It appears we have come to the end of a surprisingly serious near harem anime. From starting out with the typical good hearted but socially inept Shido meeting an impossible Princess and finding out his little sister is the head of a clandestine organization trying to save Spirits, to learning some serious back story to our main characters and actually seeing them face their past and present in one shot of an episode was awesome.
Kotori was being burned up by her Spirit powers, referred to by all as Ifrit, yet it was confirmed that unlike Tohka and Yoshino, she was born human and attained the power later. Both she and Shido have odd gaps in their memory at that time, but Origami now knows about Kotori being Ifrit, the Spirit she blames for her parents deaths.
While the date between Shido and Kotori actually went as expected with some shenanigans as previous episode, Shido shined at last in his honest wish to save his sister from being destroyed by her power. Neither of them seemed to have faith that he could seal her as he had other Spirits, but thanks to the rude interruption of Origami in the near lethal attack gear, for the pilot and Spirits both, Shido crystallizes his feelings for Kotori and not only faces death to protect her, but pierces the fog that has kept him from remembering 5 years ago as well.
Origami is portrayed well here, we see the shell she has erected cracked wide open and her desperation to finally kill Ifrit driving her to hurt even the man she says she loves, Shido. Even Shido stuns as he reveals that Kotori as a human is innocent, only the power of Ifrit need be punished, and it is once more inside him, therefore he demands Origami attack him alone.
Tohka and Yoshino actually reveal more depth in the battle and how much they cherish both Shido and Kotori. I was surprised at how nail biting this was for all of them. Happily the tone of the show was never lost, for all the serious and dark moments, the end of this season was pitch perfect between Shido and Tohka...with the entire crew of the command ship and Yoshino/Yoshinon thrown in perfectly.
We were left with two cliff hangers and brief glimpses of the results of Origami's attack. She is now restrained and the suit obviously damaged. Kurumi seems to have regathered her strength and said "That is not near enough..." Now I must wait and see what the future brings, but what I thought would be a truly silly harem has now become a fan favorite. I would recommend all 12 episodes that can be found on Hulu.
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