Spy x Family – 32 – Bread and Circuses

Due to circumstances outside her control, Yor is forced into a fierce battle with Barnaby, who wields an unusual sickle-and-mace weapon that won’t let her close their distance. Worse still, there’s a crowd forming wondering what the heck is going on. And worst of all: Yor spots Miss Anya in that crowd!

Anya saves the day by playing dumb, applauding the “circus performance,” and the rest of the crowd buys it and becomes a rapt audience. Yor, bless her, actually thinks Anya doesn’t recognize her, and decides to not only end this battle quickly, but put on a show doing it.

The result is Thorn Princess at her absolute best. It’s one thing to dodge that ridiculous weapon, it’s quite another to rush at Barnaby like a missile, causing his arm to shake. She anchors the chain in the floor, deflects the weapon back at him, leaps behind him, then leaps over him while tying him up with the chain. She knocks Barnaby out with some well-placed pressure point hits, and ends up right beside him, giving a curtsy to an impressed and entertained crowd.

With Yor victorious, Anya hurries back to the store just as Loid comes out of the dressing room looking as lame as anyone who draws breath has ever looked. He’s dejected for having come so wide of the mark, but the first day of their cruise ends when a punch-drunk Anya smacks her head into a shelf and falls asleep. Loid carries her to their room, looking determined to do better tomorrow.

After inspecting their new room, Yor advises the “Greys” to get some rest. “Mr. Grey” remains gobsmacked at the sheer extra-ness of the assassins going after them, betraying that at the end of the day he’s a bit of a scaredy-cat. But when Olka asks him why he’s even still with her, he remembers a day sometime after the war when he was starving.

The black market run by the Gretchers provided food for those who had none. A cheerful girl, who was none other than a young Olka, gave him a loaf of bread. She’s the reason he’s still alive in the first place, so there’s nothing he won’t do for her, even if he is scared.

And interacting with people like Yor and the director, he’s plenty scared. He should be! He thought the war was over, but the war has essentially been going on ever since in the shadows, and people like the director and Yor are the soldiers. The director checks in, arms himself, and leaves, warning Yor to stay focused or they’re all going to die.

But as Yor guards the door all night while the Greys sleep, it occurs to her she never did contact Loid and Anya or get to spend any time with them. She believes her legs were heavy in her fight with Barnaby because she was afraid of getting hurt, especially hurt in a way she wouldn’t be able to explain away to Anya and Loid.

Yor tells herself (by name) that she needs to “get her priorities straight” … but before she knew it, her priorities had shifted. Instead of soberly considering Loid and Anya nothing but “camouflage”, she’s questioning what she’s even doing in that dark room, away from them, putting her life at risk for strangers. The scene in her mind’s eye of meeting them topside broke my damn heart, because it’s a scene we may not get.

The next morning, 20 hours from the rendezvous, Franky is cursing the fact that he has to be a “kiddositter” and “doggositter”, right up until a cute young lady compliments Bond, chats with him, and departs hoping they’ll meet again. In response to this Franky considers keeping Bond as his pet. What can you say? Bond’s a ladykiller.

Back on the Lorelei, Loid has a very serious monologue like Yor’s, but the great “unknown” of which he speaks and which tests his training to the hilt is nothing more than being able to be a good dad and ensure Anya has fun on Day Two. For her part, Anya is determined to help Mama by keeping Loid occupied, but she ends up getting frustrated with her mini golf game.

After golf the two have lunch, hit the library, do a puzzle, go roller skating, and attend a magic show. It’s a full, fun day, and Loid can tell Anya was having fun, which makes it doubly inexplicable at dinner when she looks so grumpy. The truth is she’s frustrated she forgot about Mama and enjoyed herself. But when she reads Loids mind and knows she’s worrying him with her looks, she reiterates out loud that she’s having a good time … she just misses Mama.

I just hope she doesn’t end up missing her forever. Night arrives, and as the passengers go topside for an imminent fireworks show, an entirely different kind of fireworks are about to go off. Only four hours remain until the rendezvous, and enemies are closing in on the Greys’ new room, so they have to abandon it again.

As they head out in fresh disguises, all of the assassins are looking for them and ready to strike when they find them. I know Yor is the shit, and she dealt with Barnaby without too much trouble, but I’m still extremely anxious, because while I don’t doubt her physical abilities, her head isn’t 100% in the game. Her legs aren’t going to get any lighter.

The Rising of the Shield Hero S3 – 07 – How Not to Train Your Dragon

With two months until the Phoenix arrives, normalcy and peace washes over Luroluna village. This is an episode that runs largely on vibes as we observe along with Naofumi how the vast and diverse community of colorful characters he shepherded fares on a daily basis.

He cooks a hearty breakfast for everyone after their morning exercises. Rishia continues to improve, Atla can easily beat her brother with martial arts, Keel can transform into a therianthorpe thanks to Sadeena, and Ren is learning proper swordsmanship under Eclair. Also, S’yne digs Naofumi’s cooking.

