle, and the character necessities are essentially reiterated.
Opening the episode is a quick scene highlighting a time gone by – a flashback of when the heroine, best remembered as merely the generic Italian reference for females, “Bambina” as a certain character calls her, first arrives to the Arcana Famiglia. At the time, she did literally have an essence and appearance of a “princess” as she’s frequently referred as. She had a grace as delicate as a flower, something which she does indeed still have – although with much less delicacy now that she’s gotten into blades and kicks.
Bambina, however, made the decision of joining the Arcana Famiglia herself – she choose to escape a regular girl’s life of fragility of her own accord. Yet now, even that being the case, and even having ascended into the rank of sword master, she recalls the words of her father telling her that as she currently is, she’s not able to have the freedom she seeks. And perhaps to serve as a symbolic representation of herself, her and the blonde and blue haired similarly aged members of her harem find a lost neko.
A mission to locate the residence of the neko then accounts for basically the entirety of the episode – proving a rather subtle portion, although still with some key details. A main item to mention is that Bambina has trouble controlling her supernatural abilities – she can see into the hearts of others, although it seems she has a tendency to fall to its whim. Being unable to control her capabilities at will, they will sporadically show her sights of other individuals’ inner-feelings – something which may offend the relevant individual.
Others aside however, she’s of course also not pleased in knowing she’s lacking in mastery of a crucial trait.
And on another note, her lack of control over her arcana’s arcane skill seems to frequently upset the blue haired male tsundere kid – who is then met in debate by the blonde. However, that’s simply how it is – and our heroine hasn’t much else option but to improve in using her skills, something which she hopes to do indeed.
Now ideally, the next episode will carry some more relevant development – the main character trio need to undergo progress in these areas they keep pointing out, as of course, otherwise they’re just mentioning things and not even taking care of it themselves, which would be silly, as well as grounds for a not-so-great series which hasn’t gone anywhere in a plot it jumped to introduce itself.
Yet as for now however, all is fine – perhaps the best method to describe this episode’s center is that the heroine reassessed the situation, determining a different tactic is required to counter her father instead of making futile efforts of kicking him. That certainly doesn’t make this episode much on its own, and it’s not – yet if those episodes to follow manage to subsequently build on this ripe foundation, it could turn out quite successful.
Jul 8, 2012 @ 18:53 CDT
Other then Bambina, Debito is the character I’m looking forward to seeing the most :3
Jul 8, 2012 @ 19:05 CDT
I like how his voice sounds suspicious..