Suzuka’s racing for Souta’s life!

What They Say:
In every decade or hundreds of years, the dragon moves its body as if it tosses about unconsciously. The movement becomes the distortion and causes impurity. This “impurity” lavishes an evil on people.　And now, there is a huge indication of a distortion. Gods foresaw the greatest harm would happen to Japan, divide own power and give it off as a messenger of God (“Shinshi”) in Japan to gather mediums, or “Magica” who can expel the “impurity”. With the magical weapon the power of Gods, “Magica” will fight to stop evils in Japan.”

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Suzuka’s arc has been decent overall so far, though it’s again falling into the weak category for me just from a design perspective and then being all about the motorcycle racing, which doesn’t appeal much to me in either story or visual. Here, we see Suzuka chasing Souta, not realizing the agreement he’s made, and going through quite a few spins and obstacle sbefore she can get to him. Souta’s reasoning certainly works enough for what he wants to do since he doesn’t want to stop racing, but the cost is beyond his understanding. Suzuka has enough reason to do what she can to save him as the sibling relationship is obviously important, and she goes about it well enough, even if it feels cut short and ends with a comical note in that regard.

In Summary:
There’s a sort of accepting nature to things here as we see how Souta has to shift back to real life after Suzuka’s rescue and while it has its positive side to it, it also feels like a point where going to the mundane is promoted more than finding a way to keep chasing your dream. Both points have their place to be sure, but this arc and this ending leaves a bit of a sour taste in my mouth over what it may be trying to say versus what I think it’s saying.

Grade: B-

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.