The first half of the episode was basically the calm before the storm. It’s also an update to see what’s going on with some of the supporting cast and what they’re doing for the New Year. Ohkuma is at the farm as she’s helping out in preparing for one of the cows’ birth. Karasuma is helping out at her family’s shrine. Kanie and Saruwatari are bickering—I’m convinced these two will hook up in the future. Otsuru, Okame and Oshika are handing out amazuke and still seem in a good mood even after losing Fuku. Takayuki came home for the holidays and everyone in Animal Town knows him as they want him to take their pets’ picture; the part where he was rolling was hilarious. Mey Mey is spending time with Iroha’s parents and eating mochi soup. It’s nice that everyone has something to do for the holidays.

You know endgame is happening when the sky turns a dark color—that’s the staple for every final boss setting. I find it funny how this episode went from wholesome to serious real quickly. It’s as if the writers were like “Well, you got your fun; have fun with the final boss” and doesn’t elaborate any further.

I do like that Zakuro is starting to waver after seeing the beauty of the Christmas tree in the previous episode. I think that if she has time to admire beautiful things like sparkles and a rising sun, it doesn’t mean she’s all that bad. In fact, she’s not bad at all. She’s just conflicted to the point that she even told Gaou that his revenge won’t bring back the other wolves. Despite Gaou’s insistence on getting revenge, Zakuro still obeys his orders. It seems that Zakuro is forming a free will of her own, but she still doesn’t know how to use it. Hopefully, the cat duo will get to her. She definitely doesn’t want bad things to happen to Gaou.

Speaking of Gaou, I have this extremely weird theory. What if Gaou isn’t actually a wolf but a possessed version of Subaru? Like, Gaou is the only wolf standing on two legs and doesn’t have a human form compared to Zakuro and Torame. We still don’t have a full answer of how the dark powers came to be—watch it be some sort of supernatural, otherworldly force that possessed Subaru to get revenge for the loss of Gaou and his wolf friends. I just hope the next episode will detail it.

Anyways, I can’t wait to see what will happen now that things have escalated into the final battle. When will Gaou finally be free from his revenge? What are your thoughts on this episode?

The group’s classmate, Ohkuma, invited them over to visit her family’s farm! I always like it when their random classmates pop up in the story! Learning about these minor characters is really nice! There’s Karasuma who works at a shrine and now Ohkuma who works at a farm. Because it’s summer vacation, Ohkuma invites them over to do a stamp rally. I like how the show is showing off the nicer side of farming and not the darker side. The audience is for kids after all. Best not to traumatize them.

Though, I was surprised about the having alpacas. I get the usual cows, sheep, pigs and horses, but alpacas? Do farms supply alpaca wool or something? Are they better quality than sheep wool? I’m curious to see what sort of purpose alpacas have on a farm now…

It was cute and funny to see Mey Mey be a part of this episode. He got mistaken to be a sheep and had to participate in the sheepdog event. What’s hilarious is that he wanted to tag along because he wanted to have fun with Satoru. At least Mey Mey managed to not be a stick in the mud and had fun.