Spirit Chronicles - Episode 4 Review - Latifa Calls Rio Her Onii-chan
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
I was hoping we’d be spared having to see the dumbass bullies from the academy finally, but dumbass Stewart makes an appearance in this ep again. And does even worse than bullying Rio.
The ep starts with Rio traveling through a forest at high speeds using his strange super magic. It’s been three days since he left Celia and the Beltrant kingdom. He goes to Amande Town in the Galarc Kingdom of the Strahl region to pick up food and supplies. He made it there faster than his wanted posters, so it’s considerably less dangerous to do business there.
While there, he discovers the market selling Japanese ramen! And elsewhere, a stall was selling manjuu. These were supposedly invented by Lady Liselotte, the governor of Amande. Rio suspects her consciousness isekai’d from the same world as Haruto’s.
Anyways, Rio meets a cute shop assistant named Lotte (who the audience learns is actually Liselotte) who helps him purchase plenty of food. After this peaceful visit, Rio leaves the town. The other shop assistant Cosette teases Lotte for her cute exchange with Rio. A little harem service for us.
Outside the town, Rio stumbles upon a fallen cloaked figure. He gets close to check on her, and it ends up being Latifa. It’s a trap! An ambush!
Latifa hits Rio with a poison dart, but Rio uses his convenient magic to neutralize the poison right away. The two engage in a fierce fight to the death. She’s extremely fast and Rio can barely keep up with her. In the end, Rio defeats and subdues her. She starts crying like a baby immediately.
Rio removes the slave collar that was controlling her and questions her. When Latifa learns she no longer has to suffer under the collar she cries loud tears of relief. Rio finds out that her master is that piece of shit Stewart who sent her to kill him.
The kind person that Rio is, he lets Latifa go. But scared little Latifa clings to Rio and begs to go with him on his journey. He’s hesitant, but allows it.
Rio makes her lunch. She’s never had such good food so she cries tears of joy and relief. You really get the sense of how much torture and abuse this child had to endure all this time. At night as they sleep, Latifa has a nightmare. In her sleep, she says she wants to go back to her family and Tokyo. Rio deduces that she too has a consciousness from the other world. The big surprise is that she was a little girl on the same bus that Haruto died on! Rio doesn’t know this part yet, and I’m not sure if he’ll ever learn.
The next morning, Latifa asks if she can call Rio “Onii-chan.” And he agrees. The two journey for quite some time. Then come to a giant tree that seems protected. Overnight, a strange wolf visits them and seems to transform.
Image source: Amazon
