Spy x Family – 31 – Choppy Seas

The first night aboard the Princess Lorelei seems primed to end without incident, as the “Greys” have a nice dinner in the first-class restaurant. McMahon order Yor to take Shaty and her son back to their room and remain on guard. Shaty, for her part, would prefer to believe there are no enemies on board, and even hopes Yor will be able to see her family, who are availing themselves of the third-class buffet.

McMahon smells a assassin and gets to him first, breaking his arm and leg to get answers and then killing him and tossing him overboard with grim efficiency. There are many assassins aboard, and they know Olka’s alias and her room number. But the next assassin is already at the door before McMahon and Mr. Grey can get there. Fortunately, the Thorn Princess is ready for “room service.”

The remaining assassins aboard, numbering well over a dozen, have a little confab topside, with their ostensible leader suggesting they all work together to take out Olka without commotion and splitting the reward. When one assassin asks why they don’t just kill every mother with a child on board, he is promptly killed. These are assassins, not murderers.

With Room 3048 compromised, Yor leads the Greys to their new second-class cabin, but before that they head to a bustling masquerade ball while wearing masks in order to blend in. Yor can sense the bloodlust from two of the assassins embedded in the party, and knocks one out with a button and the other by pretending to reject his offer of a dance.

The next assassin to approach Yor and Olka doesn’t care about causing a commotion, he simply wants to kill the target and her babe as soon as he sees them. Anya picks up on his thoughts, then spots the owner of those thoughts, “Sickle-and-Chain Barnaby”, approaching Yor with the intent to engage.

While Anya initially begs for a weird skeleton keychain to the point she has Loid wondering what he should do to look more like a normal dad—buy it or refuse to buy it—she’s certain if Loid sees Yor fighting an assassin he’ll divorce Yor and she’ll end up back in an orphanage. So she has Loid try on every article of clothing in the store—which happens faster than she expected thanks to him being a master of disguise!

As for Yor, she only senses Barnaby’s murderous intent a second or two before he strikes, not giving her much time to ensure Olka isn’t beheaded. This guy is strong; perhaps the strongest person she’s gone up against. But as always, my money is on Yor to sort him out.

The Rising of the Shield Hero S3 – 06 – A Sliver of Strength

Amaki Ren liked to game. He was good at speedrunning Brave Star Online, but while he was fine having a girl over to watch, he avoided bigger crowds. When he ended up in another world, he discovered that the mechanics were identical to BSO, and thus attempted to speedrun it as well. Then he rushed headlong at the Spirit Tortoise and got his party killed.

Fast-forward to when Bitch swore her allegiance to him. The very next day she ditches him and steals all his equipment, leaving a note calling him “useless.” The same hero hunters who went after Naofumi last week chase Ren through the streets, but when he tries to hide in a citizen’s home she tells him to leave.

Nobody in the city wants the failed Sword Hero around, so he heads into the wilderness, where he runs afoul of some bandits and … snaps. Drawing power from a curse similar to Naofumi a while back, he kills all the bandits and steals the leader’s mask.

That brings us to last week’s cliffhanger, with Motoyasu fighting the masked Ren. When Naofumi arrives, Motoyasu explains to his “dad-to-be” that he’s defeating the bandit leader, who just happens to be Ren. Ren then attacks Naofumi, but Naofumi finds he’s become incredibly weak.

Once Naofumi determines Ren is under the influence of the Curse of Greed, he prepares to have S’yne and the others restrain him and take him back to town. But Eclair asks Naofumi to let her duel the Sword Hero. She believes she can knock some sense into him with swordsmanship and chivalry.

Eclair is ten times the swordsman Ren is, and even gets mad being beaten over and over again he draws from the Curse of Gluttony to summon monsters … which Eclair defeats with ease. Eclair assures Ren that with his heart in its current state, not knowing what he actually wants, there’s no way he can defeat her.

Sure enough, when Eclair gets serious Ren doesn’t stand a chance, and the dual curses eventually render him unable to even properly hold his sword. She knocks him to the ground and shatters his mask, and he ends up returning to his senses.

Eclair is about to lend him a hand up when the hero hunters arrive, causing Naofumi and Raphtalia to panic knowing how powerful they are. But to their shock, Motoyasu followed Naofumi’s advice to get stronger, and is strong enough to kill both of them in ten seconds flat.

