the splash zone

As I have said, my favorite episode in the arc so far! A fun breath of fresh air but still interesting and engaging. But I think what makes this episode so great to me are all the little moments/elements that are sprinkled about it and honestly deserve much more attention. 

Right off the bat, Espresso cookie is here and therefore it's immediately great! I’ll make it no secret that Espresso is my favourite Secondary character and basically carries every story he is relevant in. He is very funny here,charming as ever, and an absolute riot, which is consistent every time he’s plot is relevant.

Ah, the classic “wait, hold on  I never agreed to th–” *cuts to them doing it.  Never gets old!

Snapdragon! It's great to see ya! One of a few “baby” characters who I don’t find annoying in the slightest. They are actually quite adorable and it's awesome that they get to play such a big role in this dragon arc! 

Mango cookie! It's been a hot minute since we’ve seen you! I watch these episodes with a friend and mango is a favourite of theirs! Also this was a cute moment, aluding to his adventure with Princess cookie. 

Anana’s is neat. A good introduction to the prideful dragon. I like how despite their pride they are very aware of what's going on, but because of it they refuse to stoop to the levels of asking for help from cookies

Also Snapdragon lore and Lotus dragon mention! Haven't checked out the stories for the dragons in ovenbreak, this was a long awaited reveal. 

Thanks Espresso with your perfect negotiation skills, as a scientist who used to work in the republic, he had to learn to deal with the snobby bitches. Also I kinda wished Hollyberry had the chance to share these words with Anana’s, it's hilarious how they do not gel at all!

I really like the design of the Mango tribe kid, I honestly get Moana vibes from this entire story. The NPC is cute, and their little friendship with Strawberry crepe is really sweet, especially this little bit here. Knowing how much Strawberry Crepe internal struggle with not having a biological family, this kinda hurts a bit.

This entire interaction was hilarious. I really miss Espresso and Crapes’s interactions because they are so fun together. Then Hollyberry comes in and teases Crape as well, this is such a fun team. And it's so refreshing to have pure fun character moments again where they are just bouncing off of each other's personalities. 

Night Raven is so cool already. In the short amount of time he gets we get a lot of clues and information about his motives, personality and even origin. He is still upholding the laws of nature but in his own twisted way. 

I like how it's clear that Ananas still cares about his cookies, especially Mango cookies. Despite their bias against cookies. They shows it through actions while their words indicate disdain.

Also let Strawberry Crepe at em! I personally would not take that level of disrespect LOL! 

Oh, her design is so cute! I gotta say, it's nice to be back to the exploration/world building  aspect of Kingdom's storytelling. The first four episodes didn't delve much into their environments because the time was spent mainly on plot building and POV swapping. 

This episode did wonders for me, as a HollyPitaya enjoyer. I’m glad that the story is really emphasising their relationship and the guilt she has for not being able to prevent this from happening.

I want to ‘briefly’ defend the previous episodes a bit. While HollyBerry not checking on Pitaya after the war was a mistake on her part (although it is implied not that much time has passed) it's made very clear that they were constantly on her mind, but Holly still has a whole kingdom to be responsible for. Plus Pitaya is a capable powerful dragon in their own right, it just so happened that they had literally the worst case scenario. It makes a lot of sense that she wasn’t able to recognize the Chaos dragon because 1. They look nothing like, aside from the green (bro lost all their red) 2. Pitaya shouldn’t even be capable of cosmic levels of Destruction. And 3. Most importantly this is incredibly uncharacteristic of them! Holly didn’t want to believe it was Pitaya because Pitaya would never do this, especially after coming to her aid in war. I get the dialogue was a bit repetitive (which is an issue Act 2 has been having here and now) but this ‘critique’ feels like a nothing burger imo. 

But hey, now we get some delicious Hollyberry and Pitaya angst!!!

Speaking of Angst, awww they miss their kin. Pitaya might be considered a ‘disgrace’ to them, but Anana still cares despite their pride.

