OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Naru, in her naked paper bunny mech, and the rest of Scavenger face Yomikawa, Esther, and Huotou in the remains of the DA headquarters. They then explain their goal, to fight against improper “educators” in Academy City who have neglected the city, describing all authority figures as “teachers” that they need to wipe out. It’s here we get to see the Yaku use her own powers that we haven’t seen yet, which are to manipulate the gravity in liquids to cause certain chemical reactions. Huotou attempts to fight back against them with Esther’s help, laying some solid hits on Naru, though her paper control is as good a defense as it is an offense. And I don’t know if we’re supposed to notice that this battle is between two girls wearing next to nothing, but I know I did.

Things take a turn when Scavenger’s Leader tells Naru to aim for Esther, forcing Huotou to take the hit and be seriously injured. But before either of them are hurt further, Accelerator makes his gallant entry to save the day! He makes a really good impression on Leader, who extends him an invitation to join their group, even offering him to be their Black Ranger. Accelerator is eager to teach them a lesson in true villainy, and more importantly, he really strikes me more like the rogue Sixth Ranger type anyway. So, Scavenger combines their abilities to fight, with Seike holding him in place, Naru confining him in a paper Iron Maiden, Yaku throwing in a liquid thermite bomb, and Leader…leading! But alas, none of it lands even a scratch, so he beats all of their butts soundly.

OUR TAKE

Oh, uh…I guess that’s it for Scavenger then. I mean they weren’t the most interesting of villain groups, but I was more than willing to have them take over for DA for the remainder of the season. And now they’re out of commission after one (admittedly cool to watch) tussle with our protagonist. Their mindset of fighting “teachers” is…unique, but I feel like I needed some personal connection to their backstories to get where they were coming from on that. Looking into things, it does seem this isn’t the last we see of them in the manga, but who knows if we’ll be getting to future arcs of this series once this season is done. At the very least, they did show a unique combination of abilities that worked pretty well together, even if their respective personalities weren’t all that memorable (even amongst other Index Dark Side groups, of which there are apparently A LOT).

At the very least, I was expecting them to last for a few more episodes. Without them, we kind of just have Hishigata and his weird lady friend. I guess they’re meant to be the final bosses for this anyway, considering they’ve been pulling both DA and Scavenger’s strings, but we still don’t know a whole lot about either of them besides some vague hintings at their previous involvement with Esther. That apparently links to the true purpose of those giant mechs making use of human souls to use dead esper powers, which DOES seem like a fitting overarching mystery to work with. It’s just that we’ve been dealing with more pressing things for the first half of this season, so now that that’s all resolved, it reminds me of how little we know about this other stuff that will probably be getting center stage for the remaining half.

I guess I can’t say I’m mad at this show or particularly disappointed since I honestly didn’t know what to expect in terms of the quality of a spin-off of a spin-off. Things just feel kind of meandering and I don’t know what to get hopeful for if anything. We just really need to find some clear focus and stick to that from now on, which I really didn’t think would be too much to ask and hopefully won’t be. I dunno, maybe it can turn things around with the last six episodes. I’ll be here to let you know either way.

Score 6/10