Raph uses a spirit sword to slash their souls so they won’t come back this time (hopefully), and a blood-soaked Motoyasu, who is in better spirits but also quite bonkers, ends up scaring the crap out of Filo again, causing her to revert to bird form and flee.

With the hero hunter’s interruption over, Eclair reaches out a hand and helps him up. He may be weak now, but she’s sure there’s a sliver of strength in him. Sure enough, he seems to have been killed when he protected some classmates from a man with a knife.

That took strength, and Eclair offers to get stronger with him together. He can worry about the reason he wants to get stronger later. Now, a Ren-centric episode was kinda the last thing I wanted, but Eclair kinda saved it at the end by being her awesome self, and gaining a training partner with a high ceiling.

Goblin Slayer II – 06 – Where My Heart Is

I won’t mince words—well, I’ll mince them a little—this is Goblin Slayer at its very best: a quintessential tale of adventure and family, both found and in High Elf Archer’s case, blood. Like a movie in miniature, it’s impeccably structured, starting with the harrowing river ambush by goblins.

Having two civilians around—especially these two—only heightens the danger. And yet while Cow and Guild Girl can only hide under burlap, watch, and try not to freak out, Slayer and his companions have Got This Shit On Lock.

When shit gets real, they’re prepared, their coordinated, and they’re calm. This is what they do for a living. In that regard, Cow and Guild aren’t just traveling with friends to a wedding. They’re experiencing first hand what it’s like to be an adventurer. In effect, it’s a ride-along, only no cops.

Well, at least one of these adventurers, as Slayer, Elf, Priestess, Dwarf, and Lizardman are each extraordinary versions of their archetypes. More than that, they see each other and treat each other as family. Dwarf and Elf do their playful verbal sparing mid-battle.

And each member of the party is crucial for the success: Elf snipes goblins (and heeds Slayer’s suggestion to loosen her arrowheads), Slayer throws and launches his spears (the man is prepared), Dwarf summons Undine to speed their raft and try to lift it over a goblin-built dam.

When he can’t quite get it over, Priestess, who has been shielding everyone from thrown projectiles from above, casts a Purify spell to dissolve the dam. Then Lizardman, who had been steering (someone’s gotta steer) lets out a magical shout that disables all remaining goblins.

With the river cruise returning to its placid state, the party reaches the edge of the forest and make camp for the night. This gives the “lasses”, as Dwarf calls them, the chance to don the swimsuits they bought in the capital and play in the water and fish. Elf, Cow, Guild, and Priestess all get complimented on how lovely they look, and you can almost see Slayer blush through his face guard.

Fanservice quota aside, this is another quintessential adventurer experience: the downtime. While the ladies swim and chat, Dwarf and Lizardman ask Slayer if he’s okay with them being so carefree. Slayer wants Elf to be able to relax as she nears her home. His buds recognize Slayer for who he is: someone a lot kinder and cuddlier than his scary armor suggests.

Even Slayer can cut back a little because they’re now in the land of the elves. That night, the group sits around a fire and tuck into the fish the ladies (mostly Elf and Priestess) caught. Elf opens up about elf courtship, her big sister, her soon-to-be brother-in-law. She regales them with how he was singing about his heroic exploits she stopped and corrected him.

Hearing about Elf’s home warms Slayer’s heart. Even if you can’t see his expression, the heat of the fire in front of him mixed with the lingering warmth of the sunset behind him tell the tale of his feelings. He says her homeland sounds nice, and Elf says “Well, yeah. That’s where my heart is.” Such a simple statement, but delivered with such vulnerable grace by Touyama Nao it actually brought a tear to my eye.

When dawn arrives, Slayer is the first one awake … assuming he even went to sleep, which is doubtful. Such is his status as an incurable worrywart. But he’s not nearly quick enough to notice when an elven warrior suddenly confronts him at swordpoint. Of course, this is Elf’s brother-to-be.

When he learns she’s traveling with these adventurers, he hastens to her tent to confirm she’s there, and gets rightfully screamed at by all four girls in their nighties. I loved that little delay between them all waking up and realizing a guy was in there. Also, now we know Elf is the (or a) Daughter of Starwind.