Neat development here! I don’t see these two becoming friends but I would like them to be able to put aside their differences and work together. Hopefully by the end of this Holly can gain some of Anana’s respect, although I don’t see them fully overcoming their racism lol.

Oh ho ho! Now, I’m very familiar with ovenbreak, but I know that this Longan fella is really bad news. I plan to check out their stories once I find the time, but it is a very interesting omen for the future of this already chaotic story. 

I am very intrigued to how they will deal with Night Raven going forward. It is clear that Anana’s and HollyBerry are not powerful enough to defeat them on their own, but  o have a hunch that Espresso, Crepe and maybe even Snapdragon will find a way to amplify Anana’s power in the future. I like this cliffhanger, I really hope we get much more night raven next ep!

This is actually the longest Endo has gone without a short mission or standalone chapter in quite some time. I was counting everything from chapter 128 (the beginning of the TV station hijacking) as the same arc, but now it's more like three arcs back to back: TV station hijacking (128 to 132), SSS house party (133 to 136), and now the start of a possible "hospital symposium" arc with chapter 137! Not that I don't enjoy the more slice-of-life focused chapters, but I'm also happy that Endo is showing us so much juicy character and plot progression lately! But as for the chapter itself, there was a lot to unpack!

Loid's stomach issues are officially canon and not just a throwaway joke 😅

I like how Yor gives Fiona a polite acknowledgment before going back to her business with Loid. If this had happened a long time ago, she would probably feel a lot more embarrassed about doting on Loid in front of his coworker. She'd be second-guessing herself about how to act like a "normal" wife and all that. But instead, she's confident enough now to simply be herself in front of others, even someone she was once jealous of. She even refers to Fiona as "that tennis lady" instead of "Loid's coworker," which makes it even clearer to me that she's moved past the whole jealousy thing and is confident that Loid wouldn't want to replace her as his wife.

Meanwhile Fiona hasn't changed a bit 🤣

The fact that someone related to Sigmund may be at the symposium, which is taking place somewhere within walking distance of where the Forgers currently are, really makes me hope it'll lead to more Anya backstory, even just a bit.

We already know that Sigmund has some connection to Anya/Project Apple. And now we have a situation where someone connected to Sigmund (Director Surjay) is potentially in close proximity to Anya at the current moment. The excuse with Sigmund is that he has amnesia, which is why Anya can't get more information from reading his mind. But that may not be the same for Surjay, which makes me wonder if Anya will meet this guy, read his mind, and remember some...not so pleasant things about her past with Project Apple? 😢But even if she doesn't encounter this Surjay guy, we also have Donovan on the scene now, which could definitely lead to something.

There's been a rumor ever since Melinda's "my husband is an alien" chapter that Donovan could have the ability to read minds and was part of the Project Apple experiments along with Sigmund. Even though Donovan's appeared a few times in the series so far, what I always found interesting is that we haven't heard any internal monologuing from him. We've gotten to hear the inner thoughts of pretty much every other prominent character at some point, but not his even though there was a good opportunity for it during his meeting with Loid and at the Desmond family dinner. Why would Endo not want us to know what he's thinking unless it's to keep his ability to read minds a secret? But if Anya encounters him, there would be no way around this...UNLESS he's able to somehow suppress his thoughts in the presence of another mind reader. I wouldn't put it past him to have that ability. And even if he and Anya don't meet, there's also the chance he could meet Yor, Fiona, or Loid again. If he can read minds, he already knows all about Loid from their first encounter, so who knows what he's been plotting since then?

its gonna be super funny if in the next chapter

Anya does Not come in contact with donovan meaningfully

Fiona does Not gather any useful intelligence

and we get 0 flashbacks (for me. am hoping for one)

but Yor runs into him randomly and is like " Oh you must be Melinda's husband Damian's dad sir ahhh? Please tell Melinda I hope she is sleeping better now :3"