Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu Episode 12 [FINAL]

It’s the final episode! And gosh, I’m so happy with it.

Thanks to Yuri’s and the other mages arrival, they were able to make a safe retreat. Some may have been surprised to see them suddenly return to the town, but it makes sense given how badly everyone was overwhelmed by the fight. Even though Yuri and the mages were there, it was still far too dangerous to camp there. So we got a bit of time to see Sei practicing her Saint’s magic a bit more, and Yuri and Corina co-oping in their shenanigans of using Sei as a lab-rat. Corina just happens to be most polite and subtle about it, while Yuri pouts and shows no boundaries to personal spaces, haha!

Once they returned to the woods, much to my relief, that was when we finally got the fight we have been waiting for! After the lackluster and pitiful showing of the Western Woods, the battle in Klausner Woods was a great improvement. They kept the still-shots to the minimum, and finally focused on portraying the action we desired. Could they have done a bit more? Sure, but I’m satisfied with what we got. But I will admit, seeing it in action makes me feel a bit sad that the first expedition didn’t get this treatment. I’m grateful considering I honestly didn’t have a whole lot of faith that we would actually get it. That doesn’t sound very good, but I opted to keep my expectations in check just to avoid potentially being disappointed again.

During this expedition, we got the opportunity to see how Aira fared. For someone who was being sheltered so closely by Prince Kyle, she has proven she can really hold her own, and is pretty eager to be involved. She was given instructions to support Sei with the healing duties. But once they began to get overwhelmed by the monsters, we got to see Aira shift to engaging in the battle with water magic.

Since the battle proven to be a difficult one, it made it all the more critical for Sei to conserve her energy. Yuri wanted to make sure Sei had enough energy to purge the miasma swamp, so she needed to be smart about when she would the Saint’s Conjury. She did get a taste of how exhausting the process can be to cast the Saint’s Conjury repeatedly and over a large area when Yuri and Corina had taken her to the fields. So it proven to be essential for her to have control over her powers, especially since she was able to stop herself from instinctively casting it the moment she sees Albert get wounded.

Poor Albert had it rough again, but I do like that while he is strong, he isn’t some invincible character. He, like every other soldier will get wounded in battle, sometimes, even gravely. He got another hit on the shoulder when he had pushed Sei out of the way from a slime dropping onto her. I do have to laugh a bit that they chose to hit his shoulder again considering in the novel, it was actually his hand that got wounded (a nasty one too if I may add). Sei did heal him him to close the wound, but he got injured again and lost mobility of one of his arm because of it. He still managed to put up with with heck of a fight though. Goes to show you how tough he is. (Rest assure he’s been healed haha!)

We also got to see why Yuri is notoriously known as the Inferno Fiend. Normally he would show no restraint when it comes to burning down the woods, because obviously that proves to be an effective way of wiping out monsters. He probably would have done that from the start this time too, but since Sei wanted to spare the forest, he tried to abide to her wishes.

However the slimes have proven to be an interesting monster, as it actually consumed Yuri’s fight magic he used to swipe one off of Albert’s shoulder. It was quite amusing to see Yuri’s reaction when it crept up from behind. He went from “how thrilling” mood to “oh dear”, not with that much concern, but certainly recognized that this slime freaking evolved right before their eyes, and the mob is proving to be a real headache. It certainly doesn’t help how they are grossly problematic with the way they keep on dropping from above. In fact they were being overwhelmed so badly, that Yuri was hoping Sei could purge the swamp from a distance. Unfortunately she couldn’t which meant he had no choice but to cast the inferno, burning down Klausner Woods, just to get close enough to do it.

Of course there are already number of reasons why Sei didn’t want him to burn down the woods, but the most obvious one is because of the loss of the herbs that can only be found in those woods which could be crucial for various potions. That was why she wasn’t happy despite the fact they achieved their mission.

And I must say, I really liked this scene. While nobody died, losing the forest counts a great loss, and Sei wanted to go back to try and restore it, but hesitated to ask because she was worried about imposing others with her selfish wish. Albert gave her that nudge she needed when he told her he would like to pledge his sword to her, and help fulfill her wishes. It was such a sweet and earnest gesture from him, it just melted my heart.

Then comes the restoration scene, which I deeply regret not having the fourth volume in my hands yet to check (it doesn’t come out till freaking October) but at least in the web-novel edition, I don’t recall Albert taking her hands as he did here. Whether it was added or not, though it was a cheesy, it was sweet nonetheless. Also Yuri is totally only them now. (Though he would have to be seriously dense if he weren’t, since it’s SO FREAKING OBVIOUS!) It was pretty funny how close he wanted to observe Sei though.

Of course it didn’t end there! Since Sei collapsed from overexerting herself, Albert was carrying her like a Princess back to the camp. Now this scene, I remember in the web-novel edition.

Anyhow, now that the woods have been blessed, I suspect not only would monsters be unlikely to return there, but now whatever herb that grows there will have that 50% bonus effect! So in that respect, Klausner has a lot to gain from this. I suppose in that regard, they have to thank Yuri for that, hahaha!

