Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul

Episode 12

At long last it's actual, for-real prison escape time for our heroes! Mom (aka Rita) has finally arrived to pick up the kids, which means that it'll be smooth sailing from here on. Well, smooth-ish. There are still obstacles to contend with, but these are the kind that can be sped through on a jaunty mine cart ride, rather than last week's episode-long stealth climb. Altogether, it looks like Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul is zooming toward an explosive mid-show climax.

This also means that it's time to homage the hell out of Western action movies. In classic Rage of Bahamut tradition, they go with Indiana Jones, specifically Temple of Doom's mine cart scene. It's not a straight rip-off, but you can tell that's what they were thinking. Nina duels another mine cart while hanging off the edge of hers, and she even busts out her very Indy-like battle whip! It's a fun scene that I've been looking forward to since the preview.

Meanwhile, Charioce's whole “war with the gods” thing isn't going so hot. Mugaro turns out to be the real deal in combat, capable of wrecking even the specially-trained Onyx Knights. King Dickhead's gotten himself into a real pickle, but fortunately for him, he still has that magical super weapon he's been cooking up at the bottom of the prison pit. Against the recommendations of his advisers, he decides to light it up, seeing that it's his only chance to not get murdered by the vengeful angel hordes. It turns into what can best by described as a Giant Black Tentacle Orb of Death, and our heroes – still in the middle of their prison break – end up smack dab on top of it.

Honestly, while this was a solid episode, there isn't too much to say about it. It was a bunch of fun action scenes leading up to plot events that we knew had to happen. The war starts and Charioce does something Extremely Dangerous. Kaisar and Favaro finally meet up with the Girl Squad (plus Kaisar's severed zombie hand, who is presumably male). I look forward to seeing Favaro and Nina interact more in the future – they're both such happy-go-lucky balls of energy that I want to see what they'll get up to together now that Nina's older. Speaking of Nina, she still likes Charioce enough after all he's done to get horny for him in the middle of the cart race. No accounting for taste or timing, I guess. However, this episode's real shipping moment was between Kaisar and Rita. Kaisar uses a function in his prosthetic hand to break out of his cell, and when Favaro points out that that function was put in there by Rita, and that she worries about him, Kaisar realizes how much she cares for him. D'awwwww. Also, they're still giving Alessand screentime for some reason. I don't know what's up with that.

My guess for next week is that Nina will turn into a dragon to stop the Death Ball from totally wrecking everybody. Charioce – who's rushing over to the former prison – will finally learn that his crush is really a dragon and freak the hell out. I feel that this may also support my “Charioce is trying to protect Nina” theory? If he's going to the device, that means it's probably safe, and it may even serve to protect people against angel magic. But the prison underneath the device might have also gotten wrecked by it surfacing? Look, I'm trying to make him and Nina work here. I also just realized that he doesn't actually enjoy the coliseum fights – they're how he recruits demons into the Onyx Knights, so it's just a job to him, thus why he looks so bored. (Forgive me that I only picked up on this now.) So he doesn't watch people slaughter each other for fun? It's just work? (Okay, it's work that he came up with himself.) That's "better", I guess? I'm trying, guys. I really am.

Grade: B

Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.