Yet another really intense and enjoyable episode! Super confusing of course, but after reading replies here/other stuff on the internet and rewatching the last half of the episode, I think I've understood what happened for the most part (Maybe?):
- Before Pai and Benares' battle at the end of season 1, Benares summoned Howasho and tasked it with sealing Pai's memories. Howasho turned into a little diamond.
- During the battle between Pai and Benares, Benares planted Howasho (in diamond form) on Pai's forhead while Pai made Benares explode into a bunch of mush (but Benares is a Wu so obvi he was immortal).
- The magic spell that Howasho used to control Pai and erase her memories is called Choan Lin Lin. As Howasho controlled Pai over 4 years and everything happened after Yakumo came, Howasho began to think that it was Pai and forgetting that it was a snake.
- Choan Lin Lin is a kind of magic that replaces on personality with another, so it didn't work so well on Pai because of her split personality (Pai/Pavarti the fourth). Instead of completely replacing Pai's personality, it only made her have amnesia, which allowed Howasho to forget that it was a snake and believe that it was Pai.
- Howasho, thinking it was Pai, wanted to go to the Holy Land, to get its memories back, because Pai had amnesia. Benares tells Howasho that it can't beat him or Kaiyanwang (I'm guessing because he's only a smol snakey-boi).
- Benares gives Howasho's consciousness, possessing Pai's body, 2 choices: to follow his word and go back to its life as a human (both going back to Pa-bo's “ordinary life” that it enjoyed, and saving everyone); or unseal Sanjiyan completely and fight against Benares and Kaiyanwang (unsealing=reverting back to snake form, which would give Pai her memories back because the seal on her memories, Howasho, would be taken off).
- Benares tells Howasho that saying the words “Ludora Mushate” to the emo glove thing will break the seal, reverting Howasho into smol snakey-boi form and allowing Pai/Sanjiyan/Pavarti the forth to remember everything and awaken.
- Howasho decides to separate itself from Pai, creating a flash bomb and flying away. Sanjiyan regains consciousness, and “reawakens” as Pavarti the fourth, not Pai.
- Howasho turns into Youko Ayanokoji, basically the same person as Pai Ayanokoji, because it wants to go back to that pleasant, ordinary life and can do so because it has left its past duty of sealing Sanjiyan's memories. Youko remembers being a snake, but doesn't remember Yakumo.
Here's where things get a bit fuzzy:
- Apparently Choan Lin Lin is still making Pai asleep, and Pavarti the fourth stays back in the Holy Land to wait for Pai to awaken, telling Yakumo that she'll return to Tokyo where she wants him to wait for her (So are there just afteraffects to the spell being broken and she'S just a little sleepy? Or has the spell not fully been broken?).
- Apparently Pai didn't have amnesia, and it was Howasho only who had amnesia (So did Howasho have amnesia in the sense that it thought it actually became the Sanjiyan in the process of it controlling her? And did Sanjiyan only have “amnesia” in the sense that Howasho's magic sealed her memories, so the memories were never lost to begin with, but they were moreso blocked from her remembering them?).
So taking this and thinking about all this and the second season's place in the grand scheme of things...all that really happened was that Sanjiyan's memories were sealed at the end of season 1 and now they've been unsealed, and Pai and Yakumo are on the search for each other yet again :p
But it was a pretty damn good season. Even with the longer episodes, I was very engaged and invested in the plot and events. Well done overall imo, I'd give it a 9-10/10! I just wish it wasn't as confusing and that there was either more to this season or a third season to have more closure/explain how this all ends (such as what happens when Pai becomes human, what ends up happening with the whole Kaiyanwang deal, etc.). But I guess that's all in the manga! |