And with the expedition in Klausner completed and the key to the Saint’s magic solved (THE POWER OF LOVEEEEEE), Sei and the others have returned to the Capital!

So how well did they adapt the Klausner Arc? Well, good enough I’d say. Considering the time constraints, it made sense to condense a number of conversations and development to be more time efficient. Credit is due for making it work as well as it did because I was quite nervous about how they were going to pull this off. Of all the things, I am mostly just thankful and relieved that they actually put some effort into Klausner Woods battle after how poorly they did with the Western Woods.

I also thought they were pretty smart with the way they executed the post-credit scene. It was a sweet, and offered enough closure to wrap up the adaption should this only be a one season thing. And should it get a second season in the future, there won’t be any problems to just start fresh at Volume 5. Whether there will be a second season is uncertain, but more time is needed since only the seventh volume came out in May. So if there is to be one, I imagine we won’t hear about it anytime soon. I for one would certainly welcome it since I really enjoyed watching this.

Final Thoughts

Man that was fun. Although I had my qualms about certain things, as a whole I really did enjoy this adaption. I first came across this series back in 2018 through fan translations, and I am delighted that the novel and manga has both been localized and it now even has an anime adaption! It’s certainly a good time to be a Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu fan!

Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu is a very relaxing series, making it perfect for anyone who is looking for something sweet to heal and sooth a tired heart. However it’s incredibly slow start can deter people from sticking around, as it takes about 4-6 episodes to really get the ball rolling. So it really does take a bit of patience. While those of us who has read the novels saw this coming, I think it would also be fair to say it turned to be a lot slower and somewhat less impactful then it should have been due to some questionable cuts and execution.

Now as much as I love this show to bits (flaws and all), I think a lot of us (novel readers) can agree, this adaption could have been much better. While there were some great additions and tweaks in the adaption, there were also some real questionable and frustrating cuts that were made. Many of these bizarre cuts didn’t have to happen, creating shortcomings that could have been avoided altogether.

Perhaps the most glaring one is an issue I have been pretty vocal about for the past few weeks: The Negligence of Albert’s character.

And maybe it was just me who feels this way, but for a guy who is not only a main character but is also Sei’s love interest, it was rather shocking how he somehow got the short end of the stick. Albert is a handsome, affectionate and even at times an adorable character that makes him easy to love. But unfortunately, for most part, that all we got to see. This was because they chose to cut out a number of scenes that would have given us opportunity to see different angles to his character, such as how he interacts with others while Sei isn’t present. Why they thought that would be okay to leave out them out almost entirely is beyond me.

Instead they decided to focus more on spoiling us rotten with making the most of all the fluffy scenes between him and Sei-– not that I am complaining. Not by the slightest and I mean it. Of course I enjoyed the swoon worthy moments when he would sing flowery praises to as easily as he breathes. Or how proactive he is when it comes to showing his affections, and making the effort to get to know Sei and isn’t shy with skinship. He has shown to be an affectionate and endearing type of lover, and frankly with the way he and Sei interact, there are times when they already feeling like a married couple. Frankly speaking, we don’t see these kind of goodies in anime often, period. In fact, it’s something I would like to see more of in general.

The fact they included most if not all of their scenes in the novel can be counted as a win in itself. (Except for the jealousy one, I felt they botched that one!) My favourite scene is still probably the dance practice, even though I nitpicked about a trivial re-arrangement of the dialogue placement, haha. Albert being all smooth and whispering in her ear, asjkdaskdhakjsdhasjkdh, excuse me while I scream.

And that is why I think these scenes could have been even more enjoyable if we had gotten the chance to get to know Albert a bit better. They adapted the bare minimum, watered down moments when his emotions were getting the better of him, or chose to exclude them entirely. By failing to show us these things, you could say they were only really letting us see one side of the ship, and the viewers who are experiencing this series for the first time deserve to experience it as a whole.

So if you fell in love with Sei x Albert, and want more, I strongly encourage you to read the novel and/or the manga. In fact the manga is doing a pretty darn good job of faithfully adapting it if I say so myself. (I’m collecting both books for that reason.) You will be able to see more sides to Albert’s character, adding the bit of depth that was missing here.

Another questionable decision I would like to point to was the decision to leave out what I think many novel/manga readers would agree was the best and most memorable scene in the first few pages of the book: Sei grabbing a nearby official to interrogate for answers.

It truly shocked me that they chose to cut this out when this scene alone. This was the moment it reeled me into the novel. Without it, the first episode wasn’t as fun as it could have been, and it lost an opportunity to create a more impactful moment for the audience to remember.

Leaving this out was more or less why the premiere ended up being a lot more quieter than anticipated. I found this to be a bit frustrating since I knew there was a whole lot more going on in Sei’s head. It wasn’t as though they didn’t have time for it, they just chose to take the quiet path. Eventually they did shift the focus to highlighting Sei’s personality properly, but they didn’t properly start doing that until episode 3. Frankly, it shouldn’t have taken them that long to begin with.