We learn Slayer was vigilant because he sensed goblins. But unlike him, the elves aren’t too bothered by them. As Guild Girl explains, elves are old enough to remember the battle of the gods, which involved evil spirits, dragons, dark gods, demon lords, and most upsetting of all … polka enthusiasts.

When they arrive at High Elf Archer’s hometown, composer Suehiro Kenichiro adds the appropriate atmosphere and gravitas with an elvish theme dense with flutes and winds, soft drums, and ethereal chimes. The massive treehouses and sprawling network of bridges remind me of those cool fantasy binders from school … and van murals.

But even more splendid than the strange yet welcoming new environs is Elf’s pent-up excitement finally bursting. She’s just so damn happy to show everyone her home. It’s clear she’s proud of it, and cares about everyone enough to want them to enjoy it as well.

She’s in such a playful mood, in fact, that while she’s unpacking, she leaves a bra out so she can mess around with the stone bolos Slayer is working on (yes even here where no goblin could ever be, he prepares). Suddenly, her sister pops in, asking what the bra’s about.

Slayer’s reputation precedes him in song, but he simply tells Elf’s sister that “Songs are songs, I’m just me,” which may be my new favorite Slayerism. Their introduction is interrupted by the appearance of a girl, but not just any girl: the girl they rescued from the ogre.

While Slayer is clueless about a great many things, and that’s often the source of comedy, when it comes to sensing when people have suffered as he suffered and knowing how best to comfort them, there are few more shrewd . Case in point: he knows immediately who the girl is and why she’s there, and knows exactly what to say: That they’re all dead; he killed them all. She can rest easy now. She’s going to be okay.

Elf explains this to her sister, and says their entire party aided in her rescue. Adventuring is Elf’s way of proving what she can do once in a while, but her sister asks if it may not be time for Kuchukahatari, which I assume to mean hanging up her bow and returning home to start a family, as her sister is doing.

Elf’s sister also demonstrates their people’s distrust of other races, especially dwarves, but for all of their bickering, Elf and Dwarf are the best of friends, bucking the trend of their races. Her sister can also tell a big part of why her sister still adventures is to be near him.

When asked what her deal is, Elf says she doesn’t really know, but she can’t really leave him alone and he never bores her. That should be enough for now. It’s such a lovely, subtle way of saying she loves the guy without saying it. And when her sister reminds her that she’ll eventually outlive him, Elf says “we all just have one life,” which is to say, it’s best spent with someone you love.

Their superb sisters heart-to-heart, which elevates Elf to Best Girl Status over Cow Girl for at least this week, is suddenly interrupted by an unsettling blast that shakes the entire forest. Elf senses something is wrong, reaches for her bow and quiver, realizes they’re not on her, then hears Slayer coming to toss them to her and catching them with a wry smile. They really do make a good team.

Just as it was in the river, they now have to fight whatever’s coming while protecting a civilian. But while I assumed like Slayer that this was some kind of goblin incursion, it turns out to be some kind of giant gray dinosaur thing.

And as the funny cherry on top of an nearly perfect episode of Goblin Slayer, and an example of perfect comic timing, he incorrectly mistakes the dino for an elephant, and an exasperated Elf turns back and exclaim that no, it’s not an elephant. Whatever it is, it’s not going to ruin Elder Sister’s wedding—not if High Elf Archer and Goblin Slayer have anything to say about it.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 10 – Just a Feeling

“They don’t play fair, so we must be even more unfair.” Such are Flamme’s words about demons to a younger Frieren, asking her what Demon General Basalt’s last words were. Frieren didn’t bother hearing them, because demons only use words to deceive.

Lugner can’t figure out how Fern, someone with so much less mana than he has, managed to overwhelm him with an unceasing steam of rapid-fire spells. Then it dawns on him: she wasn’t fighting fair. His last words are “You’re a disgrace to all mages.” Fern already knows that, as does her master. It’s why she beat him, and it’s why Frieren will beat Aura.

