Zero no Tsukaima 6

  

Louise stands firm, ready to cast her magic at the golem, even though Saito tells her to run away. She's a noble -- she can't back down. Her magic doesn't work well as usual, but thankfully Saito dives in to save her from the golem's smash attack. Saito gives her a good slap for not listening to him. She cries -- everyone always made fun of her, so if she ran away that'd happen again... Saito takes her to Tabitha and Kirche, riding Slyphid, but he stays behind to take on the golem.

Saito takes out the fancy sword Kirche bought for him -- the runes on his hand don't glow -- and attacks the golem. As soon as the blade strikes the stone golem is breaks. Yup, some blade made by some famous alchemist, yeah... Saito takes out Derfringer -- this time the runes on his hand shine -- and slices through the golem with ease, moving much faster than he normally could. The golem just takes more earth and regenerates, though. Louise takes the Staff of Destruction out of its case and floats down to the ground. The "Staff of Destruction" is actually a rocket launcher. Louise, trying to use it as a wand, has no idea how to use it. Saito takes it from her, the runes on his hand shining again, sets it up and takes aim -- with one shot the golem is gone.

Miss Longbill shows up again and picks up the rocket launcher. Surprise, surprise, she's the thief, Fouque ;) She had no idea how to use the Staff of Destruction, so she set it up so someone could show her how to use it -- she thought Louise's tsukaima might know how to use it, since he's Gandalv. She holds the rocket launcher up and takes aim -- but it would seem to be out of ammo. Saito gives her a jab to the stomach with the hilt of his sword, knocking her out. Kirche seems to be even more in love with him after seeing all of this ;)

Osman thanks Kirche, Louise, and Tabitha for capturing Fouque. They'll get a reward from the royal family for their work -- everyone except Saito since he's just a tsukaima. Everyone else leaves and Saito speaks with Osman alone. Saito tells him that he's not from this world. Something similar has happened before -- long ago, a soldier from Saito's world saved Osman from a monster using that Staff of Destruction. However, that soldier died not soon after... Saito thought he had finally found a clue for returning to his own world, but not quite yet...

A dance is held that night -- Saito is out on the balcony, all alone, when Louise enters the ballroom. And is she ever cute ;) She's invited to dance more than a few times, but walks to Saito and asks him for a dance. Saito doesn't know how to dance at all, but Louise tells him to just follow along. Louise says that she'll believe him now -- believe that he's actually from another world. Blushing, she thanks him for saving her earlier. Of course he'd do that -- Saito is her tsukaima

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And that's the end of volume one, folks, and done very well, though there were some things cut that I would've liked to see. Yes, it was just as obvious in the novel that Miss Longbell is Fouque, so there wasn't much to be done about that ;) Anyways, I've been looking forward to seeing this in the anime since Louise finally goes deredere -- much, much, much too cute in the novel, and in the anime as well :) But Louise doesn't last too long in dere mode in the novel since Saito does something extremely stupid at the beginning of volume 2 that gets him some rather harsh punishment from her (^^;;)

Back to this time -- Saito finally had a chance to show off and be cool this time using his power as the lengendary tsukaima, Gandalv. In the novel Saito's Gandalv power activated even when using Kirche's fake sword, but in the anime they must've decided it wouldn't since the sword is just a decorative item, which does make sense ;) But for some reason an explanation of Gandalv was left out this time, so it could be confusing if you haven't read the novels -- some people in the jikkyou thought Saito must be a military otaku of some sort to use the rocket launcher so easily... no ;) That's actually a demonstration of one of Gandalv's powers, the ability to use all weapons with ease. There's some more to Gandalv (and Derfringer, too), but I'll leave it at that for now.

Next time, instead of going straight to volume 2, from what I've read it looks like we'll be jumping ahead to a story from volume 5 where Louise works as a waitress -- they have maid cafes there? ;) According to MOON PHASE, it looks like they'll do the material from volume 2 starting from episode 10.