Izetta The Last Witch / Shuumatsu no Izetta

You heard it correctly. It's already starting to take a toll on Sophie, but her body is an 'unstable' clone (you know, from the mass-production human clone vats the Germanians have. Geez).

There's a lot of room for episode 11 to get dark and sad, but I'm hoping that things will be turned around still. Fine and Izetta's relationship is kind of messed up at this point - mostly due to Izetta's own issues with self-worth and self-preservation. I don't agree with the people saying that Fine manipulated Izetta into fighting; she's pragmatic enough to realize that Izetta was basically the only line between Eylstadt and Germania, but she also asked Izetta every time if she really wanted to go, or if it was really safe. If Fine has a sin, it's not recognizing how little Izetta cares for herself if she can be of use to Fine, because if it was Fine asking, Izetta would do anything without complaint, even if Fine didn't want her to. I think she realized that in this episode, but Izetta is taking it entirely the wrong way (and Sieg's essentially sacrificing her for Eylstadt by enabling this).

I just really hope things go well... I'm not sure how they'll be able to stop the entire war at this point, but I'm hoping that we don't just get Izetta and Sophie killing each other and bringing the age of witches to a close.

So hey, at least neither Izzeta nor Fine was actually captured. We avoided the worst case scenario, and thank God, because I was not up to an "Izzeta in captivity" episode.

Wow, Sieg about bloody time you were good for something. That's like, your first actual contribution, aside from killing a guy on your own side and allowing the actual spy to run away.

So the Magic Stone lets her store power in exchange of shortening her lifespan. Good thing she has spare bodies. Speaking of which, couldn't they make the tubes a bit bigger. I mean, you'd think the Germanian Empire would have better budget for Emperor's pet project.

Turns out Berkman got kicked out for... preforming all tasks impossibly well? With personnel policy like this, I can't imagine how Germania even became an Empire. Though it's bit funny how even people in universe notice how Berkman successes make no sense.

Yeah, Izzeta and Fine relationship is messed up as hell, and now it comes to light. Izzeta has some real self worth problems and is obsessed with "paying back" Fine. Something should really be done with this.

Ah, I fear this series won't have a happy ending.

Honestly, Izetta and Fine are just fine for each other, but as long as Fine has the survival of her country weighing on her mind, Izetta will be willing to give herself up completely for that. I don't think she understands yet that Fine cares as much about her as she does about Eylstadt.

If the war can be ended, then they may have a chance at a happy ending. That said, I don't know how that could happen in just two episodes... unless things go really badly with the Russian invasion, the Americans show up, and a (magic) nuke is dropped...

There probably won't be any need for a nuke as long as the Empire of Yamato isn't involved.

But yeah, two episodes seems like a tight schedule for overturning the war and fixing our couple's relationship.

As for Berkman, it's not unreasonable to think that Otto got scared of his rather insane fortune.If he ever attempted a coup or something… better safe than sorry.

'I found an ancient scroll written by an abbot several hundred years ago that details Kaiser Otto's palace layout, guard schedules, when he goes to bed and the type of poison he has an inherited inability to taste.'

And true, perhaps, but that bomb is going RIGHT up on the mantel next to Chekhov's gun. I really hope Izetta doesn't have to kill herself with the stone to make sure it doesn't go off or anything...

Good thing izetta wasn't captured. Lord knows what they were gonna do to her and i'm lucky enough to know the show wasn't gonna pull a hostel and have izetta tortured. Also i don't see the issue with izetta being 15. Its not like fine' is 18

Well, that should have been 2 or 3 episodes. Really think Sophie's appearance was originally planned to signal a new cour

What with this show and people pulling things out of their asses.

Next thing you know Atlanta steps up and says "you know what, we also have a witch all along, and she would like to visit the Yamato Islands."

It's less having spare witches and more having access to ancient documents that are immediately and overwhelmingly relevant to the situation at hand while also being completely unheard-of by the other side or anyone else except the person who found them.

If this anime does that, i would be convinced the show is trolling me

Episode 11. The What the Hell, Hero? moment was a bit too quick, but the flight scene just after more than makes up for it. <3 God that was sweet.

Berkman is a scumbag to the end, and yet this episode made me like him, somewhat. I guess they can't lose now that Mr. Nothing-Goes-Wrong is on their side.

And the classic "what if Hitler had nukes" scenario.

PS: Is it me or the music was awfully loud in this episode?

edited 10th Dec '16 12:26:49 PM by Lyendith

The strategy guy is?

Music volume = above average.

Oh yea, I finally caught up

Yeah, of course now that Berkman is technically on Eylstadt's side, he's come up with genius plans like 'let me come along to the peace talks run by the army I'm a fugitive from and sit in the front of the car without disguising myself at all'.

The flight scene was so damn sweet. I was expecting Fine and Izetta to kiss at some point during it but I think now we're less likely to get a confirmation like that...

And of course there's a whole army waiting for Izetta at the launch base. At this point there's no way the nuke will be launched (at Landsbruck - I expect Sophie will try to launch it anyway), but I swear to god, if this is a double-double cross by Berkman so Izetta gets her ass kicked and then the nuke is fired anyway, I'll be quite salty.

I just want our World War II lesbians to be happy.

