The Stamp Rally Ends Exactly How It Should

The cold open fake-out is the kind of gag this show has earned. Kanan wakes from a dream where the stamp rally is complete, Kyougi is asking her to “be gentle” with him, and her entire family is cheering them on as an official couple. She panics, slaps herself awake, and immediately interrogates Kyougi about where they actually stand. The dream logic is perfect: her subconscious knows exactly what she wants but her conscious mind still needs to follow “proper steps.” When Kyougi asks what she means by that, she cannot articulate it. She just knows there is an order to these things, and skipping ahead feels wrong even in a fantasy.

That tension between wanting the relationship and wanting it to happen correctly drives the entire episode. With only Beelzebub’s stamp remaining, the family orchestrates one last trial: a beach volleyball match where the stakes are official recognition of Kanan and Kyougi as a couple. If the opposing team wins, Milch gets a cheating date with “Onii-chan.” The match itself is pure Zebul family chaos.

The Volleyball Match Is a Family Therapy Session Disguised as Sports

Every character’s dysfunction gets aired on that sand court. Lilim serves in a swimsuit she chose specifically to prove she is still “young, healthy, and ripe enough to be devoured,” which distracts Kyougi so thoroughly that Kanan has to physically redirect his gaze. Miel takes a spike to the face and experiences it as the ultimate cuckolding高潮, smiling through the pain because being hit by “their love itself” is somehow the most aroused she has ever been. Milch shows up in Kanan’s old school swimsuit, attempting to redirect Kyougi’s lust toward herself as a “gateway to dangerous new desire,” only to be completely ignored because Kanan and Kyougi are too busy coordinating their receives.

The match works because it is not really about volleyball. It is about Kanan staking her claim in front of everyone. When she yells at Kyougi for getting distracted by Lilim’s swimsuit, she follows it with the real point: “If you’re gonna get distracted by a swimsuit, it should be mine! I’m the only one you’re allowed to look at!” She immediately backpedals when he actually stares, but the possessiveness is genuine. She wants to be the object of his attention, and she wants her family to see that she is the object of his attention.

The winning point comes from Milch flashing Kyougi, which Kanan intercepts with a spike born of pure jealous fury. The Head Maid declares their victory, and Beelzebub, who has been offscreen smashing watermelons the entire time, finally produces the stamp. Or rather, he produces something else entirely.

Jeanne's Return Is the Perfect Anticlimax

The watermelon Beelzebub cracks open contains Jeanne, who has apparently been eaten by a squid and is now covered in the stench to prove it. Her dramatic rescue mission, teased at the end of episode 9 with deadly seriousness, has been reduced to this: emerging from a fruit, reeking of seafood, immediately clinging to Kyougi and transferring the smell to him. The entire family recoils. “You reek, smelly sow,” Milch says, and it is hard to argue.

Jeanne’s role in this episode is almost nonexistent beyond the gag. She gets dragged to the bath, protests the soap, and then vanishes from the narrative. After two episodes of building her up as a serious threat, the show essentially benches her for the finale. It is a strange choice, but it also makes a certain sense: this episode is about Kanan’s family accepting Kyougi, and Jeanne has no place in that dynamic. Her crisis will presumably resurface later, but for now, the squid stank is the joke and the joke is enough.

The Bath Scene Is Where the Episode Gets Real

After the match, Kyougi joins Beelzebub in the bath, and what starts as a casual conversation turns into the emotional core of the episode. Beelzebub asks Kyougi to help with a stuck zipper, then peels off his entire oversized costume to reveal the muscular man underneath. Kyougi’s reaction, “There was a little boy inside?! Oh, no, I meant one hell of a man,” is the right mix of shock and recovery.

But the real conversation happens when Beelzebub thanks Kyougi for playing along with “pretending to be lovers.” He frames the entire stamp rally as a contract, a paper-only arrangement. Kyougi’s reaction is immediate and quiet: “She’s never actually said that she loves me?”

This is the first time the show has let Kyougi express genuine doubt. His unflappable sincerity has always been his defining trait, the weapon that disarms every devil he meets. But here, alone with Beelzebub, he admits the possibility that Kanan might not feel the same way. It is a small crack, but it matters. He has been operating on faith this whole time, interpreting every tsundere outburst as proof of love, and now someone is telling him it might all be performance.

Beelzebub’s follow-up is even more pointed: “Not like a human and a devil could ever genuinely love one another.” He says it casually, as if stating an obvious fact, and then leaves the bath before Kyougi can respond.

