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In Episode 22, even though Ariel was supposed to be still fighting Earth Dragon Gakia at the bottom of the Great Elroe Labyrinth, she suddenly appeared before Kumoko in the middle of the war that was taking place!

A scene that took place right before that showed us the last part of the fight between the elder dragon and the Origin Taratect, with an overwhelming victory of the latter. The best part of this was the way this scene together with the one that came after it showed how much Ariel had been influenced by Body Brain, her personality starting to become a mix of both, which must have been an incredibly unpleasant feeling for her.

Something pretty weird and funny was the way Ariel said “Kumorning star”, the name of one of Kumoko’s technique, but then used a completely different one which wasn’t related to Kumo’s original Kumorning stars at all.

Ariel’s worry and anxious state when realizing how much she had changed, feeling she was being eaten alive from the inside, was portrayed more or less decently. It was really great they decided to put something like this. The scene also showed her using Gluttony to eat Gakia’s breath attack, which was very nice!

In the end, Gakia was defeated and died the honor death he wanted..

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At the end of Episode 20, we received a blessing in the form of another Ariel scene! This time, she appeared in the Human Side of the story, on her way with the demon army and ready to crush the elves. How do the events we saw at the beginning of the episode when she was fighting Gakia and trying to kill Kumoko link with what’s currently happening in the Human Side, set many years later? How did her fight with Kumoko end? Finding out the way the Kumoko Side connects with the Human one and how each character ended up doing what they are doing and in the position they are at is what we will have to do.

Don’t forget to appreciate Ariel’s evil smile at the end and her magnificent voice! Her VA Sumire Uesaka truly did a fantastic job!

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In Episode 20, we could first see that Ariel was still fighting Earth Dragon Gakia, still alive even after having received her breath attack in the previous episode. Unfortunately for him and even though he seems to be doing his best and putting a good fight, it seems Ariel is winning.

As a novel reader, I do have to point out that this fight is very unrealistic, since Gakia would never be able to fight one on one with Ariel the way he is doing it here. The difference in stats and skills between them is just too big, and Gakia should have got destroyed very quickly. That’s why, in the novel, he took more dragons with him to fight her and and only tried to stall her using their barrier techniques together to trap her instead of directly fighting her. If it had gone the way it happened in the anime, it would have ended in a minute. The fight looks really cool though!

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In Episode 19, we could see Ariel running back towards the Queen after having left her earlier to retake the persecution of Kumoko, who took the chance to fight the Queen alone by teleporting to her place. When Ariel arrived, it was too late, and the Queen Taratect had already been killed. Furious, Ariel swears never to forgive Kumoko for it. It is then when Earth Dragon Gakia appears before Ariel, and faces her for his own personal motives, going even against the pact between them that they apparently had.

The scene does a decent job at showing Ariel’s anger after the loss of a precious partner. Unable to control herself and put up with Gakia’s bullshit, she fires a breath attack against him to shut him up, leaving him on the floor, apparently dead.

Episode 17 and its added scenes had already showed a bit of how Ariel cares for her kin and appreciates them, so her reaction in this scene is more understandable. This encounter was very different in the novel though, where Gakia confronted her together with many other Earth Dragons, turning it into a fight of one versus many. Gakia’s design is also very poor and simple taking into account he is the lord of Earth Dragons. He deserved better. The changes regarding the way the scene went weren’t bad though! Watching Ariel unable to listen to Gakia’s words anymore and attacking him so quickly was a great way of showing her rage. God bless Ariel!

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Back with the Ariel gifs! Episode 18 wasn’t a particularly relevant episode in terms of visual or direct content of her, but it did a nice job at hinting some specially interesting things about her like her identity as the Divine Beast worshipped by the people of Sariella, or her relationship with characters like Dustin and Potimas. These are things that could be given a lot of thought by both anime watchers and light novel readers. Ariel’s past, her being the Divine Beast (even though the people who worship her don’t even seem to remember her appearance), and her connections with Potimas and Dustin are very important and extremely interesting.

The few times she appeared were unfortunately in CGI, but thankfully, she looks way better than other characters even like that!

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At the end of Episode 17, we got to see Ariel with the Queen Taratect that was being attacked by Kumoko’s Parallel Minds. Witohut a doubt, the ABSOLUTE best part of this scene was Ariel’s voice and attitude. She sounded so different from how we had seen her in other previous scenes, they made this anime original scene in which she was still not affected by Body Brain so well, Ariel sounds and acts way more mature and serious, it’s just so perfect. We could also see the exact moment when Body Brain jumped to her and started attacking her too, which made her even more furious, aiming more strongly than ever to crusch Kumoko, who had somehow survived her attack from earlier.

Overall, this scene of her with the Queen, caring for her state and sounding so mature since she was still not influenced by Kumoko’s soul was such a treat. Her angry state at the end was magnificent too. She’s glorious.

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The consistency of my posts here is absolutely deficient because of my amazing skill at procrastinating and at forgetting about this place but I’ll someday finish posting the Ariel gifs I want to post! For now, have an Ariel from Episode 17 smashing a little Kumo-chan.

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Episode 17 started with a scene of Ariel no less! Such a magnificent way to start it. A very interesting conversation between her and Balto which reveals at the end Ariel’s plan to attack the elves now. The scene has some fantastic details like how Ariel’s voice sounds for example. An amazing job by her VA Sumire Uesaka who voices very nicely her casual and cheerful tone in this scene where she’s in a really good mood knowing she’ll finally be able to crush the elves. This detail shines even more later in the episode when another scene in which she sounds totally different takes place.

