“Everyone has an opinion as to what’s right or wrong. We will never see eye-to-eye on that, but everyone wants to be a little happier than they currently are.“
Summary: As Young Merchant learns that the Church intends to install a new currency to counter his efforts to monopolize the wheat supplies, Winter King is informed that an army from the Demon Realm emerged from the portal and intends to attack from the south. Hero then departs to confront the demons alone, allowing the Southern Alliance to focus on the incoming invasion from the north and much to his surprise, he reunites with Female Magician on the way there. Meanwhile in the Demon Realm, the Queen emerges from the chamber possessed by the spirits of the ancient Demon Lords and Chief Maid manages to push her back inside, despite having one arm cut off by her. Young Merchant, accompanied by Fire Dragon Princess exposes to Merchant Youngster his intention to have the Southern Nations establish their own currency and extend his trade up to the Demon Realm. In the occasion, Fire Dragon Princess reveals her true self to him, and that she is an envoy from the Demons. The central armies send a mercenary force in front to fight the entrenched southern forces, just to be defeated by the advanced tactics Warrior Youngster learned from Crimson Scholar. Upon learning of the situation, Female Magician instructs Hero to destroy the magic portal linking both realms after drives away the entire enemy force by having all of them teleported away at once. Passing through the hole created by the explosion, Hero arrives at the Demon Realm and realizes that both Realms are actually located in the same world, like two sides of a coin. As Female Knight moves on with her plan to have the local peasants offer spoiled fodder to sicken the Central Army’s horses and hinder their plans, Hero finally reaches the Queen, just to be attacked by her possessed self.
The episode begins with the Merchant and the Dragon Princess going to see the financial minister to deal with some more complicated money issues and further propel the story into a more complicated and alluring end. Is it just me or do the Merchant and the Dragon Princess look really go together? I’m thinking that the Merchant should just give up trying to get with the Demon Queen and instead pursue a love life with the fire breathing demon babe? Yeah, that would be nice. Anyway, I’m not going to go into all the financial stuff because A. it’s boring, B. it’s kinda complicated and C. I struggle enough every episode as it is trying to keep up with the story. As I said in episode 10’s review, the story (more like anything involving economics and the Alliance) is really complicated. I struggle to understand what’s going on because I spend most of the time trying to decipher what the hell is going on. Surely I’m not the only one finding it a problem? The show goes from moments of complicated plots and plans to action scenes that equally make no sense because A. they aren’t explained thoroughly enough and B. they aren’t explained thoroughly enough, but I digress… I think it’s really awesome that all of the Demon Queen’s students have found their place in the world, I mean, we’ve pretty much seen them grow over the course of the series and it’s good to see them prospering and having a say in how the world around them is run. Even thought they’re a side plot, I feel as though they add a lot to the show and the same goes for those all important technological advancements. It gives the show a ‘human’ feel and adds an element of realism. But I digress (again), the Merchant’s plan (yes, I’m finally back to the real point) is pretty darn good. BASICALLY: (if you did don’t worry! I almost missed it too…) he plans to ‘end’/prevent the war for developing any further by forming massive global supply chains, supply chains that would dissuade the leaders of the opposing factions to reconsider their stance on the war. This harkens back to the Demon Queen’s point in episode 1, nobody (the world leaders) wants the war to end because the benefits outweigh the advantages, by giving the leaders the reason to end the war (a.k.a the benefits would be equally as good if they ended the war) the Merchant can… well you know, end the war. Trade between the Demon and Human worlds has always been the Demon Queens dream and I look forward to (hopefully) seeing it come to fruition. ALSO! The Dragon Princess looked really cute in this episode… just saying…
Let’s talk about the Female Magician shall we? When this episode began this was basically my thought process: ‘I wonder if we’re ever going to see
the Female Magician? Like, seriously, we’re ten episode in (eleven if you count that unimportant ‘9.5 episode’) and she still hasn’t appeared? What was the point of introducing her? Surely she can’t be so important that they leave her until the last episode… I dunno… Actually, no, I don’t even care anymore, screw this damned mage!. Yeah, my inner monologues are awesome… Moving swiftly on – When I saw the Female Magician – STOP RIGHT THERE! What the hell? Since when can the Hero FLY? What is this? I don’t think that we have EVER seen him fly before… teleportation’s one thing but flying? Where did he even learn to fly? Who gave him this ability? Why was it not explained? If I just got up and flew out of the window I’m sure my neighbors would want some kind of explanation, I mean come on! The pacing in this show is really iffy and it’s way too late to sort it out. I guess it’s not all bad though… Anyway, the Female Magician – STOP! Why are there three of her? Does she have some sort of multiple personality disorder? What is going on?! Why hasn’t this been explained! I mean for God’s sake, surely something as important as ‘The Female Magician is for some reason switching between persona’s seamlessly and has for some unknown reason decided to appear’ should have been addressed by now? It just annoys me how they’re doing this… I guess I should move on… One good aspect of her 
reappearance was that we got to see her and the Hero finally interact. Her magic is awesome, her random angry outbursts are funny and to be honest, she could have done with some more screen time but that’s not really a problem. I just wish that they would explain things in more detail… Now when the Hero destroyed the Gate two things were going through my mind: A. why? and B. why? Was it really necessary? Some people would say it was necessary so that he could reach the Demon Queen’s castle in time, but we’ve seen him reach it before, he knows how to get there – was it really necessary for him to DESTROY the Gate between their worlds? Surely someone will fix it right? And on a final note before I move on… Wow… The Hero’s indignation is really something… When the Female Knight said that he could take on an entire army I thought she may have been over exaggerating but seeing this… Wow…
On another note, let’s talk about the (I guess) smaller, less ‘threatening’ war. It’s cool to see some more action and I have to admit, some of the fight scenes were pretty darn awesome BUT let’s be honest here, the Central Nation’s armies leaders must be really dumb to accept wine and other such gifts from THE ENEMY on the eve of battle. Fine, maybe they might be thinking that it’s the Southern Triad’s attempt to put off battle, but still! Come on…
Now to the bigger, better and all important final point – the evil Demon Queen. I’ll be honest, when I saw her step out of the chamber I was (at first) kinda confused as to what was going on – it just seemed so anti-climactic. I soon realized though that something was wrong and I couldn’t have been more right! When the Demon Queen attacked the Head Maid I was like ‘WHOA’ and then when she sliced her arm off I was like ‘WHOA!’. The scream that the Head Maid gave as her arm was removed is enough to give me nightmares. It sent shivers up my spine. I love it when an anime can make me feel that way. The only problem I have with his ‘mind controlled Demon Queen’ thing, is that it seems so cliche and lazy. This whole dilemma acts as the prelude to what I had presumed would be an awesome ending but alas it may not be so. I’m almost certain that the Hero will save her and it will be a happy ever after… that’s not what I wanted from this anime. It’s been consistently clever with it’s plot throughout the entire series, keeping me on my toes at all time, but when it comes to the ending they use cheap tricks to ‘ramp up the drama’ and set up the final episode? There are so many questions left unanswered and so many things left to do and I have to wonder… will they get it all done in time? One more episode. Let’s see how it goes.
