The animation and action in this episode was surprisingly well on-point, fluid, and dynamic. Sasuga animators
.
Fitoria vs. that T-Rex monster was totally a Kaiju fight, right? I mean, we even had a scaly lizard monster breathing fire
.
Fitoria is a pretty interesting and cool addition to the cast. It's neat to see a fully-fledged Fillolial Queen in action and her perspective and insight into the history of the Heroes and the world was also insightful. And if you need a character to sound both wise and undeniably cute at the same time, who else could you cast but Sakura Ange? How fitting for her to have angel wings on-top of that
.
I love how Fitoria greets everybody but just gives Filo a slight nod. Queen's don't need to acknowledge small fry beyond a nod
.
It would probably be too much of a coincidence for the Hero who hatched Fitoria to have been the original Shield Hero, right? Granted, considering the affinity she had for Naofumi I kind of got the sense that that was the case, and it would be kind of ironic if Naofumi is so against working with the other Heroes when it was one of his predecessors that instilled in Fitoria how important it is for the Heroes to work together
.
It was interesting getting some insight into what things were like in the past generations. It really sounds like, despite the animosity some kingdoms had towards the Shield Hero, the Heroes were able to work together and fend off the Waves more effectively then the current four have. I know Naofumi doesn't want to have to work together with the three other jerks he's Heroes with, and he has every reason not to, but it also can't be denied that the Heroes working together would probably be more effective then Naofumi and his team carrying the entire load
.
I guess if we needed any more evidence of how bad the current set of Heroes are at their job (even though Naofumi busts his butt as much as he is humanly capable of), it's that they're not even where they're supposed to be after being summoned. So now a bunch of other kingdoms that should have had their own Heroes have been left to fend for themselves or rely on Fitoria to protect them. Great job guys
.
I imagine Melromarc was probably attempting a power play, but considering how much of a backbone the king has I'm betting Myne was behind everything. And maybe the church is involved? Maybe that's why the church uses the symbols of Sword, Spear, and Bow
?
Ren finally doing some investigating, and he even managed to rope Itsuki into it. "I can't believe Naofumi was right" dude, what hasn't Naofumi been right about (aside from Melty being untrustworthy)
!?
I honestly didn't get the sense that Fitoria was going to genuinely try and kill the Heroes but become a threat dangerous enough for them to have to finally work together to defeat, but I guess since she just has Naofumi there and doesn't know where the other Heroes are she might just settle for killing them all to try and restart the process to get a better batch of Heroes
.