An oddity
(One part) of the bath episode I’ve spoken of before has occurred. However, it was adapted very strangely.
The episode begins with Michio acknowledging he must continue his explorations in the labyrinth if he’d like to keep his current lifestyle, and despite his desire to play with Roxanne after waking up.
This labyrinth visit clearing the first floor is essentially the duo going through the motions. The boss floor is killed with ease. Michio decides that’s enough for the day and leaves in disappointment.
Any time merchant mommy is on screen is a good moment.
After visiting merchant girl for some seeds (and getting some tools in the process), Michio and Roxanne begin setting up a garden.
Michio initially visits this craftsman out of a desire for a washtub, but leaves requesting a custom sized basin that will serve as a bathtub. This prompts Michio to imagine what having Roxanne in the bathtub would be like. Soon it won’t just be his imagination.
The speedrun through these labyrinth levels continues, as only a small amount of screen time is dedicated to their clearing of the third floor.
Same with level 4 – a rather brief encounter.
This encounter with yet another floor boss further establishes the foundation for a new slave. Having had an easy time with the monsters in this labyrinth so far, encountering one that can challenge him even to a minor degree (as this one did) comes as a shock.
Michio wastes little time in prodding Roxanne to bathe with him. Roxanne is initially nonplussed as she had known only nobility to bathe, but Michio encourages it.
The events of this episode covered up to Chapter 29, however, to this point a number of battles had not been covered fully or were abridged. Given that most are here for the service though, I usually don’t mention these unless they’re very egregious. The service for this episode is abridged as well. From this point on, we skip to the end of Chapter 31 and cover the bath service in Chapter 32 and 33. The strange part is that there is bath service before those two chapters (although far less service-y) that I expected to be covered before this. I’m completely puzzled as to why this was done – this anime has followed the manga very closely to this point. My best guess is that they wanted to space out service and mix in elements of this bath scene with the other less service heavy bath scene, but that doesn’t explain why the plot events of the episode were altered as well – maybe the runtime for this episode was mismanaged.
A rare (purely) horizontal stitch. Make sure to open this separately to see it in all its glory.
Of all the strange happenings here, this is probably the strangest. There is at least a good extra minute of intense service here that was left out from the episode. The above 3 panels is what happens in the manga. I’m hoping that what they do is take this removed section of this episode, and combine it with the bath scenes in Chapter 28 and 29 (which again, are far less intense. I’d guess they wanted to spice up both bath scenes rather than have one be the standout). If not, I will be at a complete loss as to why this episode was treated this way, or why they decided to change up the sequence of events so late in the anime.
Michio lies in bed, and in determination of preventing Roxanne suffering any injuries, decides to add a new party member. I had initially predicted that the anime would end at Chapter 37, with one of if not the last shots of the anime being Sherry, but now I’m not so sure. The explicit decision to acquire a new slave is made later in the manga, after finding another adventurer’s inventory after he was killed. That scene may be skipped entirely in favor of adapting the remaining battles in the next (or next after) episode. The problem with that is that there’s no good stopping point even if they were to speedrun to Sherry (the next slave). In what should come as no surprise, the events play out as follows after he purchases Sherry: acquiring her, taking her shopping, a labyrinth visit, and a bath scene with sex after. In this case, it’s either all or nothing. Anything less would understandably anger people. And while simply showing Sherry at the very end of episode 12 will upset people as well, it would at least be sensible as a blatant tease for a season 2 featuring Sherry, but that itself has issues that I’ll explain at the end of episode 12.
And as a side note for those wondering why there was no sex, this lying in bed may have another explanation – one of the BD specials has the title「体を洗ったあとは……」which is something like “after washing body.” I had initially (however naive) hoped that this could be a scene with his whole harem, all 5 of them, as the title is vague enough to allow for the possibility. If the anime cut the extended bath scene completely, it’s possible that that is the focus of the special, and that they’d add another sex scene after. At this point, I have no idea. This has proven to be a very strange adaptation.