Many hundreds of years ago, Flamme came upon a ruined, burning elf village with only one survivor: a young Frieren, who managed to defeat Demon General Basalt, but couldn’t save anyone. Compared to Flamme’s narrow band of mana surrounding her, Frieren’s is much wider, and yet Frieren is certain this woman is far more powerful than she is…it’s just a feeling.

Flamme decides to take Frieren in and make her her apprentice. Her first lesson to her is to never directly engage the enemy, especially when it comes to demons. Run, hide, take them by surprise; use anything and everything at your disposal to maintain an advantage.

When three demon mages, each of them more powerful than Basalt, confront Flamme with Frieren on her back, Flamme notes how supremely confident they are in their magical skill to engage her so directly. But in the blink of an eye Flamme lobs a spell at them so powerful it incinerates them instantly and carves a large hole in the earth.

Flamme then reveals her true mana, not the one she let the demons see. It’s so large it takes up the entire frame. What she will teach Frieren in the years and decades to come is how best to deceive and kill her enemies by ensuring they miscalculate her strength. Essentially, by being cowardly and unfair and mocking magic itself.

At first, it takes great effort for Frieren to suppress her mana, but Flamme tells her she’ll need to suppress it for her entire life, spending that whole life fooling demons as she does. Like Gandalf, she is the wielder of a secret fire, the magnitude of which is only exceeded by the scale of the concealment of it.

In the present day, Frieren stands on the battlefield face-to-face with Aura, and Aura is certain she has this thing in the bag. After all, her mana is several times wider than Frieren’s. And Frieren admits, as a 500-year-old demon who has trained her entire life, Aura is indeed a great demon, but can also tell she’s probably never been challenged.

She knows this because Flamme told her demons don’t conceal their mana, nor can they. Demon culture, importance is determined by mana the way wealth and status are to humans, and just as humans are bound to those things, demons are bound to mana. It is their pride and their dignity, their identity. To see a demon’s mana is to see their whole, unguarded selves—as well as their limits.

Fifty years pass (or as Frieren calls it, “only” fifty years), and as Flamme grows old and infirm, she laments only teaching Frieren how to fight and use magic for revenge. That said, she believes Frieren will one day become strong enough to defeat the Demon King, protending her actual future.

The last spell she teaches Frieren is one she learned as a small child: how to create a field of flowers. She asks Frieren to do so around her grave when she passes, and Frieren does so. She also tells Frieren to live in obscurity and not seek to leave her name in history…at least not until the Demon King is gone.

After a deeply engrossing montage of Frieren living that solitary, unassuming life for centuries, one day her gardening in her forest is interrupted by the arrival of Himmel, Eisen, and Heiter. She asks what they want with a “mediocre mage”, but Himmel has the same feeling she had about her master when she first met her: the feeling that he is standing before the most powerful mage he’s ever encountered.

And he would be right. Frieren may have lived a simple, hermitic life after Flamme’s death, she also spent all of those centuries training and continuing to suppress her mana. A human hero like Himmel could see past that ruse almost immediately, but back in the present, Aura has no frikkin’ idea what’s comin’ down the pike. Not until she already has her and Frieren’s souls on her scales.

Seeing that her soul outweighs Frieren’s, Aura takes a broadsword from one of her headless minions and draws closer in preparation to take her head as well. She believes she’s won, because she can see Frieren’s mana isn’t that impressive. But as she gets closer, the scales start to tip more in Freiren’s favor.

When Frieren finally lets on that she’s been suppressing, Aura is skeptical; there’s been no instability or variation in mana output—the telltale sign of suppression. But that’s simply because she’s been suppressing her mana for most of her over thousand years of life, more than double that of Aura’s.

When Frieren stops suppressing, the scale is yanked down on her side, and her mana envelops Aura in a vast fifty foot-plus column. Aura can no longer scoff and claim to be the stronger of them. Nor can she control herself any longer, as the scales she deployed have turned against her.

Frieren turns her back on Aura and orders her to kill herself, and Aura, unable to resist, puts the blade to her neck, lopping off her ornate braids one by one, and then beheads herself. Taketatsu Ayana effortlessly switches Aura’s voice from haughty confidence to pure fear and panic. Just as demons deceive with their words, Frieren, like her master, deceives with her mana. Lugner and Aura can call it unfair all they like…because life ain’t frikkin’ fair.

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST