Thoughts regarding episode 5.
Overall, I found this episode enjoyable. I'm not sure yet, but it's probably close to my favorite, simply because it was solid throughout and I didn't feel any particular weak sections.
It didn't have the emotional impact of episode 4, but it still had a number of good points. Especially in the beginning of episode 5, it reminded me considerably of episode 1, which is a plus for me because sometimes I have wished that the story read more like episode 1 where all the magic and comic relief elements had not been introduced yet.
Rather than drawn out scenes, the jokes were kept to simple off-comments, which makes sense because episode 5 was basically running at full narrative steam the whole way through and anything more would have thrown off the mood.
Also, Beatrice and her furniture as a whole took a back seat this time around. While I don't particularly hate them, Beatrice, Gaap, the stakes, and such can tend to make a certain atmosphere (I guess I would describe it as gaudy, a carnival mood) and I probably preferred how things felt without them around in episode 1. So, I think it was good to see things from a different perspective. Virgilia did have a sizeable visible role, as well as Ronove to an extent, and those are the more grounded characters on the witch side (Virgilia being my personal favorite of them, so it was good to see her once again as an active character.)
As for the new characters, I liked them more than I expected to.
Dlanor and co. in particular had a more meaningful role than the usual "magical troupes" introduced so far, and although their designs were a bit strange it didn't bother me too much.
Erika filled the role she was supposed to play, although it bugs me a bit that she talks about meta-world concepts in the actual game. In episode 4 it was suggested that "each instance of the game world has its own universe in which the future plays out based on the results in the game." So even though Rokkenjima is closed off, things that happen on the "game board" should make sense in terms of the real physical world. And yet, episode 5 makes it seem like the "game board" here is just a puppet show that can be freely manipulated without restriction. Unless the nature of the game board in episode 5 is different, it takes some work to justify some of Erika's statements and actions.
Similarly, we are not left with a real conclusion for the episode 5 gameboard - is this a relatively-good-end where Battler finally comes home to his sister? Or does everyone die anyway? In the case of the latter, among other things it would seem to point to "pay more attention to why Eva survived in episode 3" but in that case, why was the outcome left unclear?
However, I like the ambiguity that was left in Bernkastel's actions. Erika is supposed to accomplish something specific: be an ultra-paranoid nutcase who will take every measure to monitor her surroundings just because she can. So it initially seems Bernkastel takes on an antagonistic role, but the question remains just how much control she had over Battler's piece during the same timespan. We know that she embellished his actions at least once, and if she gave anywhere near as much consideration to his piece's actions as she did to Erika's or at least played them off each other towards some kind of goal, it could be possible that her objectives in the game were considerably less "evil" than they seem if it's just taken as "Erika's goal = Bernkastel's goal."
As for the mystery aspect of the story, considering how directly it was included in the story it didn't feel too obtrusive. A reversal of episode 4 where everyone died but the details were extremely ambiguous with all the red left until the end, this time nearly every detail was meticulously riddled with obstacles. I don't usually think too much about the theory aspect right away, so I haven't really considered how the details might interact with my thoughts, but some questions I was thinking of were answered/confirmed, making me more confident in the overall premise I've been working with.
For music, solid as usual - although I can't think of any in particular that jumped out, all of the new tracks were used well. I think a couple of the old tracks might have been used a bit more than might have been wise, but they were some of my favorites so I didn't mind too much.
Finally, I grew to like Natsuhi in episode 1 so the spotlight here is appreciated. Probably a considerable factor for my opinion of this episode is simply that the elements I preferred were fairly visible, and the other ones not as much. A simple reason, but it works.
Only thing missing was Ange - now that the number of people can change, I wonder if someone will bring the 6-year-old version to the game board in the future.