Mushoku Tensei II – 02 – Saved by a Smile

Rudeus continues to do odd jobs to get his name out there, though he’s also known by the nickname “Quagmire”. He hopes if enough people know him, eventually word will get to Zenith. That said, at least one fellow adventurer, leader of another party, simply doesn’t like the cut of his jib, letting him know with a stinkeye.

Rudeus also continues to work with Counter Arrow on various jobs, though his indecision on joining them on their latest irks Sara. But since he saved her and her party on their first job together, Sara has become a lot less prickly. I’m sure her opinion of Rudy would drop significantly if she knew he carried his master’s underwear on him like a charm.

Their latest job takes them into some very cool subterranean ruins, collecting the scales of snow drakes. Rudy’s precognitive ability allows him to catch Sara when she slips on a narrow stone bridge, but any goodwill he gains is lost due to the fact he accidentally copped a feel.

The job seems relatively simple for an A-class, until the owners of the scales show up in the form of a huge group of drakes. Rudy is surrounded and once again is slow to act, but Sara is the first to come to his defense with her arrows and blade. The party is bailed out by another party, led by the guy who doesn’t like Rudy.

The other leader sucker punches Timothy, accusing him of stealing his prey. But it turns out to be a misunderstanding, as the caves where the prey originated now connects to the ruins where it didn’t before. The leader apologizes, but says Counter Arrow can only take one of the dead drakes back.

Back at the guild, Rudy celebrates with Counter Arrow for the first time, on Sara’s suggestion. He takes the opportunity to thank Sara for helping to bail him out, but she tells him Suzanne and Patrice are the ones he should thank. Then the other party leader, Sol, comes by their table, stinking drunk from ale.

He apologizes properly to Timothy, but when he sees Rudy’s smile, he lays into him, telling him it’s fake, that it makes him sick, and that Rudy’s always walking around looking down on people, acting like he’s got it worse than everyone else. When Rudy gives a limp apology, it angers Sol even more.

When Sol’s comrade finally drags him off, Rudy is left still trying to smile, but unable to hide the pain beneath. Sara, meanwhile, cleans up the drink Sol spilled, telling Rudy not to pay that asshole any mind. But what Sara doesn’t know is that, to Rudy, Sol has him pegged. He won’t face what he’s been through. He is running from something.

The next day, Suzanne, Timothy and Patrice enter the guild hall looking morose. Rudeus learns that Mimir and Sara are dead. Or rather, Mimir is dead, and the three of them decided that when the blizzard got too bad to search, Sara was left behind.

Rudeus responds somewhat neutrally, and takes his leave. But he heads straight to his room, packs his rucksack and staff, exits the town through the gates, and uses his magic to blow the blizzard away, headed to the western forest where Sara was last seen.

At this point, Rudy doesn’t care if he finds Sara alive or dead, he just wants, or needs to accomplish something, or otherwise wants to choose not to turn his back on someone like Eris turned her back on him (though we know it’s not a simple as that).

He finds Mimir’s corpse, then spots an unconscious Sara tied up within the trunk of some kind of monstrous, carnivorous tree. He dodges the tree’s attacks, uses his fire magic to bust her out, then dives under a pond to escape the tree’s limbs.

Upon surfacing, Sara comes to, and Rudy tells her he came to rescue her. The next we see them, Rudy and Sara are sitting by a fire in a cave, having removed most of their clothing to dry off. When Sara sees that Rudy’s gaze is wandering, she gets up and gets dressed, but doesn’t give him the slap a girl typically gives a peeper. On the contrary, Sara is the most cheerful we’ve seen her since she and Rudy met.

Once dry and clothed and ready to head home, Sara reaches out to Rudy as he passes her, but isn’t able to grab his arm. Instead, she calls his name, tells him she’s glad he came to rescue her, and gives him the biggest beaming smile yet. He feels saved by that smile, as if everything he’s done has been forgiven.

When Sara is reunited with the rest of Counter Arrow, Suzanne scolds Rudy for going off on his own, but Sara immediately comes to his defense, and Suzanne backs down. He also agrees to go on more jobs with Counter Arrow, and he and Sara part ways with smiles and waves.

What Rudy doesn’t see or hear is that Sara draws her collar in and says what looks something like “I love you,” with the caveat that reading anime lips is tough. The bottom line is that two episodes into his Northland adventure, Rudy has finally found a place where he belongs again and where he feels good, and has friends in Counter Arrow and especially Sara.

I really enjoyed the organic, believable way she started out cold and distrustful, but gradually came to like the little fellow after he did nothing but help her. The vibes are cheerful enough that I wish he’d throw Roxy’s unmentionables into the fire!

