Karen's Anime Blog

Last time, Momo killed the Great Mongolian Death Worm with a little help from the local fire department. Now, the volcano has erupted, and the Kitos are livid. Mom Kito is screaming at Momo that the Great Serpent Lord protected the village from the volcano, but Momo thinks otherwise: she thinks the fountain she saw at the hot spring was the protective “dragon” that the legend of the volcano referred to. The Kitos just got confused and started sacrificing people to a completely unrelated entity.

I’m not entirely sure how Momo figures this out. She did go to the shrine before the haunted house hijinks and hear about the legend of the great dragon, but what made her realize the fountain was the subject of the legend? Then again, we did see some good logical thinking from her in season one, so I guess she’s just good at this sort of thing. She’s not good at storing large amounts of info in her brain like Okarun is, but she’s good under pressure.

Then things get crazy: Momo uses her psychic powers to pick up the entire body of the worm and gives it a huge toss, throwing it down the mountain. The Kitos freak out that she’s now desecrating the corpse of their god, and I can’t really blame them for that. She puts the butt of the worm on top of the fountain, then uses the worm’s body as a giant firehouse to douse the lava. The water is still filled with the worm’s mucus, so that makes it extra sticky. This…really should not work. I did have a thought after last episode that maybe they would use the gunk from the worm to somehow stop the lava, but I did not foresee this.

JENNIFER ANISTON SCORPION! (No, she doesn’t actually say that, but she should.)

Mom Kito has had enough of Momo’s antics and plans to sacrifice her to the volcano. Momo points out that they seem to have changed gods rather easily, but I guess logical thinking is not Mom Kito’s strong suit. Things look bad for Momo, but then she’s rescued by the priest from the temple we met in episode 13. Apparently Seiko is his “master” and he was charged with protecting Momo’s group all this time. Better late than never, I guess.

Momo goes back to doing her fire hose routine, but it’s not long before bursts of energy start slicing up the worm’s body; Evil Eye/Jiji is back. How the hell did he get back up from the bottom of the cavern? I guess he must be able to jump really high. Interestingly, Momo pulls Mom Kito out of Jiji’s reach, less to protect Mom Kito and more to keep Jiji from becoming a murderer. Under the circumstances, Momo and Mom Kito need to work together to fight off Jiji, which is not a team-up I expected to see. Some crazy action that I really can’t do justice to with description occurs. I’ve heard talk that Science Saru is struggling with the production of this anime, but even if that’s true, you would never know it from this episode. The fights are just so dynamic and downright cool.

JULIA ROBERTS PLATYPUS!!!!

Momo’s psychic powers start failing her, and that makes sense to me; she doesn’t have infinite MP, so to speak. She’s rescued from Jiji by an alien called Mantisian, and wow, I really did not remember this guy from the first season. In the next insane twist, a UFO delivering Seiko and the anatomical model mannequin shows up. I wish they hadn’t spoiled Seiko’s return in the next episode preview last week, because it would have been awesome for her to show up out of nowhere.

Seiko begins fighting with Jiji, and at first I’m confused because I thought she said her psychic powers only work in the town she’s stationed in, but she actually isn’t using psychic powers; she’s just going to town with a baseball bat. I guess she must have a triple black belt in Grandma Bat Jutsu.

When Seiko starts having trouble, Taro, the anatomical model, takes her place, only to be shattered into a hundred pieces by Jiji; joke’s on the Evil Eye though, because with the help of a talisman and some praying from the priest, the pieces of the model adhere to Jiji’s body and shut him down. I guess with the Evil Eye contained, Seiko can remove the yokai from Jiji when they get home and she has access to her spiritual abilities. In theory that should remove the yokai powers from Jiji too, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s keeping those.

Dan Da Dan: The only show where “Grandma” and “Fanservice” go together.

The UFO, piloted by the Mantisian’s kid, uses its tractor beam to resume spraying the lava with the Worm’s body. Momo is off looking for Okarun, and things look bad: the whole cavern is filled with lava. How could anyone have survived that? Momo freaks out and makes plans to submerge into the lava somehow; she’s grieving Okarun so hard, she can’t even think straight. The UFO lifts out a giant pod of the Worm’s mucus, and Okarun and Turbo Granny are inside. Okay, as cool as this episode is, I straight-up don’t believe this: I can’t believe that the Worm’s mucus was so powerful that even lava didn’t effect it. Well, who am I to say what an occult monster can do, I guess?

Momo burns her hands opening the pod, and I have to think this is an homage to Gendo Ikari burning his hands to save Rei in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Turbo Granny drags Momo for not rescuing them earlier, then Okarun and Momo embrace. Awwww, I feel bad for doubting the manner of Okarun’s survival, I just want my little occult teen couple to be happy.

What ever happened to Mom Kito? Ah, Momo and Okarun are hugging, who even cares about the Kitos and their stupid religious nonsense.

Next time, it looks like we’ll be getting something of a breather episode, which I am definitely ready for after all of this craziness. This whole arc was amazing: well-animated and unpredictable, but with enough emotional beats that it never became a basic shonen punchfest. I may have to start reading the manga, which I pretty much never do with shonen series, but do I want to give up on being surprised by the anime? Tough call.