I had a feeling this was going to happen with Jeanne and I am glad the writers chose to turn her into a demon this way:  her execution by the king rallies up the people to revolt against him puts Jeanne into a rather awkward position that tests her bravery as a knight or even a human.  She’s now at the forefront of the entire series here from an honest knight to a lowly demon being burned on at the stake for a crime she didn’t commit.  We also get to see who is behind the cloak: Martinet.

A demon under the orders of Beelzebub.  The fire scene where the visions of angels that Jeanne sees depicts how far Martinet was able to go in manipulating her and creating another demon under their command.  I knew I recognized his voice–  Ferdinand of Space Dandy Episode 21 and one of my favorite voices from earlier this year in Ping Pong The Animation of pong player to beach enthusiast Egami!  Great casting job here, and it’s this character that sure had some strange quirks for being a teacher to Amira!

Amidst the chaos that was going on within the city:  Favaro, Kaisar and Amira end up getting captured by Beelzebub that finally reunites one of the most emotional scenes we’ve had between Amira and her mother!  The only part of this I didn’t like was how setup Amira was as a pawn in the hands of Martinet controlling and creating memories within her. Beelzebub pulling out the demon side of her mother turning out to be Amira herself was quite the turnaround and what surprised even more was the fact that Favaro in order to protect his own hide requests to join them!  He never changes a bandit and thief always stays a bandit and thief just goes to show how good the story is at characterization!

Also I really like how well the episode director Atsushi Wakabayashi tied in a lot of themes and personality traits these characters have from the very beginning into this.  It’s no big surprise either that we had a really good episode here from the director of Guin Saga one of the best fantasy series in recent years.

Jeanne maintaining her duty completely deconstructed her character by what she thought were angels in the fire, Favaro’s consistent lying and betrayal transitions wonderfully into what happens to him after the credits and Rita’s incessant need to protect the young ones as she calls them depicts the wide-range of beings away from humans that there are in this series.  Azazel getting hit by Bacchus’ cart results in him being up tied up and making a deal with the zombie Rita illustrates the manipulation theme throughout this series.  All of these instances in the episode portrays a larger idea of how well these characters have been written in.  I’m impressed now.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 10/10

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