The Witch of Yore is probably not as in the bag as the characters think.
So, this episode opens with Seig showering Lise with affection and Lise… clearly not being certain how to take it. She’s still under assault in nightmare, and one might think it’s eating at her… but what the characters don’t realize is that Seig’s sudden shift to heavy outward affection might be taken the wrong way.
At the same time, we do pay off that meeting between Fiene’s Mom and the teacher bachelor. It turns out they have a history, where she taught him magic back when he was a kid (dark magic, at that) and he… may have been hot for teacher. Right now, he’s not convinced to help out in full, but the scene between them opens up a good deal.
On Lise’s side, the barrage of Seig’s attempts to get through to her continues, and we see finally why it’s all bounced off in one more dream confrontation with the Witch. There, Lise seems ready to fall; she accepts that she’s a worthless person, that Seig couldn’t love her, and that his present displays have been no doubt motivated by pity… but the Witch makes a mistake in sticking to the script about he’s a foolish man who will cast Lise aside for another. Lise may not believe in Seig’s love, but she heard Endo and Kobayashi calling out to her to not give in to the Witch of Yore, and she believes deeply (perhaps too deeply) in Seig’s quality as a person. Insulting him gets the witch rejected hard, and her dream manifestation dissolved, so that Lise wakes up feeling a lot better.
With that, she confronts Seig, lets him know everything that;’s gone on with her, and assures him that she won’t fall to the stupid witch, so she doesn’t need to be coddled. Understanding Lise’s hesitance, Seig manages to declare his love to her in a way that she can acept and beliece. Direct, but earnest rather than overwhelming, telling her that he loves her, how he’s not so godlike, how he can feel jealousy, and how he feels that they’re alike, The two hug it out, leaving them on a very romantic note. Kobayashi gets so excited that she bounces her way off the couch, leading to a diving save by Endo and… yeah the whole school “knows” you’re dating, it’s just you two who haven’t figured it out yet. It’s a cure moment between our leads to cap off the sweetness between Lise and her beloved.
As the stinger, though, we see the Witch of Yore again, fading (or moving) as she declares a curse upon ‘that woman’ and the world.
At this point, my attention draws to the opening, where a shot of Lise in the smoky purple tendril clutches of the Witch of Yore also shows those tendrils wrapping around Mr. Model from the Japan side of the setting. We have four more episodes in this show; if they’re going to go anywhere (and I’m aware this sounds like a broken record) that side is going to have to step up. I say it again and again, but that’s because it becomes more true as time goes on. With Lise now holding firm, there’s not much left up to chance in Fantasyland… if things were to stick to their canon route. But we have two figures with more presence than screen time who aren’t currently getting what they want… not to mention the mysterious name that Mr. Model called Kobayashi.
If I had to speculate, I’d guess that name is the true name of the Witch of Yore, and that she’ll now be able to make contact with him so they can mess things up together, but this show has surprised me with how much it’s able to milk the options still on the table, so I’m far from 100% on this wild speculation.
That said, I’m having more than enough fun to look forward to what next week brings.