…okay, so I was off last week with this episode title by two words. But hey, at least I still got the basic parts down, so it’s not like I misremembered the entire title. Hell, “The Cat and the Festival” would still be a perfectly serviceable title. Not as specific as the actual title, but still an episode title that would feel right at home in this series. Now, I’m going to make it clear: I am absolutely not complaining about the title of this episode. Honestly, with the exception of episodes 6, 7, 8 (partially), and 11, all of the episodes have followed the naming scheme of “The [Blank] and the [Blank]”, hence why I said that even if the “Royal Capital” part of this episode’s title wasn’t there, this title would still feel right at home.
Anyway, for the final time, this episode starts with a recap of how this series began: a dragon egg was laid, and it was hatched by a mother cat who just so happened to give birth in the same cave that the egg was laid in. While I understand this is likely in case someone caught this episode without having watched any of the prior episodes (and thus doesn’t understand the premise of the series) so they can be on the same page compared to people who have been following the series every single week, but when you have been following the series every single week, the premise is already very solid in your head.
Like you may expect, this episode basically provides a visual example of the festival story that you get after the reveal of the title for the next episode. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really read through them, I only know they exist because that’s where the Crunchyroll simulcast ends, so when I go back and check on the page prior to it booting me back to the series page, that’s what I have to see. From little of those I tried to commit to my memory, however, there are few — if any — differences I could spot between what text was shown and the episode.
Now, while all of this text didn’t get adapted (biggest example: we get one more of those snippets at the end of the episode!), I’d argue that we could’ve gotten more of it the show decided to cut down on the amount of flashbacks that were shown in this episode. I don’t know if that’s from the source material or if it’s a decision the team behind the anime made for one reason or another, but it definitely feels like it’s meant to be nothing more than time-kill. Now, if that’s how it was done in the source material, then I guess I have no room to complain. However, if it’s from the anime team, then I’m gonna be raising my eyebrows.
Overall, I feel like this episode could’ve been a lot worse. While I’m sad that we don’t get to learn more about the stories of the humans that Shirotae and Kurobane end up with, I definitely wouldn’t complain if we got another season of this show. Considering that this episode had its final scene after the credits end with “the end” instead of “to be continued”, however, I have my doubts regarding whether we will get season 2 or not.
Honestly, it was fun to follow this series during the Summer 2026 anime season, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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