Going into this episode, I was curious to see how everything was going to be wrapped up, or whether it could even be done at all. Could all of the plot threads be tied off, and all my remaining questions answered? Well, the answer is kind of. Some things I found were left unknown, but given the way this episode ended I’m thinking they’re leaving it open for another season.
So the Giant Warrior from the Fifth Ruin, piloted by El Fajula with Hayes, is still headed towards the Royal Capitol. In the skies above, Lux is slicing through the insurgent Drag-Rides like a fist through styrofoam as he makes his way closer to Ragreed. The purple-haired psychopath manages to slice off an arm of Lux’s Drag-Ride, revealing it was only masquerading as Bahamut. Ragreed is furious as he streaks after Lux, who by now has summoned the real Bahamut, and Ragreed is promptly sliced to pieces by our Weakest Hero.
Lux goes to rescue Lisha, and he is just in the nick of time as her captors are around to forcibly strip her in order to see her tattoo. Lisha is grateful but feels horrible about what happened at the All Dragon Battle, and Lux coaxes her out of her pity party for one by saying he needs her help. Of course she agrees to help him.
Back up in the sky, the duo tag team an attack on the Giant Warrior, and with the help of Krulcifer and Philuffy they are able to knock it over and freeze it to the ground. With the massive creature temporarily subdued, Lux asks Philuffy and Krulcifer to take care of the rebel soldiers in the city while he and Lisha fight Hayes. Saniya threatens the nobles in the castle, but Celes takes her out. Lisha and Lux agree that Lisha will distract Hayes while Lux tries to find a way into the Giant Warrior so he can disable it for good.
Well he doesn’t find a hidden entrance, but rather instead he finds Yoruka. They try to reason with each other, but neither backs off and they are forced to fight on the skin of the Giant Warrior. Lux gets Yoruka emotional by talking about her little brother, and uses that momentary lapse in concentration to defeat her in battle. There is a brief flash of what her little brother looked like, so I can cross off my theory from the last episode about Yoruka being related to Hayes.
While their battleground of choice was beautiful and aptly fitting (the red higanbana flowers are sometimes known as the “flower of death”), their conversation during this scene reveals that Lux destroyed the old Arcadia Empire because he’d wanted to help change the country, and destroying it alone was the best way he could think of. Well it’s simple, but effective. Not a whole lot of mystery there.
Lux reunites with Lisha in time for them to watch the Giant Warrior start to launch a massive energy attack which would annihilate the city. At the last moment however, the stone giant shuts down; inside, Yoruka has sliced the magical sphere powering the Giant Warrior in half. Guess whose loyalties have flipped again? Now all who’s left to deal with is Hayes.
Hayes, who is rather crazed by this point and is starting to channel his inner Dilandau, launches an attack at Lisha which overpowers her Drag-Ride and leaves 
her falling out of the sky. Lux quickly dispatches Hayes with a superpowered Reload on Fire, knocking him into the head of the Giant Warrior with a massive explosion. Lux swoops down in time to catch Lisha and carry her to safety.
Flash forward to the last night of the National Foundation Festival, and Lisha is making her announcements. She reveals that Lux has accepted her offer to be his Knight, and she asks the people to judge them based on their actions from that point onward, not what happened to the kingdom in the past.
After her speech, Lux and Lisha share a quiet moment inside the castle. Lux spots his older brother Fugil, who flashes his younger brother a maniacal grin before leaving quietly. Lux chooses to say nothing about this sighting to Lisha. Then Lisha says that because Lux is now her knight, they have to “deepen their friendship”, which means that his entire fanclub naturally takes this moment to show up to tease Lux about how they want him to be theirs. Even Airi has decided to join Lux’s personal harem. *gag* They get Lux more and more riled up until he has another freakout. Some things never change!
~*~
My thoughts: Well, we’re finally done. I can’t say that I’m happy about this, but neither am I sad. This was the first ecchi other than Golden Boy which I’ve watched from start to finish, so I tried to keep my expectations somewhat reigned in. I knew going into it that there was going to be nudity and sexual stuff, so I couldn’t whine too much about that. How did the rest of the show stack up in my book?
Story: I feel like the first six episodes were pretty light on plot, while most of the action was packed into the latter half of the series. While this isn’t a huge deal, it did feel like the last 2-3 episodes had so much crammed into them that things were inevitably left out. Then again, if a second season is planned, that might also be why some details were omitted from this season. So I guess overall I had some issues with the pacing, but the story itself still drew me in.