What follows is the episode’s best comedic fake-out. Kyougi processes this information and arrives at the conclusion: “That means I’m her first man!” He and Beelzebub then launch into an escalating competition over who loves Kanan more, listing her charms with increasing intensity. Beelzebub brags about her childhood promise to marry him. Kyougi counters with her croquette-stuffed cheeks. They argue over who has hugged her more, who has seen her blush more, who knows her better. It is ridiculous and sweet and exactly the kind of father-boyfriend dynamic this show needed to land.

Kanan overhears the entire thing and is so mortified she nearly passes out. “Call a doctor!” she screams, and for once, the embarrassment is not just romantic. It is the specific horror of having the two most important men in your life loudly debate your cutest qualities in a public bath.

The Night Scene Earns Its Quiet

After the chaos, Kanan takes Kyougi to a secluded spot and shows him something she has never shown anyone: the view from her favorite place in Hell. The sky is filled with something beautiful, and Kyougi reacts with genuine childlike wonder. “You’re acting like an excited child,” Kanan says, but she is clearly pleased.

This is where the episode slows down and lets the relationship breathe. Kanan admits this is the first time she has brought anyone home. She asks if he enjoyed himself, and the question is loaded: she is not just asking about the trip. She is asking if her family, with all their dysfunction and chaos and perversion, was too much. If he still wants to be with her after seeing where she comes from.

Kyougi’s answer is exactly right. He says her family is fun, that he can tell how much they love her, and that the trip made him happy. No qualifications, no hesitation. He is glad he came.

Then he pulls out the croquettes. He made them himself, borrowing the castle kitchen, because croquettes were the first thing they ever ate together. Kanan takes a bite and has the same reaction she had back then: it is delicious, but now it is also something more. “Why do I feel even more fulfilled and bashful than I did back then?” she asks herself. “Because Kyougi-kun made them? Because Kyougi-kun’s special to me?”

She does not say it out loud. But she does not need to. The croquette says everything.

Beelzebub's Stamp Comes With a Contract and a Threat

Beelzebub interrupts their moment, but not to ruin it. He presents Kyougi with a contract: unconditional support for their relationship, along with a promise of “all the horrible things we’ll do to you if you betray her.” It is the perfect Beelzebub gesture: loving, protective, and slightly terrifying.

Kyougi’s response is immediate and, for once, not played for comedy. “There’s no need to worry, Father. Because I love Senpai with all my heart.”

Kanan’s reaction is pure Kanan: mortified that he would say something like that in front of her father, then quietly, almost to herself, she gives him his mission. “You’d better do your best to make me say I love you, too.”

It is the closest she has come to admitting her feelings. She is not there yet. She still needs the “proper steps.” But she has given him permission to keep trying, and that is more than she has ever given anyone.

The Post-Credits Scene Brings Everything Back to Earth

The episode ends with Kanan back at Tama Municipal Hounou Academy, narrating her return like the opening of a grand drama. “A peaceful place of learning, attended by healthy students, until a beautiful, bewitching devil descends once more upon its unsuspecting halls.” She is back in her element, back to calling humans livestock, back to the persona she built before Hell complicated everything.

Then Kyougi walks in and asks if she is cosplaying as a devil again. He wants to join in this time.

The final shot is Nadeko, fully awakened as a masochist, begging Kanan to chastise her too.

The Hell arc is over. The stamps are collected. The family has approved. But the real relationship is just beginning, and it is going to be just as chaotic as everything that came before.

This episode does exactly what a family-arc finale should do. It resolves the stamp rally, gives Beelzebub a proper sendoff, and lets Kanan and Kyougi have one quiet moment before returning to the human world. The volleyball match is a perfect distillation of every family member’s dysfunction. The bath scene gives Kyougi his first real moment of vulnerability. The croquette callback lands because the show has earned it: food has been the connection between them from the very beginning, and Kyougi making croquettes himself is a small but meaningful gesture of devotion.

Jeanne’s squid-stank cameo is the one odd note. After two episodes of buildup, her serious rescue mission amounts to a bath scene and a smell joke. It feels like the show is deliberately undercutting its own dramatic stakes, which might be the point, comedy taking priority over plot. But it also leaves the Heaven-versus-Hell thread dangling awkwardly. If the series has a second season planned, that thread will presumably get picked up. If not, it is a strange loose end.

Still, as a finale to the Hell arc, this works. Kanan brought a human home, her family accepted him in their own deranged ways, and she came closer to admitting her feelings than ever before. The “proper steps” are still in progress, but she is walking them now, and Kyougi is walking beside her. That is enough.