This conversation also tell us about Balto’s position as someone who does know a bit about Ariel, who told him every spider monster will follow her orders. This also explains his attitude back in Episode 9 since he has an idea about Ariel’s power and how terrifying she truly is. With this, the scene also confirmed completely that she has been all this time the Origin Taratect, a being who’s above Mother.

The scene does a really good job portraying Ariel’s relationship with her kin and how she cares for them. The part where the little taratect approached her and she looked at it with such a gentle expression, took it and patted it was just so cute and adorable, I melted watching it. And there are even more things that could be taken from this scene. The references to Kumoko and those last frames of Ariel and Shiraori were fantastic. Overall, I absolutely loved it, and Ariel’s participation in this episode doesn’t even end here!

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Now that I finished my duties, I’m free again to keep posting Ariel’s appearances in the anime. So we’ll now get to her scene at the end of Episode 16!

This scene is extremely important since it shows her appraisal and supposes her true presentation and debut in the series, confirming that she’s a completely different person instead of being Kumoko. It’s also the scene where her name and race appears, showing that she’s the progenitor of the entire Taratect species.

How did the anime adapt it? It’s pretty questionable to be honest. While the scene is definitely much better and deeper in the LN, where Ariel asks Kumoko to stop attacking the Queen in an attempt to bring her to her side and the language barrier makes it impossible, the anime version in which Ariel, out of anger, just destroys Kumoko the moment she finds her is realistic and not bad either. I personally didn’t like much the way Kumoko was portrayed here cause this was a very serious scene though. I also want to point out that Ariel’s cgi looks surprisingly good, she looks amazing!

This scene shows how absolutely terrifying and superior Ariel is and what Balto was talking about in Episode 9 regarding her strength. Since she was already the antagonist of the Human Side as the Demon Lord and now became the biggest obstacle to overcome in Kumoko’s one, she’s now the main antagonist of the series at this point. What will Kumoko do now? How will she defeat such a monster? We already know that Ariel is alive and working as the Demon Lord in the Human Side which takes place years later, so what happened exactly and where is Kumoko? We’ll see!

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At the end of Episode 14, we got an anime original conversation between Sophia and Ariel! The best part of this scene in my opinion is Ariel’s reaction to Sophia saying Shun should suffer as she did. It was hilarious and reminded me a lot of some late volumes, Ariel sounded like a mother who was wondering about what they had done wrong when educating her.

Overall it was a nice scene to put Sophia together with the demons and show how they have the situation completely controled and are leagues above the humans in terms of power. It was really great to get a Sophia-Ariel interaction. Ariel’s casual and nonchalant tone even when pitying Shun was wonderful.

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During the meeting between Potimas and the king together with the princes of Analeit Kingdom in Episode 13, Potimas talked about Ariel! This was an anime original scene by the way. Potimas having to admit Ariel is stronger than all of the previous Demon Lords must have bothered him so much and I love that. He mentioning he’s already had bitter experiences with her is MARVELOUS too. He’s referring not only to events we’ve already seen in some light novel volumes, but also some many others that happened before the main story and that we don’t even know about. I really loved it. Now, admire how beautiful she looks here!

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The part where Ariel mentions that the Earth Dragons are probably the most decent ones among all of them is actually incredibly good. She sounds lonely, sad. Those who might have thought at this point that Ariel is Kumoko could relate her lonely tone of voice and expression to her last, bitter moments with Araba. But Ariel is remembering Gakia here, and his words about the ancients’ time being up. She also appears blured, the focus not being her but the people behind her, who are the next generation Gakia mentioned. It was such a good moment, really. What an amazing job.

The last scene where she looks at the camera while eating the grape, which could be compared to the world she eats in the first opening, with Shiro being behind her is again a really, really good shot, the anime laughing at the viewer with the references basically.

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Ariel eating grapes is once again the anime portraying her as a goddess and someone to worship. Them trying to hype her up and put her in a superior position is what they should do, they are doing a fantastic job. This is actually the first time Ariel appears eating something, like she did with the world in the first opening or when she appeared in the first cour Key Visual. Nice of them to relate her to her sin from the beginning. Doesn’t she look beyond beautiful while eating?

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Episode 12 absolutely BLESSED us with these Ariel images at the beginning of her scene involving her talk about the Earth Dragons. Being portrayed as a goddess and as someone superior really fits her. Feel free to worship and admire her to your heart’s content, she deserves everything good in this world after all.

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Ariel appears again for a few seconds in Episode 10! She appears after Ronandt mentions the possibility of the Nightmare of the Labyrinth being participating in the war, a visual made once again to keep relating Ariel to Kumoko. She looks absolutely amazing, I have no words to explain such perfection.

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After the meeting, the 9th and 10th commanders stay with Ariel in a more intimate conversation. Ariel mentioning Kuro that it’s been some time since they met, and him saying that he didn’t expect them to arrive at the point they were currrently at is actually very, very interesting, and made to confuse the viewer, since Ariel clearly looks like Kumoko at many points.

This conversation implies that this one is no ordinary war, it’s not about wiping out humanity out of hatred between the two races. This is way deeper, and related to the truth of the world, to the sin that was commited long ago, and to those who have been alive since then. To a girl that is willing to put the whole world into chaos, and ready to become the enemy and focus of hatred of every living being, in order to save one single person.

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After every commander has given their reports, Ariel, satisfied, proceeds to declare war to all of humanity casually as if it was a normal thing to do. The playful smile she gives after that, enjoying the moment, is absolutely precious.

After that, we see her alone in the room, giving her back to all of the commanders who left with her eyes closed. The meaning behind that short moment is huge, it’s a marvelous shot. How all of them leave and she gives them her back, abandoning them, the demons, while closing her eyes. Amazing, really. One of the best moments of the anime.