You wont believe what happened after the end credit; Legend of Mana Teardrop of Crystal episode 7 impression

Summary

T

he party continued their journey to find Esmeralda's sister cores. In the first part of the anime, Esmeralda and Ruri noticed the presence of her sister Jumi's core nearby. Therefore, they decided to check the shore to find out where was the Jumi’s core located. As they looked around, they met with the penguin lady; ms Valerie, who happened to be Shiloh acquaintance. She was nesting and had just giving birth to an egg. Ms Valerie said that the egg was the proof of her love with David; another penguin who had left her to join the pirates crew. After a bit of introduction, Esmeralda showed Mrs Valerie about the shining green crystal in her chest; saying whether she had seen the same stone nearby. Mrs Valerie realized that the leader of the Digger; who resided in the nearby island had a necklace with a similar stone on it.

When did you go to the beach? LoL the previous episode never showed most of your journey

In the digger island, a group of digger along with their muscular vice leader were praying and looking for their missing leader who they called as Mr Putty. Just as the group met them, Esmeralda noticed he had an emerald necklace with him. She begged to the vice leader to give the emerald because it was her sister core and it means a lot for her. The leader agreed to give the emerald if they managed to find the missing Mr Putty. He said that the pirate ship just landed on the other side of the island so he asked them to navigate inside the ship to find Mr Putty. Serafina asked him about Mr Putty’s appearance and he replied that the man had a long pointy nose, an elegant standing pose, a fluffy hair, and he wore a golden ring in his left arm.

Siss? bu..bu..bu..but I am a BOY

In the Pirate ship, the two pirate crews asked a new pirate member to guard the door while they heading upstairs. As he waited, he heard a voice upstairs. Shiloh tried to see downstairs and saw a big door protected by a lone penguin. He instantly recognized that he was Mrs Valerie’s lover; David. Then, the party explained to David that they had to find a missing Mr Putty because they need to get Esmeralda’s sister core. Fortunately, David gave them a pass to enter the room. He did not like the idea of taking hostage because it felt so low for the pirate gang to take hostage and tried to rule the land while they were supposed to roam the sea instead. Inside the room, they head a dog crying just inside a barrel. Shiloh and Rury picked the barrel and let the dog inside it free. Soon, they realized that the dog had the same description with the one that the vice leader mentioned to them. It had a pointy nose, a good standing posture, a fluffy hair, and most importantly; it had a golden ring on its left arm. How happy the vice leader when he saw Mr Putty was back along with the party. And just as he promised, he gave Esmeralda the Emerald necklace in his neck. Before continuing their journey, they took time to look at Mrs Valerie who already hatched the egg and hold the baby penguin on her hand. Shiloh gave her a permission to stay at his house so that Mrs Valerie would not be attacked by sea monsters and she gladly accepted.

the boy noticed that Ms Valerie teased them while the girl just sit there clueless xD

They continued their search for the missing core and after a through searching; they managed to find another emerald stone; which means they only need to find one more gem. Just then, Elazul said that they need to rest for a while because Shinju-hime was exhausted from the long searching. The party postponed the adventure for a while and decided to head back to Geo for resupply. Ruri said that Shinju-hime might need a three days to recover so they decided to part for a while and would reunite at Geo in three days. Before leaving, Serafina wanted to tell Shiloh about something yet as he was listening, she decided to hold the conversation and said that it was nothing. After day passed, Shiloh and Esmeralda woke Shiloh up. They said that Mr Nunuzac gave information to them about Ms Kristie. A wealthy merchant specialized in selling antique and art piecess; who might know the location of the last emerald. Shiloh noticed that Serafina was not nearby and Esmeralda said that she could not find her in her home. She also added that it was possible for Serafina to help people in the market. Therefore, Ruri, Shiloh, and Esmeralda decided to meet Ms Kristie without Serafina and Shinju-hime who was in a recovery process.

