Short Synopsis: A certain character makes her reappearance.
Highlights: Every single scene.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10 (Fantastic)
This episode doesn’t need an elaborate summary. All that you need to know in order to understand it can easily be summarized into one paragraph:

Porfy continues travelling, but due to the loss of Apollo he forgets to take care of himself and just wants to go to Paris as soon as possible. In the end, he collapses due to fatigue as he nearly gets hit by Alecia and her father’s truck. Alecia tries to get Porfy back to consciousness, but Porfy only utters that he needs to go to Paris. The rest of the night, Alecia’s father then drives to Paris, while Alecia takes care of Porfy (SO INCREDIBLY CUTE). Porfy wakes up after having a good night’s sleep, and returns back to his senses. In Paris, he says goodbye to Alecia, and even though she wants to come with him, he declines.

First of all: PORFY YOU IDIOT! CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT ALECIA REALLY WANTED?!

Second of all, this definitely was the best episode of Porfy no Nagai Tabi since the earthquake-arc. Alecia’s return was every bit as good as I could have hoped. The summary is indeed very short, but the real power of this episode lied into the visuals, not the audio. After all, at this point, the series doesn’t need any more exposition. Enough has been said at this point, and it’s now really time for the characters to just do their thing.

Alecia was downright awesome, even though she only appeared in two episodes of this series. Her crush on Porfy was so incredibly heart-warming, and the scene of the two of them together, in the back of the truck was especially memorable . I really like how this episode also decided to go for subtle drama, and deliberately kept the mood of the entire episode dark and quiet, instead of upbeat and a bit extreme, like the previous episode.

It also seems that Mina finally returned to her senses as well, and she remembers everything that happened at the earthquake and how she saw Apollo in Rome. It really looks like the finale of this series is going to play in Paris (in other words, it’s going TO START IN THE NEXT EPISODE!!), and my guess is that the series’ big climax will be in November, where December will deal with the aftermath. My big question for that aftermath is Alecia: once everything is over, and Porfy and Mina are either together, or have split up again, will Porfy go back to Alecia. It’s just too much of a shame to leave such a beautiful romance like this.

Oh, and on a side-note: I just love how, at the end of every episode, the background artists decide to whore their awesome skills. I should have known that they’d go all out once they’d reach Paris. That bird’s eye view of Paris was downright awesome.

Short Synopsis: The re-match between Manji and Makie.
Highlights: The huge psychological warfare that went on during the battle.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
With episodes like this, where one fight basically takes up the entire episode, I just can’t help but wonder why it felt so awesome here, and yet when series as Soul Eater stretch a fight-scene, with their far-superior animation, it feels like a chore to get through (for me, at least). I think the big difference is that the talking in Blade of the Immortal has a very important meaning to the fight, and this episode also shows that the psychological aspect is very important, while Soul Eater instead try to increase their length with an explanation that’s just good for a bit of background, and never adds anything to the characterization.

In any case, this episode was probably the best one of the series so far, mostly thanks to Makie and her fascinating character, who’s standing between her own values and her love with Kagehisa. This episode really showed me why she’s this series’ strongest warrior: not only is she very proficient with her weapon, but she also makes optimal use of the environment she’s in, compared to Manji, who’s just good at hacking and slashing his victims until they go down, and uses his persistence as his main weapon.

I also really like what Rin did, at the end of the episode. She’s very mature for her age: she realized that for her revenge, she killed many people, she acknowledges it, and yet she stands firm to her decision to avenge her parents and go through with the decision she made. This episode showed that she had a lot of doubts when confronted with it, but I really like that she was able to use this as another look at the spectrum, and went on to help Manji.