I wonder what the church would do if they discovered that Makoto has more mana than the bug/goddess. Not that they'll ever know!

The new OP has Makoto wearing that power ranger costume made by Mio. Given his mana matter... vest? golem? mecha?, he'll likely do it to appease Mio, not as a serious weapon.

This is my nomination for the screenshot, it comes from the new ED (@rikka@ani.social)

First off, the new OP and ED do a lot of revealing of what is to come. I was pretty surprised at how much is shown in the two sequences. The music itself didn't really blow me away, but I didn't hate it either.

The festival story, like many sequences in this story, ties together several different plot threads and introduces some new ones. In this episode we have an ongoing confrontation with the Assassin's Guild, the climate issue, tension between human nations over the priestess. We introduce a potential conflict with the demons in the future, the Laurel Kingdom knowing what kanji are, an upcoming tournament arc, and now this whole deal with the church prying for information. There is a lot going on!

Probably the most surprising thing this whole episode to me was how a ton of characters were lewded in the ED. I mean, have you seen Shiki like this before?

Seeing a lewded Emma was a surprise as well.

The new OP is so hype and also spoils so much! Though I can't believe it if they're going to go through all of what was shown, what a wild ride the rest of the cour will be. I've certainly forgotten about some events and specifically when things happen, surprised to already see them happening. And also really interested in the fact that some things haven't been cut, like I would've expected the church stuff to be cut (I might be forgetting anything related to it a bit, I know there is some importance there, as we got a shot through the veil right at the end, but could see it as something to speed past if they wanted to, them taking their time is a good sign).

This episode felt like it paced itself so well to where when the halfway mark showed up I thought the episode was over, felt like it had already been an hour.