Code: Realize ~ Sousei no Himegimi Episode 5

Yikes, this episode was absolutely awful! Rushed from start to finish! It was so, so bad!!!!
Last week I voiced my concern about about Saint-Germain’s route potentially being spoiled, luckily they didn’t reveal too much, but you know whose route got spoiled the most: Victor!
And frankly speaking, it was cringe-worthy to watch.

***If you haven’t watched the episode yet, I strongly advise avoid it, because why spoil yourself over crappy execution? If possible, yourself a favour and play the game, or at least Victor’s Route before watching this.***

Now why did I dislike this episode? Well they basically jammed all of Victor’s key elements to his route into one episode, and even dropped some implications that doesn’t take a genius to figure out, so it could spoil other things. As someone who have already played the game, I felt awful for the viewers who haven’t. It’s one thing to spoil the story under great execution and it’s another to spoil in the worse way possible. And this was one of the worse ways possible!

Five minutes into the episode, and I could already sense this episode was going to be trouble. Pace? What pace? This episode was all over the place, and it didn’t help how the transitions and scenes were choppy too!

It’s sad how while Cardia and Victor had some rare one on one time, which was great and all, it didn’t feel like we as the audience, nor the characters, gained anything from it. It felt almost like a throw-away scene. Then they had the chase, which was okay, but when they arrived at the Buckingham palace, and that’s when I thought to myself, “Yikes… everything is out of whack.”

The entire episode was flat with virtually no substance whatsoever. This has a lot to do with the lack of build up to establish the depth and pain of Victor’s character! So when Victor confronts Queen Victoria and threatens her, or when he opens up to the group and reveals the truth how his creation of the Zicterium was responsible for taking many lives in the Vampire War, and played a major role in Isaac’s creation of the Horologium, it was rudely jammed into our face! They didn’t dedicate enough time to build up to this, so we could understand his pain. Furthermore, they DID NOT have to drop the bomb in regards to him having been involved with the Horologium’s creation. They could have left that piece out, and save it for later… you know, AFTER *THAT* event which will take place in either Episode 7 or 8. (Quick Note: I can’t remember if Victor reveals this detail sooner in Lupin’s route, so please correct me if I’m wrong!)

And seriously I was quite disappointed about how lackluster his negotiation with Victoria was! She is supposed to be a powerful, intimating lady, but all we got was a watered down rushed version of their conversation. There was zero tension, NONE! Certainly didn’t help how Victor did not sound or feel threatening at all! (I mean it’s obvious he wouldn’t do it, but still, come on! You can do better, I know you can!)

Literally, the only saving grace of this episode was Cardia just being the badass cutie she is. Looks harmless, but can actually do shit besides kill you with her poison. She spotted Victor sneaking out in attempt to negotiation with Victoria on his own, so what did she do? She followed him and saved him when he didn’t see a soldier behind him and knocked the dude out! The girl is so quick-witted that she was already working to remove the soldiers clothes since she understood Victor wanted to use the uniform to sneak into the palace.

Man, after this, I feel like Van’s episode was so much better…. I really hope they don’t repeat the same mistake in next week’s episode with Impey. The guy already hardly gets any good treatment to begin with…