Even with all of these established characters to juggle, she episode still feels the need to introduce a few more, from young Wyndia, a villager who excels at beast handling, and Ratotille Anthreya, AKA Rat, a mad alchemist sent by the queen to help Naofumi level up his monsters.

A quick visit to the paddock and Naofumi learns they’re one caterpillar monster richer. They discover eggs beneath them, meaning more will be on the way. Naofumi accepts Rat into the tribe, but doesn’t fully trust her, so insists on a crest, which she accepts.

Wyndia shows Naofumi a chest full of gifts from Siltvelt, including a black dragon egg. For the entire middle of the episode henceforth, Naofumi must carry the egg on his back to keep it warm and safe (he asked Ren, but the effects of the curse would have an adverse effect on it).

Naofumi and Raph stop by the Elhart, who has completed a siderite katana for her, but are otherwise in and out in a jiffy. That night when Atla can’t sleep, she asks Fohl to sing her the lullaby their mother sang for them. He does, and it’s lovely, but it ends up putting him to sleep, which is what Atla wanted.

The next morning, we learn why: Naofumi wakes up not only with the dragon egg in bed (which he put there) but Atla as well (which he didn’t). This is apparently the third time she’s snuck into his bed, and she butts heads with both Raph and Fohl about it. She insists that the Shield Hero’s shield be with him at all times, but Raph in particular ain’t havin’ it.

I couldn’t help but notice the Raph-chan plushie S’yne made; she later presents Naofumi with a plushie resembling Keel in dog form, which she uses as a translator to speak clearly and without distortion. In the battles sure to come, better communication will be vital.

In the library, Ren is studying and writing in Melromarc language, and blushes when Eclair suddenly draws quite close to him to make a correction and pat him on the shoulder. Looks like our boy is in puppy love once more, but Eclair’s a much better recipient of his affection than Bitch…even if she’s oblivious.

While Naofumi is inspecting a “camping tree”, a fast-growing shelter developed by Rat, the egg suddenly cracks. Raph, Rat, and Wyndia are present for its hatching, and Naofumi is as surprised as I am to find the newborn red wyr is a dead ringer for a Pokémon.

Wyndia names the cute little guy Gaelion on the spot, a name he seems to like, so Naofumi allows it and entrusts Wyndia with his care going forward. Wyndia and the other kids keep a close eye on Gaelion, who soon learns how to fly and breathe fire, which comes in handy during training missions.

Gaelion’s growth montage is accompanied by a stirring piece by Kevin Penkin that I feel really captures the warm, kind, happy vibes of Luroluna village in its current state.

It’s so light and lovely that I was completely unprepared for something to finally go wrong and spoil all the vibes. Naofumi learns that an ongoing prank of someone knocking on his door and vanishing turned out to be Gaelion wanting to play with him.

Raph suggest he keep Gaelion around as a “guard dog” to keep Atla out of his bedroom, but while he’s in there he discovers a jewel made from the Emperor Dragon’s core Naofumi had made in Kizuna’s world. Gaelion, who was established earlier as capable of eating anything, swallows the jewel, grows to immense size, and suddenly turns wild.

He blasts another hole in Naofumi’s house with his fire breath, then takes flight, much to Wyndia’s dismay. I suspect they’ll be going after him next week, but will he want to go back?

This was certainly a grab bag of different and not-yet-interconnected vignettes, but I made sure to savor this (mostly) peaceful outing because I know a lot of hardship to come in a couple months, and there’s no guarantee everyone will survive it.

Goblin Slayer II – 07 – Agoblinypse Now

Elf tells Slayer that the giant creature charging towards them isn’t an elephant, but the One That Stops the Waters: Mokele Mubenbe. They also spot a goblin riding it on a saddle, and Elf quickly takes it out with an arrow to the chest.

While Lizard and Dwarf use a shout and a spell to halt and stupify the riderless dino, Slayer catches a giant rope tossed to him by the Cow and Guild Girls, and uses it to trip up and cause it to fall. Priestess heals its injuries. All in all a nice bit of work, with Slayer informed by what he learned of hunting from his dad.

That night, Elf’s big sis again tries to get her to fully appreciate what continuing to go with Slayer and the others means, considering she’ll outlive them all. Elf assures her sister she’s fine with it; whether Slayer dies in four decades or tomorrow, she wants to be by his side. I love their sisterly chemistry here, initially speaking in elvish, with Elf mocking her sister’s fiancé, and her sister giving her a forehead flick.

Speaking of the fiancé, he’s in the capable company of Lizardman, Dwarf, and Slayer, who drink with him (he’s a lightweight) to celebrate his impending nuptials. Slayer and the others will head up the river through the forest to where the goblin-ridden dino came from, which Slayer believes to be a nest. He’s learned how to think like a goblin, and knows they’re not complete idiots either. The elves have become too carefree, and are ripe for attack.

That very night, Sword Maiden is deciphering the stone tablets and cross-indexing them with texts on hand. She prepares to write a letter to the chief of the elves, as she’s worried there’s a great threat on the horizon that could even destroy the world.

