“Are we dead yet?”

Summary:

The Arcana heads are called into an emergency meeting, because Nova’s father, the brother to Mondo, has been kidnapped by pirates. Felicita, Liberta and Nova take it upon themselves to go rescue him. They fail, and are transported back to the mansion, where they discover the kidnapping was a rouse to force Liberta’s powers to activate.

Impressions:

Everyone should have died this episode from sheer stupidity. Really. OK, I shouldn’t take it so seriously, but this was the first phase of the pre-test for the Arcana Duello, and the three of them bombed it.

First off, they decided to go aboard the pirate ship by themselves, without back-up as a way to prove themselves, but it turns out Dante managed to beat them down himself. The whole operation was sabotaged in the way that Liberta kept on reacting to Felicita being so close to him, and accidentally face-planting into her chest. I thought otome games would at least fall out of the shonen “boob” joke mode, but apparently it has invaded into Arcana Famiglia. Sigh…

As an upside we get to see the humanizing of Nova! This was the highlight of the episode, where Nova acknowledged that despite the way he put his dad into a coma, and how his father wanted to overthrow the family, he cared about him. This would not have been something I would have thought possible at the beginning of the show, but it sees the characters are slowly being developed. Where Nova lacks the ability to connect with others, but has control of his Arcana powers in spades, Liberta is accepted as a friendly sould, but has almost no control over his powers. They balance each other, and in this crossroads episode, both awaken to a new form of themselves. Nova has some bonding time with his comatose father, while Liberta saves Felicita from being crushed by a falling mast with his “word” power.

I may have some good things to say about development, but where is Felicita in all this? She gets herself beaten, and pretty damn tsundere the entire episode…and well, just…USELESS. Yeah, you heard it. She’s basically, the third wheel in all this, with Liberta and Nova taking all the highlights, and I’m left wondering if the show doesn’t care about her. Strength is not the same as character, unfortunately, and Felicita has neither.

All I learned was that it’s going to take a deus ex machina for them to even make it anywhere near the finals for the Arcana Duello.