It’s time to see the Queen…

What They Say:
Annelotte has made up her mind. She will visit with Queen Claudette to find out what she really desires. If it will cause more harm to the people she will take the Queen down, easier said than done.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While there’s been some background stuff going on at times about how the Queen’s rule has been causing problems in the lands, it hasn’t been too direct overall. We’ve had a lot of smaller stories about people doing things that are problematic, but the main problem we’ve seen is what Ymir has been doing, which has given the impression that she’s the one that’s really running the show. There’s a chaotic evil kind of feel about her and what she does, which makes her an unusual but not unsurprising choice for Queen Claudette to have in her employ. But with the way events have gone, we now have Annelotte firmly deciding to question the Queen outright about things and to see what her true intentions are. It’s always just so easy to question power, isn’t it?

While Annelotte is figuring out how to approach the Queen, events with the Queen and Ymir are getting a bit more interesting as one of the angels has arrived to find out what’s going on in the kingdom. What’s being revealed is that the Swamp Witch’s power is expanding quite a bit, which is one of the things that the Queen is supposed to prevent. With that not being done, it pushes the idea that a new Queen’s Blade must be put into effect in order to set the situation right. But Ymir, ever crafty, has worked quite the scenario up to ensure that the Queen stays where she is, as befitting the Iron Strategist. Ymir has her own reasons for a lot of things here and using the Swamp Witch is likely one of them.

While the angel searches for the Wandering Warrior in order to firm up what must be done to deal with the Queen, Annelotte and her group are working their way to figuring out how to get into the castle. It really doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of brainpower here, which is kind of mean to say, but it also feels pretty true. Of course, Ymir is always ready for them and there’s a fun trap setup that splits them up and sets them against some powerful opponents, with Annelotte going up against the newly powered up Aldara. The match-ups provided here does give the show a bit of action, which was light for a lot of it, and a sense of importance about it as it feels like there’s something at stake with it all. It does slide some humor into it as well, especially with the things that Aldara has to work with.

In Summary:
While the first half of the episode is more about putting the right pieces into place for what’s to come going into the next part, the second half gives us the big action with some fun fanservice to sell it all just right. The show gives us a few different characters to work with here, including an angel finally getting involved and reacting to what’s been going on since Ymir has caused a lot of trouble. We also get to see Annelotte and her group make some forward progress and we even see Annelotte herself go through an intriguing change that at long last actually makes me interested in the character. The show definitely has some good things going for it, but it still feels like it’s structure and pacing has been awkward and not smooth enough to draw you into it well, largely due to the size of the cast that has to be attended to. Here it slims down a bit by having several of them in a group, but you know more are still ready to swing into action.

Grade: C+

Streamed By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.