I had a high hope that she was about to confess her love...oh boy I am so wrong

They met with Ms Kristie and asked her if she knew the emerald stone that look identical to the one Esmeralda hold. Ms Kristie asked her assistant Mr sothebee if he knew something similar to the stone. He replied that he had seen a similar stone in the storeroom. Ms Kristie asked them why they were looking for that gem and Esmeralda replied that the gem was her sister; a jumi core. She showed them the location of the storeroom and she even told them to take the gem if they wanted to. Just as the party headed to the storeroom, Mr Sothebee asked why she gave the gem right away and Ms Kristie just replied that having a jumi’s core only bring a bad luck. As they entered the room, Esmeralda instantly noticed one of the small chests had a glowing light on it. As she opened the chest, she found the last Emerald and she felt really happy finding all of her sister’s cores. Suddenly something just caught her attention. She walked to a statue that was actually Lady Diana. She was the leader of the bejeweled city as well as Ruben’s lover. The statue glowed and spoke to the party. Diana told them that Jumi was doomed to extinction ever since the last Jumi who could create the teardrop crystal died. Hence, there was no more Jumi could get resurrected and she asked Esmeralda to stop being a Jumi. Off course Esmeralda disagreed because she already got all her sister core and she would find a way to bring the tears back to Jumi. Then, Ruri asked Diana about what was the purpose of Jumi existence because he was born just after the fall of Diana. She agreed to give him the answer with one condition. Ruri should bring along lady Blackpearl to her. Ruri hesitated and said that he didn’t know the whereabouts of lady Blackpearl. After the meeting, the Shiloh and the other two went back to their original location. Ruri told Esmeralda to stay away from them because she already got her sister’s core back yet she proposed to continue sticking with them. Just then Serafina appeared to them with serious look on her face. Esmeralda got closer to her but out of sudden; Serafina grabbed the emerald stone in her chest and took it away; making Esmeralda disappeared with a shocking expression in her face. Not enough by taking her core, she also took the other emerald and ran away. Ruri immediately told Shiloh that Shinju-hime might be in danger right now and they moved as fast as they could to save her.

 

Review

F

inally; the legend of Mana teardrop crystal had a major plot twist on it. As far as I played the game, I never expected that Serafina would take Esmeralda’s core and stole the other emeralds.  In the original game it was Sandra herself who take Esmeralda’s core. There were two possible reasoning from Serafina’s action. Should Square-Enix wanted to play it safe, they should make as if Sandra stole Serafina’s identity as a way to get closer and execute Esmeralda at blind spot. By doing so, the real Serafina would be considered innocence and she may have to clear her name. However, there were also possible to make even bigger plot twist with her being the real assassin. Did she have other reason to take Esmeralda’s core such as Sandra took someone closer to her as a captive? Or is it possible that Serafina was not even a good person after all? There was a scene where Serafina wanted to take her spear as if she prepared to fight someone. Yet, she hesitated and left the spear as if she would better of not doing anything. Why did she hesitate to take arm... Does doing so only endanger someone else that she hold dear? In fact she goes as far as taking Esmeralda’s core meaning that despite their friendship, someone else means more important to her. Another thing to take note here was when Diana asked Ruri to take Blackpearl to her. Ruri expression showed that he knew all along that Shinju-hime was lady Blackpearl. Yet, he decided to conceal her real identity (maybe for her safety) rather than to tell them that he knew about her.

Let me charge my Hadouken xD

Apart from that surprising end part, I found some part of the anime just lack explanation. Such as Mrs. Valerie and Mr. David initial meeting with Shiloh. When did they meet before? There was no previous encounter between them as if characters just magically appeared in and out of the anime. It also happened to most of the previous episode like other town folk such as Nicollo. If I am a new viewer, I would be wondered about whose that cat person and where did Shiloh meet him? Why did Shiloh called the cat person as a scammer when there was no episode showed their adventure in the road. It was a bit confusing for new viewers if there were very tiny characters introduction that aired in the previous episode. Apart from its weaknesses thou this episode has a good twist because we never expect that the second protagonist might end up become the villain if her motive was not pure.