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead – 02 – Risk Management

The zombie apocalypse may be a nightmare for most of Tokyo, but Tendou Akira has just woken up from his nightmare, to a glorious new chapter of his life. After cleaning up his apartment, Akira rewards himself with a cold beer, which probably tastes better to him on this day than anything he has ever tasted. Then he has another one. Then he’s out!

With the staircase full of zombies, Akira climbs down the neighboring building, where he meets and affably greets a surviving couple, whose cinematic scene is interrupted by his sudden appearance. He tells them he needs to head out for an errand, and agrees to get them some ramen and TP—the 2-ply kind, the woman clarifies.

Akira’s bike ride to the nearest konbini is harrowing, but also exhilarating, and his job hadn’t quite sapped him of his athleticism, so he makes it there safely, singing a stupid song about beer. Then he encounters another survivor: a young woman in a tracksuit and hoodie.

He introduces himself, then asks for her contact info, not in a flirty way, but in a “we’re two of the last people alive for miles” way. Yet you can tell from her expression and no-nonsense aura that she doesn’t have time to deal with Akira. Yes, even in the zombie apocalypse, he can’t get a girl’s number!

That said, the woman (voiced by Kusunoki Tomori) has a logical explanation for declining to share info: the fact he’s gone on a beer run under these circumstances tells her a lot about his prowess for risk analysis (or lack thereof). She’s trying to maximize her probability of survival; a reckless goof like Akira would only decrease it.

When zombies come through the door, the woman simply stands there looking at her folding phone. Akira instinctively jumps in front of her, but then she grabs him by the scruff and throws him backwards, just in time to prevent him from getting iced by a runaway Truck-kun.

The closeup of the woman on top of Akira has her eyes glittering and hair flowing gracefully in a hail of glass and stone. To him, in that moment, she’s a goddess delivering him from oblivion. But before he can thank her, she’s already off, pedaling her high-end bike like the wind.

Akira wonders if he’ll ever see her again—the OP and ED are spoilers in this regard, but not that that’s a surprise. But there’s still the matter of him having to get home safely, and his bike was smushed by Truck-kun. He finds a scooter with the keys in (one of many, as the pandemic hit at rush hour), then quickly upgrades to a Harley hog.

On his climb back up to his apartment, he greets the survivor couple, only to find their apartment has been attacked and they’re gone. As the sun goes down, Akira drinks the rest of his beer in a less celebratory and more somber mood. He also decides to start compiling in earnest his bucket list of things to do before becoming a zombie.

Some of the items he can already cross off: confessing to Saori, cleaning his room, bumming around. Others are long-standing items he’s never gotten around to, like living out of an RV. Then there’s some has to think a little more about, like going home to spend time with his parents. He ends up with a preliminary list of 33 items, or a third of the titular ZOM 100. Not a bad start!

From here, the letterboxing returns as the episode shifts to tracksuit lady’s POV on the morning of the pandemic. She has no alarm, she simply opens her eyes at the stroke of 6 AM, runs ten kilometers (in two hours and one minute) on her treadmill, takes her course of vitamins, and listens to the news and emergency alerts.

It’s a masterclass in painting the picture of who this person is with a minimum of monologue. She’s no-nonsense, precise, disciplined, and has a strict routine from which she only deviates if circumstances demand it. Mirroring Akira’s path, she immediately starts a spreadsheet, not of things she wants to do before becoming a zombie, but how to avoid becoming one.

She starts by watching a bunch of zombie movies for research (which gives us another hilarious hard cut from the movie to reality), then heads out on her bike and GoPro camera with a list of essentials: water, food, power, fuel, and data. While at the konbini, she considers taking a sakura mochi, but one of the items on her survival list is “minimize sugar intake” so she abstains.

As if to rub her discipline back in her face, Akira shows up on her GoPro stream, then strolls in merrily singing his goofy beer song. She immediately pegs him as a short-sighted naïf who is only thinking about his immediate needs—and thus someone to avoid. The truck crash unfolds as it did from Akira’s perspective, but thanks to her camera she knew it was coming, and to shove Akira out of the way.

The young woman can’t help but admire how even a trope from a stupid zombie blockbuster worked in real life. As such I’m sure she’ll consider employing other farfetched tropes if they’ll increase her chance of survival. Back home, she goes over her video footage, lingering on shots of Akira when they come up.

She’s surprised that a single beer could make someone as happy as Akira looked even in such a state of emergency. She also recalls the sakura mochi she left on the shelf, and wonders if she should have taken it after all. Surviving is one thing, and she clearly has the wherewithal to do so.

But living is something else entirely. Like Akira, she’s been working her ass off up until this time—albeit in a far less torturous job—and she simply shifted her energies from business to survival. That’s not a bad way to be at all, but indulging in the occasional guilty pleasure—a sakura mochi—wouldn’t be the end of the world.

She and Akira represent two extremes in how to contend with this absurd situation. They could learn a lot from one another, so I hope they meet again soon.