[DreamSword]

Episode 12: The Daruma Fell Over

This episode tones down the crazy, but in a good way!

And when you get right down to it, this episode is a much better version of the Jiro episode we had not too long ago.

The primary meat of the episode is about establishing the character of Gauzer and how he's a dude who's super obsessed with doing things the "proper" way as a means to showcase how much better he is than everyone else.

And in that regard shows all of negatives aspects right at the forefront. In short that he's a pretentious manipulator, and that while he and Eri do end up having feelings for one another, Gauzer is by no means a good guy nor does he ever intend to treat Eri well.

But beside that, the character interactions in this episode are top notch, and mostly from Akira. Him being able to near instantly recognize Gauzer as a fake, as well as him belittling Gauzer for fun make for some top notch stuff. Hayami and Eri are no slouches either though, with their own personalities on full display and never once going out of character.

I can see the ending of the eventual fight between Gauzer and Changerion being a bit contentious for some, but I'm overall fine with it. Eri distracting Gauzer with the Daruma callout not only hammers in how she's done with him, but ties into Gauzer's' obsessive character flaw and also shows that Akira still has alot of growing to do before he can hope to win against Gauzer in a fair fight, which is in turn consistent with the workout session at the start of the episode.

Overall, this one was a fun watch full of solid character beats, and I dug it.