Attack on That Big Guy.
So, Mr. Hungry Giant turns out to be a more formidable foe than the tree-topping giants of the island. Gabimaru, who intercedes quickly (affording Sagiri a chance to try to treat her comrade, getting some important words for her character growth even as her efforts to save his life are futile) is overwhelmed: he can avoid and evade, but he doesn’t really have a means of dealing damage to the big guy, who has instant-death tier melee attacks and enough toughness to totally no-sell even ninjustu-derived projectile attacks.
Just as Gabimaru seems to be on the cusp of giving in to his panic, which some eye shots to indicate his near-breaking loss for an opportunity, Sagiri rejoins the fight, taking off one of the big guy’s fingers in the process. Her next attacks are a little more futile, since evidently even his bones are some kind of wrong with how he moves, denying her a repeat performance of “slip between and sever the bit”. Why she can’t cut soft tissue to the bone I’m not sure, but that’s a fridge logic issue at worst.
The majority of this episode is taken up into the fight. Gabimaru and Sagiri eventually ignite the forest around them, and when the smoke forces the giant down, he enters perfect head-chopping execution range (with a little help from Gabimariu holding his hand down), allowing Sagiri to cleanly sever his head and end the immediate threat.
What about Yuzurina, you may ask? Well as fun and affable as she is, she’s still a ruthless opportunist, so she was watching and rooting for Gabimaru (while assuming he’d die) until the fire started, at which point she booked it. At the end of the episode, Gabimaru and Sagiri catch up to her and her nerdy remaining executioner as they gain a view on what appears to be a village – overgrown, but clear sign of human artifice, where they suspect mystical “hermits” may live.
We do get one last side cut as well, moving to the Bandit King and his brother as they debate eating monsters and then come across quite the scene, with a pair of human like-entities getting intimate. There’s our “wham” for next episode.
I say “human-like entities” and not “Women” despite their appearance because these beings, a pink-haired one and a blonde one, while looking very much like human women as they go at each other here, also appear in the opening… looking quite male. There could be two pairs, but my money is on the fact that these two are island beings and not natural humans, and are the same between this end of episode and the opening (meaning they can at least change sex, with the upper limits of potential shapeshifting unknown).
For all the blood and gore in Hell’s Paradise, it takes pains to keep the scene here brief and non-explicit, focusing on a very messy kiss. The extreme close up, and of some kind of fruit being consumed, gives it a much more grotesque than titillating impression, which is a somewhat difficult thing to do, but one that was probably quite important to the creators.
Who are these two? What are they? What will become of encountering them? All that is yet to come.