Rokka no Yuusha – 04

Introductions between Fremy and Tania/Goldof are tense because Goldof has it on good authority that Fremy is in fact the Brave-Killer…an accusation she doesn’t even bother refuting. Yet Adlet still shields her from Tania’s blades. Why? Because whatever she did in the past, she’s one of the Six Braves now, by the will of the Goddess, and The Strongest Man in the World isn’t going to let them fight among themselves.

Tania stands down, because she trusts Adlet, not Fremy. Fremy tells her she’s a naive girl and doesn’t so much as thank Adlet for saving her, but the group of four is off to meet the remaining two.

As soon as they’re in the dense forest, a fleet of aerial fiends begins bombing it, while land-based fiends swarm and surround them. Here, for the first time, we see what kind of badassery four Braves are capable of, especially since one of those four, Adlet, is able to continue on to the temple, since three Braves are enough to hold off the horde: Tania and Fremy from long-range; Goldof the close-range brawler.

Adlet finds the beautiful yet foreboding temple (looking like the entrance to many an FF dungeon) and meets an injured priestess only to watch her transform into a fiend (which promptly, confusingly runs away). Rather than pursue, Adlet enters the temple, shocked to find the phantasmal barrier already active, and even when the others arrive unharmed, they’re unable to shut it down. Adlet tries using his blood, while Tania flails about in a panic, to the point I though for a moment she was hallucinating.

Then, it all becomes clear: the barrier is active because it was activated by the remaining Braves. First, they meet Chamo Rosso, a small, child-like girl in green whom Adlet acknowledges as the “claimed” strongest person in the world; a claim he obviously disputes.

Chamo immediately wishes to kill Fremy, who must’ve gotten the same memo as Goldof, and we learn for certain why when not one but two more Braves grace their presence—Mora Chester and Hans Humpty (dumb name)—for a total of seven. Since there was never any instance in all of history of their being any less or more than six Braves, everyone concludes that there’s an impostor in their midst.

Assuming they’re right, who could it be? Have we already been privy to previously unnoticed clues? At this point Fremy seems too obvious. Hans, who seems a bit more sinister than the others, also seems too obvious. I wouldn’t have cast any suspicion whatsoever on Nashetania, were it not for a heavily Tania-centric ending sequence (complete with an awesome ending theme). As for Adlet, well, we witnessed him become a Brave. Hell, maybe there are just supposed to be seven this time around…

While the action and adventure were definitely here, there was something mechanical and underwhelming about the reveal of the other three Braves. They just kinda…show up, all at once, with little fanfare or showmanship. I suppose I’ve been hanging around the showboating Adlet and stylish Tania too long. I’m also loath to watch the group continue bickering when there’s a Demon God to defeat. Finally, the character animation looked rougher and sloppier than usual at points, possibly in order to accommodate the CGI fiends.