Seriously, what was up with that final boss? Was that supposed to be a laugh or a roar? It sounded like he was gurgling water, although I’m fairly certain that wasn’t the intention…

The eleventh episode consisted of Kinji and Aria infiltrating a mansion and stealing Riko’s rosary. It was mainly an excuse for meido fanservice.

In the final episode, after receiving the rosary on the top of a skyscraper, Riko reveals that she will betray Kinji and Aria and kill them. Then Riko gets stabbed in the back and stomped on by her teacher. Who proceeds to transform into a gurgling vampiric minotaur. Kinji falls off the roof, and Riko jumps off as well to save him with her strip-parachute. Everyone combines their powers to shoot all of the monster’s four weak points at once. Kinji pulls a William Tell and bounces his bullet off Aria’s in midair to hit the right points. Riko jumps off the roof in her underwear and flies off with her parachute. Aria beats up Kinji some more. The End.

This episode was so bad it was funny. I’ve already mentioned the final boss, which was the “best” part. We also have Kinji’s miraculous marksmanship: he can bounce bullets off of each other in mid-flight, and he has already mastered Reki’s wolf-paralysis technique after seeing it once (and he can even do two wolves simultaneously!).  Then we have Riko’s strip-parachute, which either has some hidden rocket boosters or defies all laws of physics by carrying her from near ground level to well above a skyscraper. And Aria knows that the gurgling vampiric minotaur is Count Dracula because… well, it’s obvious, right?

So clearly, this show didn’t cover all of the original source material… but they still didn’t do too well at making it all come together in the end. There was no Shirayuki in the final arc. Reki and Jean d’Arc never mattered at all. The last episode introduced Kinji’s ex-girlfriend (?) for no apparent reason. The final bad guy was their teacher, but I’m not even sure we ever knew his name. All in all, it seemed like the creators were just making stuff up as they went along.

I will not reflexively hide and peek on girls changing. I will not reflexively hide and peek on girls changing.

This episode was mostly the usual fanservice, but it came across as uninspired even by Hidan no Aria’s standards. The main problem with this episode though isn’t the fanservice: it’s a complete lack of logical coherence and focus.

They’re going to infiltrate Vlad’s house? Ok, sure, waste time having Aria dress up as a maid and look embarrassed calling Kinji master, I’d be more surprised if they didn’t at this point. Riko tells them that they are recovering her dead mother’s heirloom, and everyone is sad. Everyone knows that cute girls only do bad things because of their tragic pasts.

Then Kinji runs into Jeanne D’Arc playing piano. It turns out she made a deal with the judge to become a student- no explanation needed, cute girls always join the good guys eventually. This short conversation had some extremely awkward voice acting. Jeanne, harem glasses girl with poor drawing skills, GET-O.

Next, Riko tells Kinji to meet her in a medical room. He hears people coming, and instead of going to greet them, he hides in the nearest locker. Why he would do this is completely beyond human understanding. And why Riko expects him to do this is even more incomprehensible. But it turns out his perverted friend is hiding in the locker as well. Then we confirm that Kinji is a lolicon, the male teacher enters, and Reki discovers Kinji hiding in the locker.

Up until this point, the episode was stupid but at least made some vague sort of sense. I guess. But now, a giant rabid wolf jumps through the window and attacks the changing girls. It runs away after Kinji tries to tackle it, and he and Reki chase it on the perverted friend’s motorcycle which was hiding in the bushes for a getaway.

Now Kinji starts to feel sorry for the rabid wolf, and worries that Reki will kill it because she’s “heartless”. He’s more worried about the wolf than he was about Aria, Riko, Shirayuki and Jeanne D’Arc combined. * The producers of Hidan no Aria proudly support animal rights. * Kinji must have only been worried because the wolf wasn’t wearing body armor.

Reki shoots the wolf and temporarily paralyzes it. * Warning: do not try this at home. * She then tames it and makes it her pet. That was her plan all along. Its old master was mean to it. Now it is cute and shakes hands. Ok. I am truly shocked by this development.

We have forgotten all about recovering Riko’s heirloom, but we have a new pet wolf. The episode ends with Aria beating up Kinji once again. I guess as random as this episode was, it still beats having to spend more time listening to Aria talk.

This was the obligatory fanservice episode for the season, so I don’t have too much to say about it. Honestly, it was a pretty decent episode as far as these things go. Usually they don’t go too well though.

Riko’s return helped to make things more interesting, and I don’t mind Shirayuki too much, although Kinji probably should have escaped out the window several minutes earlier. Aria continues to be as annoying as ever. I feel that the show could only vastly improve if they removed her entirely. Perhaps for the next episode I can try fast forwarding through all her scenes. That will probably be about 80% of the episode though…. maybe just the mute button will do…

Having the descendants of Holmes and Lupin fight apparently wasn’t dumb enough, so they decided to make the latest villain a descendant of Jeanne D’Arc.
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Ok. I don’t know what these people are thinking. At least Holmes and Lupin being enemies kind of makes sense… but Jeanne D’Arc? Seriously? If you’re going to do a revisionist history, at least put some semblance of logic behind it instead of just tossing out random names.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful episode. Two thirds are spent finishing up the battle with Durandal, and the rest on a reset ending. Much of the episode didn’t make much sense— Shirayuki randomly disappears and reappears, Kinji shoots at Shirayuki because she isn’t sufficiently embarrassed, miko costumes deflect bullets, etc., but it’s not like I’m expecting things to make sense at this point.