The last noticeable issue this adaption had was the overuse of Still-Shots. While they graced us with gorgeous animation and breathtaking visuals, they had bad habit of overusing them at times when we didn’t want to see them. In fact they loved them so much, you can’t go through an episode without a good chunk of ’em. This was somewhat understandable during the period where there were a lot of time jumps, but it didn’t take long before it became an overkill. But at times, what contributed to this problem lies in the the places and scenes that were opted to be left out altogether, circling us back to the questionable cuts.

The worst of it was when they chose to gloss over a lot of the Western Woods expedition in that manner. It one of the most anticipated events many of us were looking forward to, and for that to get shafted in that manner was a real bummer.

There was one other gripe I had, though this is strictly a personal pet-peeve. So this bears no impact of how I think of the adaption as a whole, but holy shit. The close-up of the (usually pink) glossy lips shots absolutely drove me bonkers. I hate it. It was fine the first time, but the fact they would do it as often as four times in an episode, or even a freaking minute or two, that’s too much! I also loath it because I don’t understand its purpose and I never felt like it fitted in any of the scenes. I was going to do a tally of the grand total, but I didn’t have the patience to go back and count beyond episode 7.

While I certainly have issues with some of their decisions, there was one decision that I was actually quite satisfied with. And that was the call to omit the Game Mechanics details such as HP/MP/Stamina/Checking Status, etc…

By leaving that out actually helped this series feel more like a traditional magic world. Ironically because those stats don’t really have any impact on the story, it was easy to take out- not that there was anything wrong with it. And I like to think the adaption actually benefited from this decision because isekai market is so over-saturated with the game mechanics as a part of the world building, that as soon as it comes up, it can be difficult to set it apart from the rest. I also felt at the same time, it showed us how this series can actually get by and be enjoyable without it, proving that there is more to the story beyond some trending details.

Overall, Seijo no Maryoku wa Bannou desu is a great show. I absolutely love Sei as a protagonist. She is pretty down-to-earth, funny, and has great self-awareness of how ridiculously strong she is. Albert is also a wonderful male lead. It’s charming how smitten he is by Sei, and how proactive he is with his intent of wanting to get to know her better and support her.

All (except one) of the character are incredibly sweet and fun, including the the Knights from the Second and Third Order who will have appear every now and then. But perhaps one of the best parts about the cast is that this is not a reverse harem. That’s right, Sei has plenty of male-friends, but for once, not every single one of them are falling heads over heels for her, and aiming to win her heart. Johan is such a fun character with the way he handles Sei’s shenanigans when she’s brewing potions, or how he teases her and Albert while simultaneously acting as their wing-man.

Of course we can’t forget about Yuri! I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say his character alone had positive effect on the adaption. My god, he was the much needed eccentric and wild energy this show needed to liven things up. Every single time he appeared on screen, you can count on him to get you laughing. Yuri’s mischief never gets old. He is like a child when he is left out, or is impatient about seeing results! And the way he gets fired up in battle, oh goodness. Hahaha! He’s a handful!

We also can’t forget to appreciate some of the other characters like Jude! It’s too bad he doesn’t have a big presence in the first four volumes, but he is an absolute cutie and a real sweetheart! Elizabeth too, and I love how she (like Johan) would tease Sei about Albert. And finally Aira! It took some time to get out of the mess she found herself in after being proclaimed as the Saint by Prince Kyle, but she is starting to break out of her shell, and that itself is wonderful to see! Honestly it’s wonderful to see Sei has girl friends. While both are younger than her, the three of them get along just fine!

And if you’re looking for some real fluffy romance, well this should help scratch that itch. I know that sometimes anime adaptions can cop-out or water-down scenes, or they are just rare in general to get this kind of swoon-worthy content just about almost every episode. There are no kisses (except on the hands, there are at least one, heheh), but the chemistry between Sei and Albert is exceptionally sweet. There are no confessions either (though take the sword pledge as you will kekeke~), but do not be fooled, these two are not shy when it comes to skinship and hand-holding. Oh yes, they LOVEEEE holding hands. (Damn I should’ve counted that.) So there are countless fluff scenes between them. FLUFF FLUFF FLUFF~

 With that, since this adaption has a lot of room for improvements, I am going to rate this  a 7/10. Despite the all of issues it had, honestly it’s so comforting to watch that I enjoyed every second of it. This show was my Tuesday Comfort-Pick just because I knew I was watching a stress-free story, with strong and proactive romantic implications and lots and lots of fluff. Just as the author intended with her novel, it truly healed the heart. So kick back and relax, and just enjoy the heartwarming goodness this story has to offer.

Final Verdict: 7/10
Recommendation: Yes, ENJOY THE FLUFFY CONTENT!

And if you have already watched enjoyed the show and want more, I strongly encourage you to check out both the novel and manga (both licensed in English by SevenSeas Entertainment) Both of them are such pleasant and easy reads, and you will be able to enjoy the content that was left out by the adaption!