It’s a Christmas Miracle! We’ve actually managed to come out of the Christmas Showdown alive. And I really can’t believe that all it took was Mikey and Draken making an appearance. I’m not surprised that they were able to take down all of Black Dragon, but it really puts into perspective just how strong those two are.
Honestly, this episode was pretty straight forward, but for a moment there I was definitely a little confused by all of the build up. I mean we’ve had multiple episodes now watching Hakkai, Yuzuha, Mitsuya, Chifuyu, and Takemitchy getting absolutely destroyed by the three Black Dragon members in the church. It’s incredibly clear that they are no match for the other gang. Even removing Takemitchy I would say that the others were perfectly capable fighters! But I guess a single hit from Taiju was enough to seriously weaken the whole group. I mean, the man was stabbed and has been bleeding out for this entire match and he was still able to beat them. Even if Mikey took him down really easily, I have to remember that Taiju is a monster, especially when fighting.
Even though I think the fighting in this episode was really straight forward, I was still caught off guard by Inui’s backstory to revive Black Dragon. It just seemed really odd to put it in this episode only to have Black Dragon immediately defeated. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed watching the backstory of how he met Taiju and how he reformed the group and its appearance… it just seems really lame considering all the other events that happened in this episode. And the thing is – We didn’t even get to see a true fight between Mikey and Taiju. Taiju gives Mikey a solid punch to the face, knocks him out for a minute or two, Mikey gets up as if nothing has happened. Then there’s some more back and forth while everyone is standing around. Then Mikey does a quick jump kick and there we go, Leader of Black Dragon has been defeated. And the entire time Takemitchy is sitting here not believing in Mikey. I don’t think there was a single moment in this episode where Takemitchy wasn’t like “Oh no! Mikey can’t fight them! Mikey is going to lose.” He’s really fickle when it comes to putting faith in some of his friends.
And to top all of this off, we still don’t know what’s going on with the 100 other members that are just waiting outside to be called in as needed…. Well, it’s not like they were ever actually a threat. Okay, that’s a lie. They were a threat to everyone inside of the church, because they can’t take on 100 men in their current state. But it’s still really funny that we don’t even get to watch Draken absolutely wreck them. We just come outside and see a sea of bodies and weapons on the ground with Draken just hanging out on the steps of the church. I know Draken shut down the idea of fighting Black Dragon earlier in the season, but I kind of wish we would have tried harder to talk to Mikey about it. This season could have been solved so much sooner and with a whole lot less blood.
Personally, I find it incredible how quickly Taiju lost all of his fighting spirit in this episode. He was going on for so long about family and strength and blah blah blah. But all it takes is one hit from Mikey to completely give up? My guy. You were stabbed. And now a kick to the temple is what’s going to take you out? And to fall back on your men, and then completely give up when you see that they have all been defeated? Hmmm…. in this single episode your “scary level” has dropped significantly. But I hope he learned something out of this, because he didn’t say anything after stepping outside the church. But that’s okay! Because Hakkai and Yuzuha did!! Honestly, Hakkai saying that he won’t allow Taiju to push them around anymore was fine. I mean, last week we found out that Yuzuha has been protecting him this whole time so… I mean, now is a good time to start. Yuzuha’s words were probably more impactful since she talked about what she saw with Taiju and their mother’s passing, but also that she still loves her family. I hope that she’s able to find happiness after everything that has happened.
Now, one would think that the season is over now that the Christmas Showdown has been completed. Honestly, I was sitting through the ED theme wondering “Is this the end of the season? It can’t be, they still have 4 more episodes…. what are they going to do??” And then I saw Hina. I’m glad she’s here and I hope Takemitchy grovels in apologies for what he did to her. I’m still not over how terrible the breakup was – she deserves so much better. But! That being said, we’ll just have to wait until next week to see how the rest of the season plays out! Hopefully, there won’t be more deaths in the future!!
