Things are looking dire now as Shinpei awakens into a new time loop with no Ushio next to him. His horizon is close behind him and his next death will surely be his permanent one if he’s not careful. And things are already going to shit as the groups have been separated with Haine taking complete control. This is the first time in awhile that we’ve seen Shinpei so defenseless.
It looks like Ushio isn’t totally out just yet. It seemed like Haine had the upper hand, and for the most part she still does, but she stopped herself when Shinpei reached into his pocket and touched the shell. I don’t remember if Ushio left a bit of herself in it, if it was possible for her to do that. But the shell is important and is going to take a big role. Shinpei gets up to speed and teams up with Shadow Mio, but right now we have the two groups in two different locations. We learn that Haine is actually able to copy and retain everything, which makes sense since she also sort of has the looping ability. Maybe I’m missing something but I wonder why she hasn’t used Shinpei’s shadow form just yet, but she’s making good use of it now.
I predict that Shinpei and Shadow Mio are just going to split up and go off to protect the two groups, probably Shadow Mio with Sou and Mio, and Shinpei with Hizuru. It’s a tough situation as there seems to be two Shide’s now, which I’m guessing Haine just made more copies of him? I’m probably forgetting some details truthfully but there are definitely two of them. This episode we focus on the Hizuru side as both Shide and Haine are there. This was a more simple episode and it was alright, Hizuru/Ryuunosuke are doing their best facing off against Shide now that they know that Haine is able to relay their movements two seconds ahead of time, though there is a slight delay. It’s sort of devolving back into the shounen tropes and it was alright. Hizuru is the only character in the show (and maybe Shadow Mio) that I truly care about because she’s so cool and interesting, and I thought it was really sweet and kind of funny how Ryuunosuke seemed to be able to talk to Hizuru in real time. I actually wish we had gotten more of the backstory because I feel like we’re missing something but oh well. We’re getting into the “strong attacks are breaking my body” thing but Hizuru doesn’t care because they need to do everything they can to taken both Shide and Haine down. Hopefully they’ll be able to get some type of backup.
I think we’re going to be getting lots of action in these next episodes, we are gearing up for the big finale in the next few weeks as we reach the end. I’d be surprised if something were to happen to Shinpei again as this looks to be the final, though I have to wonder if we’re going to permanently lose any character. If we were, it’s going to be Shadow Mio for sure if they kill Haine…and Hizuru. She puts her life on the line all the time I can’t see her surviving but I’ll hope for the best. She’s the only one I really like so we’ll see what happens.
