[Frontier]

Yeah, I think they tried to make the best of a bad situation with these COVID recap specials and also tried to make it as fun and as interesting as they could.

Like, props to Noa Tsurushima for portraying Not!Is playing the actual Is for Aruto's sake and trying to get information out from under him. She keeps breaking character in amusing ways to comment on what's happening and there's the growing dread as it gets more and more clear what she's after/really like, but her acting both in-universe and out is pretty great. And I like how Aruto slowly realizes something's wrong.

Also - if you're going to have your main villain played by a prominent seiyuu, you can't go wrong with Show Hayami. And just the fact that the first time we "hear" Ark is him directly addressing Aruto and laughing at him is...positively chilling.