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Dance with Devils
Episode 7

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 7 of
Dance with Devils ?
Community score: 3.7

Dance with Devils continues its recent trend of actually providing us with answers in this episode, which is nice enough to tell us precisely what the grimoire is: Ritsuka. While most of us figured that out a while ago (even if I hoped the show would do something different, like making it Lindo), what's more important here is the implication that she doesn't contain the grimoire, a locked book of magic, but that her body itself is the “locked book,” meaning the magic power is within Ritsuka herself. This is different from the grimoire itself residing somewhere inside of her for a few reasons, one of which is certainly the sexual symbolism inherent in her corporeal body being “locked;” it would be really easy to view that as a reference to virginity (“purity”) and that the dark power is released when the “seal” is broken. This certainly works well with the reverse harem genre, in which all of her pursuers are male, and also with the theme of devils and the implication that angels are also out there, to say nothing of having the Christian themes of the exorcists, such as their crosses and holy water, as that is one of the religions which equates virginity with purity. In literary terms, this also works with the idea that giving up the grimoire will result in Ritsuka's death; authors from Hans Christian Andersen to Harriet Beecher Stowe have killed off young female characters either to preserve their innocence or to save them from shame once it is lost. It feels a bit more unusual to see these particular tricks in a contemporary anime, but not entirely out of the blue.

More specifically, this episode reveals that yes, the pomeranian and the blue-haired guy are in fact the same person. Loewen is his name, but he also goes by Cerberus the three-headed guardian of the Greco-Roman underworld. He appears to work directly for Rem's father and makes an attempt to circumvent the devil boys' efforts to woo her by offering to tell her about the grimoire and let her just play Sleeping Beauty until the whole mess can be resolved...leaving out that little detail Lindo later provides about her being destroyed when the grimoire goes away. As serious as his parts mostly are, it's still hard not to giggle at the idea of Cerberus being a fluffy little poofball of a dog, and this urge becomes a full-blown guffaw when his song is accompanied by a chorus of singing pomeranians with pointy little teeth.

He's really just a catalyst, though, for Rem and Lindo's scene in the latter half of the episode. Rem, for whom this is not a great week, goes to save Ritsuka despite what are clearly some very foreign-to-him feelings, and he's in the process of this when Lindo shows up. Mistakenly thinking that Rem is trying to hurt Ritsuka, he goes crazy and transforms into something decidedly less human with pretty much zero control. In his efforts to hurt Rem, he ends up scratching Ritsuka, and while he eventually returns to himself, Lindo's suddenly looking like he could be the most dangerous of the guys. Ritsuka, in one of her less brilliant moments, seems to disregard her brother's transformation, but it's clear that Rem is thinking about this and, from the preview, may be getting ready to make a move of a different nature. My guess here is that Lindo may be harboring vampiric blood, possibly from the white-haired man we saw his mother kissing last week, and that while his conscious self wants to protect Ritsuka, the war between devils and vampires may be having a different effect on his other self. In any event, his rivalry with Rem has definitely just heated up.

Dance with Devils feels like both its plot and its use of symbolism are heating up, and with Rem in emotional turmoil and Ritsuka's closest associates turning out to be not nearly as innocent as she thought, it's looking like both of them are coming closer to having very good reasons to turn towards each other. The waltz is the featured dance for next week, a dance considered dangerously sexy when it first debuted roughly 200 years ago, so let's see if it works its magic and brings them closer.

Rating: B

Dance with Devils is currently streaming on Funimation.


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