[TF RyuShin]

Okay so ep 39... If I'm being frank, it wasn't as good as ep 38 was but it was much better than ep 37 for its plot progression and some of its characters' moments. The best part of this episode hands down for how they handled Gai post-redemption. Obviously it's understandable and an imperative for ANYONE not to immediately forgive Gai for all of his sins. But the cute part of this was how the show used Thouser dog as Gai's chain in morality and behavior. The scene where Gai apologized to Fuwa and Yua were alright but it was Thouser, who made puppy eyes to Gai, skyrocketed the scene into nebulous. Like obviously Gai bowed in apologize for them but Thouser insisted Gai to make a 'dogeza'. That's just... I really can't speak too much about it. That's almost he same amount of hilarity and craziness, like when Shouichi challenged Hikawa in a tennis with a frypan. Even everyone on Aims were having trouble focusing because Gai was playing with Thouser in the background. Like Die said, if this was solely an episode of Gai's tour for apology, I would not complain at all.

My biggest gripe in this episode was, unlike Die, I think the show or Takahashi made a slight weird step that lower my expectation for the Ark's calculation. I do like that Ark had some predictions about Gai joining force with Aruto. That's like one instance in the Xth amount of calculation that Ark had but such probability was so small that he didn't expect such thing to happen. I actually like this aspect where the Ark was only taken aback and let a guard down because some small percentage of surprising events like that.

What I don't like was how the show portrayed the Ark as an omnipotent future-calculating machine by manipulating... Aruto and Ikazuchi. The two characters who, unfortunately, might be not the best one in the brain. Aruto, of course, put his heart more to action than his thought and don't forget how Ikazuchi was easily puppeteered by Mestubojinrai without even realizing it. Obviously manipulating both of them were too easy, so to have the Ark HAD to explicitly said they were gullible was disappointing. Even someone who is scared and traumatized by the Ark like Jin obviously felt something amiss when Ikazuchi arrived. Like I don't think it was special for Ark to say he outwits some random citizen than a chessmaster. Even Gai and Co. managed to figure out Ark's intention with little clue they had. Unfortunately the episode painted my expectation for the Ark in the worse light. It felt like a simple villain who took leverage on someone like Banjo and said it was the most amazing thing he could muster. The Ark gained control Zea was good but I wish there was more wits to it than simply portraying Aruto for the Nth time where he was dancing right in the villain's palm.