Realization: Ooohhh, that said "F-L-ight" scene not "F-I-ght" scene...

Confusion averted.

Izzeta slapping Fine and telling her to shape up was awesome.

Berkman is scum. And of course this plan of his has gone awry already.

Next episode, the grand finale. Will the bomb drop?

The rock's weakness is Cast from Hit Points, huh? Looks like they're going with the "Izetta dies to save the world" route. Not the outcome I wanted, but it's certainly the one I expected.

I guess the only remaining question is whether Berkman will pull yet another Gambit Roulette in the last episode. Maybe he wasn't kidding about wanting to kill everyone in the world purely for his own safety, and he's got a nazi super-virus which ends up killing all other men on the planet (not the women, because every female character in this show apparently has impenetrable plot armor). Then Izetta can throw him off a cliff and 50% of everyone lives happily ever after. That feels like wishful thinking, though...

My guess is that Berkman has a plan going within the plan. It makes sense that he had the microfilm ready in case he was captured and needed something to negotiate with; if Izetta fails, he might be able to spin it as that he told Izetta where to go so Sophie could kick her ass, and win some points back with Germania. He's not popular with the Kaiser, clearly, but 'on the run in Germania' has a higher chance of success than 'lashed to a chair in Landsbruck when it gets nuked', even if only by a little.

That said, it is pretty funny how his (very stupid) plan immediately fails once he's scheming ostensibly for Eylstadt.

Remember, Izetta knows something that she told Fine atop the mountain, but we weren't shown. I'm banking on Unspoken Plan Guarantee here...

Why do I get the feeling Berkman is going to end up a Karma Houdini; he seems to have things setup where he can't lose in any way.

Whenever an Anime goes the Cast from Lifespan route, it almost always never has any actual effect on the user in the context of the story, so I don't really expect Izetta to die next episode. Worst I can see, she just nukes all of the leylines and she can no longer use magic. Of course that doesn't really bring an end to the war, but I think they're gonna go the And the Adventure Continues route.

And I don't think we're going to get a kiss...probably the best we'll get is hand holding, which is acceptable...if disappointing.

Yeah, but that probably just means she'll successfully beat the wicked witch and stop the Germanians from using magic nukes to take over the world, which is sort of inevitable anyway (this show never seemed like it was heading for a total downer ending). The stone sucking out your lifeforce seems like an obvious telegraph of Izetta dying, especially since we only just now learned it does that. There has to be some reason they brought this up.

It could be how they kill off Sophie, but she's already dying of Clone Degeneration and probably also the wrath of Izetta, so that seems redundant. A couple of other characters have already died tragically in service to their country (one even had a half-baked forbidden romance thing right before he was killed off) so the main story is very likely to end in a similar way. I hope I'm wrong, but it's hard to see any other logical way for this to go, and the plot has been pretty by-the-book the whole way here.

To be fair, that effect of the stone was mentioned by Berkman to Sophie; that's why they have that huge clone army of her, so she can jump bodies again if she kills herself overusing her half of the stone (aside from her body just being unstable anyway).

Honestly, I think the most important thing to go off in predicting how the series will end is the White Witch legend. It's what brought Fine and Izetta together in the first place, and it's played a huge role in Izetta growing closer to the people of Eylstadt. The legend itself was just a fairy tale, but people have suggested that Fine knew the true story and called Izetta her White Witch anyway - presumably with no intention of betraying her.

Oh, that was actually a fairly good episode, if still a bit rushed. Minimal Sophie probably helped with that

I don't see either of our main couple dying— The show puts some effort into being gritty but is ultimately too hopeful for something like that

I don't know. I've never been able to see this show having anything other than a Bittersweet Ending, and at this point they've dropped so many hints that it's going to be "Izetta dies in the process of saving the world" that it'd be downright bizarre if it went in some other direction. Heck, it says right in the title that she's the "last witch."

It's also, unfortunately, a common cop-out ending to gay relationships, when the writers only want to 99% admit they exist. I'm having flashbacks to a particularly crappy example, though this one probably won't have her die so pointlessly. Killing off Fine wouldn't really accomplish anything at this point, so it sorta has to be Izetta. Most likely she's going to use the last of her life-force to do something dramatic that ends the war; maybe strap pseudo-Hitler to the magic nuke and fly into space to blow them up, like a cross between Iron Giant and Dr. Strangelove. (Of course, the Iron Giant reassembled himself, so, who knows...)

...Oh jeez, I just realized. The Germanians have literally built a magic missile. Sheesh.

edited 10th Dec '16 11:42:48 PM by Kotomikun

I'm really banking on this series managing to pull off what the writer did with Sora No Woto, and have a happy ending where everyone makes it through mostly okay.

And honestly, even if they do kill people off, that's what headcanon is for.

I don't really see Izetta dying, rather losing her witch power and living happily with Finé in the countryside or something. Clearly, her death would leave a bad taste in my mouth.

This kind of Generation Xerox plot (here with the Legend of the White Witch) are usually meant to end by the protagonist ultimately averting their predecessors' sad fate.

…By the way, there's still that thing about Atlanta turning on Eylstadt once Germania is out of the way. I wonder how this is gonna be resolved in one episode.

edited 11th Dec '16 5:10:12 AM by Lyendith