Again, I must apologize that I’m late posting, but things have just been crazy busy and I wasn’t even able to watch the dang episode until Saturday. Anyways, I’m so glad we didn’t have to wait too long for the continuation of last season because compared to the previous two seasons, that season ended on such a bummer in terms of where all the characters are. Especially with it ending on the reveal of Julius’ name being eaten. Like, how can you leave us on that cliffhanger????? But alas, we have been blessed and don’t have to wait three years for the continuation lol.
I do respect the fact in this series that we do get to focus on a different group of characters, but I am a bit bummed to have to leave Garf and Otto behind this season. Though I can understand why. Otto makes sense since the guy’s legs were literally shaved to the bone last we saw of him and I’m actually surprised to see him even up on his fee albeit with crutches. Garfiel also makes sense considering we still need to see the conclusion to his promise to his mom, but I’ll talk about that later. Though I am really excited to spend more time with both Julius and Ram. While we did get a lot of Ram in the second season, I really came to like her during that season so I’m excited to see even more of her. Though I am a bit worried from what I saw in this season’s trailer. Probably in for a lot of OOF moments this season and I am ANXIOUS. In Julius’ case, I felt like we never get too much of him. He’s here and there from time to time, but never get to expand more on his character for too long. I like him a lot so I’m hoping we actually get to see some actual development between him and Subaru. Because I am TIRED of Subaru’s one-sided hatred of Julius. Like bruh, GET OVER YOURSELF. Hopefully that’ll be worked on this season. Especially since he’s the only one that Julius can truly depend on at the moment since no one else remembers him. Though I can already see that there will be alot of shipping material for the people who like that ship lol.
While the circumstances are different, Julius and Ram seem to share similar situations. Both are older siblings that end up forgetting about their younger sibling due to Gluttony shenanigans and have slightly rocky relationships with Subaru albeit for very different reasons. Though at least with Julius, it seems like he understand the weight and feels a feeling or loss from forgetting since he knows first hand how it feels to be forgotten. Also I didn’t catch this on my first viewing. But I remembered being so confused as to how Julius’ brother got caught by Gluttony. Only to realize on a rewatch that he was sent to the same gate as where Gluttony ended up appearing. The way my hand slowly covered my mouth in realization. So I guess that answered my question lol.
The next arc seems like it’ll be focused on finding this sage that may hold answers to the Lust and Gluttony situation. And I do hope that the people affected by them can be helped because that is A LOT of casualties. I also just want the old Crusch back T^T. I miss season 1 Crusch with a deep passion. However, it seems like the place they’re trying to get into, REINHARD couldn’t even get in. To which, faced with that information, the situation feels a bit hopeless if Mr. OP couldn’t even break through.
On top of the already distressing cake of torment, we find out that Anastasia is also in a situation where her consciousness is currently sealed away while the spirit in her muffler took over her body. I watched the conversation between it and Subaru several times, but I feel like I still don’t understand how or why this happened. Maybe they’ll explain more later, but as of right now, I have no clue what is going on with that and why. To which, I’m sure Julius would be thrown into even more emotional turmoil than he already is. While he doesn’t show it, I’m pretty sure he’s probably broken up a lot more than he lets on about his current situation of forgetting about his brother and being forgotten. He doesn’t need another situation that would cause him more emotional distress. Which is probably one of the reasons why Subaru wants to keep the situation quiet and only between him and Echidna.
I’m honestly kind of torn about the situation. On one hand, I wish there was more build up to this artificial spirit in like the first season and not having it just be something that comes out of nowhere. Especially since we didn’t really know Anastasia all that well to begin with as we only got to be around her a little bit in the first season. So when characters noticed something off with her, I felt like I couldn’t really connect with that information all that well. It was more of a “oh, okay… well that happened” rather than a “pieced it together” kind of moment. Though I did like the foreshadowing in this episode where “Anastasia” was petting the muffler in the beginning scenes and Subaru looking a bit irked by her reaction to Julius being forgotten.
In any case, the spirit apparently shares the same name as the Witch of Greed, “Echidna.” Which sends Subaru down a PTSD spiral. Thankfully Echidna was able to reason with him about how they don’t know where they came from and who they actually are and has no connection to who Subaru thought of. Because man, Subaru was set OFF upon hearing that name. Though considering what happened in Season 2, you can’t really blame him since she ended up wanting to use him for her own benefit rather than actually helping him. To which probably felt like such a big betrayal to him since at the time, she was literally the only one who he found comfort in. Only for her to turn around and want use his “Return by Death” ability for her experiments.
Despite her being in the visual for season 4, I honestly did forget about Meili and didn’t really know when she’d come back into play. It’ll definitely be interesting to see what role she plays and whether or not she’ll actually bond with the group. Though Petra probably has some pretty conflicting feelings about her considering Meili has endangered her life twice at this point. I’m also wondering who Meili is referring to as “mom.” Does she mean a person she works with, her birth mom or the person who took care of her in the village? Or a combination of the choices??? Either way, I’m interested to see what becomes of her.
Though I think the part that got me the most in this episode had to be the Garf stuff. Anytime it has to deal with Garf having to deal about the “loss” of his mom always gets me choked up. The fact that she’s right in front of him but he can’t wholeheartedly call her “mom” or reach out to her as her son just breaks my heart. So I think the fact that he was allowed to finally hug her when he was nearing his breaking point meant so much to him. I was watching the episode in a public place and I had to try REALLY HARD to not start crying. At first I couldn’t tell if the mom realized that Garf is her son, but by the end of it, it seemed like she just seemed to understand that Garf needed a mother-like figure to lean on in that instance, even if she only felt like a substitute. I’m constantly reminded in these moments how young Garf actually is and how much misses his mom. He’s been holding that cry in for so long and I’m glad he was able to be comforted by his mom, even if she didn’t know it.
Also can we just talk about how they finally revealed that her husband was in fact the FREAKING DRAGON. I had a sneaking suspicion that may have been the case considering they seemed to draw attention to the eye color during the scenes with it. Has Garf’s mom not been through enough????? Now I’m really hoping they find a cure for the Lust victims because I JUST WANT GARF’S MOM TO BE HAPPY WITH HER FAMILY DANG IT.
After just waiting in anticipation for them to reveal the daughter’s name, I KNEW that the girl had to be a reference to Garf’s name and finally getting the confirmation literally a year later just made me want to melt onto the floor. The fact that there’s still a part of Garf’s mom that subconsciously remembers her first two children is just killing me on the inside. Because it just showed how much she loved them. Even Garf was able to make the connection. I’m relieved we got the follow up to that since I was worried it wouldn’t be addressed since the season will be focused elsewhere. And while it is bittersweet, I am glad that it seems like Garf was able to get a little bit of closure with his mom and be able to have one final moment with her. Hopefully this was healing for him and will finally be able to move on even if he can’t be in her life as her son.
Iny any case, solid start to the new season and I’m excited to see where it goes… even if I am also scared lol.
