Well, Kaito looked quite photogenic.

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The episode jumped straight into action. With Ana serving as the focus point this time, it ought to have been no surprise that the puzzle would be of the artistic variety.

Herbert Muller revealed that his real goal was one of revenge. How would he achieve this? Simple, as one could expect, he would use characters who still had these feelings against various members of the Root Academy Phi Brain Order. 

Mizerka proved to be an essential element again; however, she was not going to be involved in the action. Rather, she would observe Hubert’s plan as it came to action. I think the episode could have benefited from having her give the puzzle and interact with the students. Regardless, Eve, Ana’s sister, was like-minded with Mizerka, both wanting to crush Ana’s carefree spirit which disgusted them. It was quite a shame that both characters felt this way just because of the carefree attitude he has. However, it seemed to be justified for Eve as Ana has stolen so much from her. So much so that her loss of a will to paint was never even recovered, even at the episode’s end.

The stakes were quite high this time. For Kaito to lose against them would have resulted in Ana having his arms broken and never being able to paint again. As usual with these type of Giver requests, they often never seem to directly address the problem at hand for the Givers. If Kaito had failed, I can’t imagine that Eve’s feelings would have changed. Her paintings were already empty and I doubt harming someone else would have enabled her to discover what she lacked. 

The episode proved more informative than suspenseful. Numerous holes were filled in the history of Ana that has been presented across two seasons. Although Ana had come from being a silent shell as a kid to a talented artist now, it seems that his relations with his sister had deteriorated over time. Unfortunately for us, this plotline was not resolved even by the end of the episode. Kaito may have been successful in puzzle time, and Ana was successful out of puzzle time to break Eve from from the replica ring, but Eve still ended up having some harsh feelings against painting due to Ana. Ana wept intensely at the end, making this one of the saddest episodes thus far. 

I would have liked for there to be more of a puzzle focus here. The story may have been emotional, but the execution and ending of events left me begging for more. Hopefully as this series winds down, we can return to having intense drama-filled puzzles and less of this backstory emotion.

GO Rating: 3/5