Characters: I’m on the fence with this one. Anyone who’s read these reviews knows that I can’t stand Lisha, but I liked or tolerated the rest of the cast. I even came to like Philuffy, despite her slightly vapid personality. I think my favourite character was Lux, with Krulcifer in a close second.
I was a little confused with why the opening animation shows Lux and Lisha as being relatively close, but during the show they never really ignited that magical spark. I was relieved that he didn’t start fawning all over her in this last episode, because that would be really out of the blue and (in my opinion) out of character for him. Since I’m unfamiliar with harems, is it somewhat common for the main character to not pick a definitive romantic interest by the end of the season?
Music & Animation: The animation was overall pretty quality, but there were moments when it got a little derpy. Faces would look a little odd from a zoomed out shot, or proportions weren’t quite right. And I wasn’t a huge fan of the character designs, although I realize that makes me a bit of a hypocrite because the main reason for this dislike was their noses, and yet I’m a huge fan of the Escaflowne TV series… ^^;; It grew on me by the end of the season, but it’s still not my favourite look.
The music was alright. The show itself had some decent themes, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the opening and ending songs (“Hiryuu no Kishi” by TRUE and “Lime Tree” by nano.Ripe, respectively). I’m thinking of hunting down some of the tracks played during the battle scenes, as those were scored nicely.
Overall Thoughts: I didn’t enjoy this as much as Akagami no Shirayukihime 2, but Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut wasn’t a horrible show either, especially for an ecchi. In between the nudity and the action, there was some romance and lots of comedy. I’m interested to see if there’s a second season, because while I probably won’t blog it, I would consider watching it.
Final Score: 7.5/10
Yeah it rare in harems for a concrete lead to be picked but I really liked this show it was enjoyable but totally forgettable lol
Ah ok, thanks good to know! 🙂
It’s overwhelmingly common for the main character to not pick a girl by the end of the season, it’s a harem after all – there’s still a lot more of the story, so there’s no way they’ll do anything conclusive. And it might alienate would-be buyers who don’t think that the chosen girl is best girl. School battle harem adaptations are often made as a hook to get people to read and buy the source light novel, and very rarely are second seasons ever produced because the anime’s sole job was advertisement. An exception that comes to mind is Infinite Stratos, but that was surprisingly well-made and people weren’t so weary of the same plot over and over and over (and over) again back in 2011 or whenever it was. And it’s second season was crap, anyway.
Bahamut was okay. It was by itself in its genre this season (last season there were three, arguably four) so it was less divisive and started fewer arguments or comparisons. The girls were cute, I liked YES (whatever her name is). If you want more of this sort of thing you can find one or two if you look back at past seasons, almost every season for the past 4-5 years. And there’s Hundred next season (next week, more like) along with the second cour of Asterisk. Those will be pretty much the same thing except with higher budgets.
Akagami no Shirayukihime is on a totally different level as a show, so I’m not surprised you liked that better!
Yeah, it’s not a completely fair comparison, I just meant in overall terms of whether or not I liked it. (Because if I were to compare say, Golden Boy to Shirayuki in terms of how much I enjoyed it, they’d be pretty equal. And Golden Boy is *definitely* an ecchi.)
I’m also covering Hundred this season, so I’m curious to see how it will compare to Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut. 😉 Ecchi versus ecchi, fight!
Thanks for your comments on what a harem is usually like. I’ll make sure to adjust my expectations for Hundred. I wish my Japanese was good enough to read light novels, because there are some I would read in a heartbeat.
Golden Boy is its own unique series though. It falls within the ecchi genre but can also stand up for itself with its own plot and themes and characters. Bahamut is the kind of ecchi which is also a school battle harem, and thus it’s one of those cookie-cutter shows where a supposedly weak but actually super-strong MC is surrounded by girls which fall into the same archetypes each time, with each series being a light novel adaptation that most often starts with the MC accidentally perving on the main girl (often a tsundere, and sometimes also a princess with a fiery personality that can control flames) and being challenged to a duel by them (and if they lose they have to become the girl’s slave or servant or grant them a wish). There have been so many of these that are now so cookie-cutter that you can only differentiate them by their production values, how likeable the girls are and whether the source material is any good.
That said, Hundred is better than Bahamut from what I’ve read of it! It appears to shake things up a little to keep itself entertaining while not deviating from its harem core.
*bows down to your immense anime knowledge*
Nah, I’ve just watched too many battle harems. They were easy to digest at first, but recently I’ve been skipping over them more and more each season.