[DreamSword]

Episode 2: Luke

As the title might suggest, this episode introduces us to the Makai Alchemist of the season, Luke.

He's the polar opposite of Sword: Taking his job incredibly seriously and being very distant from the people around him. He also specializes in firearms: The sniper rifle especially, which gave me serious Outlaw Star vibes due to the magic bullets.

Despite his aloof nature though, there still manages to be some rather nice character interaction on his part. While he doesn't say much, his body language says all it needs to, such as his active annoyance at Sword's' personality and how it results in Luke himself having to wipe the memories of the masses.

Sword is no slouch in this department either though, as while it was already obvious how he was very much different from Leon and Raiku of GARO anime past, his difference in philosophy to Leon and the first anime especially are highlighted with one single line: "You can't protect something you don't make an effort to understand."

Ontop of that, the episode very much improves on the gripes I had about the first episode. This one has a very noir-esque atmosphere to it that I rather dug, and the action, while technically more simplistic than that of episode 1, was alot more stylish and had no shakey-cam, which in turn resulted in the action climax being way more fun to watch for me. Heck, just seeing how Luke mixes his spells with practical technology was really cool to see.

So, yeah. This episode was alot more my speed than the first one was, and I think that's a good sign for future episodes to come.