I’d tend to guess too that it’s something conceptual. At this point, I expect that I won’t figure it out and will be surprised when (if) it’s revealed, but then it will fall neatly into place and make perfect sense.

I keep thinking this series can’t possibly be as good as I’ve come to believe it to be - that I’m somehow building it up in my mind in the time between episodes. But then another new episode will drop and prove again that it really is that good.

I can’t even really pick out anything specific to comment on, since it was all so good - Asa’s lonely rage, Makio’s crunch time distraction immediately replaced by genuine concern, Emiri’s help and Sensei’s unexpected but sensible relief to find out she was only skipping, Shingo’s perfect support, Makio’s unwavering honesty, and of course Asa’s breakthrough.

Everybody cares and everybody pays attention and even though none of them really know what they’re doing, they sort it out anyway, and it touches me like almost nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Razlo the Tri-Punisher of Death? Seriously?

It was actually fairly decent until then. Vash’s defiance of Knives was impressive (much better than his capitulation last episode) and Elendira appears to be starting to figure out that Knives is just a power-mad psychopath who actually couldn’t care less about his “brethren.” We’re moving toward the showdown, and it’ll be interesting to see how the alliances shape up.

For me, this has now graduated from “better than I thought it might be” to “actually pretty good in its own right.”

It’s still an unusual combination of genres - sort of intrigue/yuri/CGDCT/action/SOL - so it’s likely not for everyone, and it’s not groundbreaking by any stretch, but it’s consistently entertaining and the overarching plot is coming together nicely.

Dein’s backstory was a bit of a surprise, but it goes some way toward explaining how he operated with relative impunity. And Ottilie was a good, and amusing, addition to the cast, and hopefully to Flum’s party. Plus I’m sort of weak to twin drills, and especially in red.

And most importantly as far as I’m concerned - I’m already looking forward to the next episode.