It’s episode 14, and in this episode Pheles decides to get on happily with all the Flame Hazes. Yoshida teaches her that all love is the same and Pheles decides that she’ll help the flame hazes to continue to do research on the Midnight Lost Child to figure out the best way to extract Johan without killing Yuji. This was an interesting…what? You mean that isn’t really Pheles? You mean she really is a bad guy after all?!
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Go Straight to the Screenshots | Go Straight to the Review
The highlights of this episode:
- Yuji, Satou, Margery, Wilhelmina, and Pheles are all at Satou’s place so that Yuji can lend some of his power of existence to the weakened Pheles before the Midnight Lost Child recharges itself. However, they all wait for Shana, who is late. Meanwhile, Yoshida recalls a meeting after the festival where everyone decided to do this, and where Pheles remarked that, as an ordinary human, Yoshida shouldn’t be there. However, Shana suddenly shows up at Yoshida’s house to pick her up to go to Satou’s house.
- The two finally arrive, being greeted with amazement by most everyone, and a rather nasty look from Pheles. Pheles prepares to receive part of Yuji’s power of existence, but Shana warns her that if she touches the Midnight Lost Child, she’ll kill her.
- Margery circles Yuji with several unrestricted methods in order to monitor the Midnight Lost Child during the process. After Pheles has received the power of existence (and pushed Yuji away afterwards), Margery reports that the unrestricted method that Sabrac, the Denizen that attacked Pheles and Johan, used is entangled with the Midnight Lost Child, causing Pheles’ keeper to somehow mutate.
- Yoshida asks Pheles to go around the last day of the festival with her to show her that the love that Yoshida has for Yuji is the same as Pheles’ love for Johan and to prove that “all love is the same.” Pheles apparently consents and Shana decides to tag along.
- Yuji asks Wilhelmina, who is keeping guard over him, what Johan was like. Wilhelmina tells him that, before meeting Johan, Pheles was a self-indulgent Denizen who did whatever her power allowed her to do. However, she found and raised a baby boy out of a passing interest - and that baby was Johan. After Johan grew up, the two fell in love with each other.
- Once it nears the end of the festival, Pheles recalls back to the end of a festival she attended with Johan, when he confessed to her. Johan tells Pheles that he wishes to be with her forever, and wills himself into becoming a Mystes, creating the Midnight Lost Child by creating a treasure that, once midnight hits, allows time to “lose track of itself.”
- After the festival, Pheles looks like she’s finally accepted that she’ll have to work with the Flame Hazes to figure out an alternate with to retrieve Johan, from thanking Wilhelmina for not killing her, to thanking Margery Daw for learning about the keeper mutation, to Shana and Yoshida for reminding her of the good times that love can bring. However, she then says that all of this has convinced her that it’s time for the “real Pheles” to meet Johan once again.
- Pheles puts up a barrier and encapsulates Yuji inside of a wind-sphere thing and Pheles disappears. Suddenly, the Flame Hazes sense Pheles’ presence, but much, much stronger, and they realize that it’s been a trick all along: the Pheles they had been interacting with was a fake, put there solely to allow the real Pheles to know the location of the Midnight Lost Child. Wilhelmina explains that one of Pheles’ unrestricted methods is to create an avatar to search an area for her.
- Pheles decides that if she can’t touch the Midnight Lost Child because of the mutated keeper, then she’ll just draw Johan out using a different means. However, instead of Johan coming out, a giant silver-plated arm reaches out of Yuji and grabs Pheles. Meanwhile, the silver bracelets on Fumina and her butler’s wrists start shining…
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It’s starting to look like everything in the Pheles/Silver/Fumina story arcs are all starting to come together. Though I kind of feel sorry for Yuji. Wouldn’t kinda suck to have a big silver arm suddenly sticking out of you? And I’m sure Pheles isn’t happy about that either. And how about Margery Daw? And what exactly will happen to Yuji anyway? If drawing whatever is in the Midnight Lost Child out saves whoever is in them without killing Yuji, why didn’t everyone consent to that to begin with?
Speaking of Fumina, if an avatar of Pheles can fool even three flame hazes into believing that the avatar is really her, then surely an avatar could fool them into believing that it was actually a human, right? If I had to place a bet, I would bet that Fumina is an avatar much like the fake Pheles, or something very similar to one. The question is, who made it? The obvious answer to that would seem to be Hecate, especially since I don’t think we know what unrestricted methods she can do yet are. The question there is “why? (though the “why” could be self evident - to keep watch over Yuji in general.)
However, what the relationship between Pheles, the Silver, Sabrac, Hecate, and the other members of the Bal Masqué are is still unknown to this point. Also, if I understood this episode correctly, it was Johan himself (perhaps with the help of Pheles) who created the Midnight Lost Child. Just like how Tenmoku Ikko willed himself to be a mystes, creating a treasure in the process, it appears Johan did the same thing.
In any case, things look like they may go insane in the next episode. I may actually be able to upgrade this series from a third-tier series to a second-tier series if the next episode ends up being what it looks like it will be.
P.S. Random Curiosity says that Kotoko will do both the new OP and ED, and that the new opening will air starting episode 17. According to ANN, in the first series, it’s 2nd opening also started with episode 17 while the new opening started with episode 15, so if they stay consistent with the first series, we may get a new ending next week.