Our goblin slaying crew is concerned with the more immediate threat of the goblin village. At daybreak, Slayer says goodbye to a scantily clad Cow Girl, while the also-scantily clad Guild Girl hides in bed, not wanting him to see her without her makeup. Cow Girl understands, but also wants Slayer to see what she looks like all the time, since every time he leaves it might be the last time she sees him.

The fiancé offers the assistance of the sylphs on their journey up the river, along with two boats: one to carry the party, and another ahead of it that serves as an effective decoy, manned with Lizardman’s dragontooth warriors. The goblins hiding in the woods are caught off guard and give away their positions, and Lizard and Slayer pick them off one by one.

The river takes them, as the fiance warned, “beyond the darkness”, and we see what that means: the woods are littered with the rotting and defiled corpses of far too many elves. Priestess has seem some shit, but even this is a lot. They they come to another “One That Stops the Waters”—a well-built fortification that seves as a dam.

Once the guards are dealt with, Elf picks the lock to the entrance and the party heads in. After the lush pleasantness of the elven village, this foreboding stone dungeon is far more Goblin Slayery in its atmosphere. They descend a vast barrel-shaped vault, then enter a chamber where there are still more corpses.

From the looks of things, the goblins are poisoning the elves water with the blood (and other fluids) of the elves they killed. Elf Archer once again retches at the realization her home is being defiled in this way. Slayer suspects a goblin shaman is at work here, and decides they’ll camp there for the night, after giving the corpses as proper a burial as they can.

That night, Slayer and Elf have a warm, sweet, and touching scene together that belies the horrible place they’re in but underscores how far they’ve come as friends. They talk about how this situation has gotten to the Priestess, as they had to throw corpses into the river rather than burying them. He then apologizes to Elf for “it being goblins again.”

Elf draws closer to him and puts her head on his shoulder, telling him it’s okay; she doesn’t want goblins this close to her home, especially with her sister getting married. She insists Slayer get some sleep while she keeps watch, and he agrees, though of course his helmet doesn’t come off.

Elf then notices Priestess trembling in her sleep and calms her with a caring hand. As the curtain falls on this first night beyond the darkness, everyone is still together and safe. All we can do is pray it stays that way, and the party can deal with the goblin threat and head back to attend the wedding.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End – 11 – The Long Winter

With Aura defeated, all of the soldiers she beheaded can now be laid to rest, including Graf Granat’s son. Frieren congratulates Fern and Stark for defeating Lugner and Linie, and Granat not only pardons Frieren, but offers her Flamme’s grimoire on the town’s barrier, which he knows to be a fake. She knows that too, but still wants the book for her hobby.

The three then take their time in the town that they saved, whose folk are generous in their gratitude. While their eventual destination is Ende, Granat warns that due to the conditions of the northern lands, all adventurers must be accompanied by a first-class mage, as certified by the Continental Magic Association.

Before they set out Fern acquired her third-class certification, but as the organizations that govern magic have changed so many times in her lifetime, Frieren never bothered to get the newest certification. All she has in an antique amulet from a long-defunct predecessor of the CMA. No matter; she can take the first-class exam in the northern magical city of Ausserst.

The only problem is, to reach Ausserst they must traverse a mountain range just as winter approaches. Before they even reach the range they get lost in a fierce blizzard, Stark passes out from the cold, and Fern has to carry him. Luckily, an emergency shelter at the foot of the mountains is still being maintained after over 80 years. In the shelter they encounter Kraft the Monk, a swole elf doing crunches to keep warm.

It’s been over three centuries since Kraft met another elf, so he’d assumed they’d all died out except him. Frieren felt the same, and neither of them know of each other, or rather, Kraft doesn’t know who Frieren is beyond her connection to the Hero’s Party. Of course, we know that was intentional on Frieren’s part, as her master taught her to suppress her mana and lay low.

With the wintry mountains impassable and Kraft possessing ample supplies for all of them, Frieren, Fern, and Stark settle in for a winter with Kraft in this shelter. Six months pass by, and if there’s one knock I have with this episode, it’s that it doesn’t really feel like six months.

Then again, if we look at it from Frieren’s perspective, six months isn’t even six days in her life. We also learn that Kraft is even older than her. And while Frieren is agnostic at best when it comes to the Goddess, in the untold additional centuries he’s lived he eventually came to believe in Her.

You’d think the opposite would be true of a nigh-immortal being, but he says he needs to believe in the Goddess. Everyone he knew, and everyone who knew his “righteous triumphs” in time immemorial are all gone. Surely there’s a heaven where he’ll not only be remembered by Goddess, but praised for his fantastic life upon his arrival there.

If Frieren isn’t sure about the Goddess at her point in her life, Kraft offers to praise her in Her place. But Frieren already had someone like that in Heiter, that “corrupt priest,” and she’d like to believe he’s in heaven despite his less pious habits in life. When Kraft and Frieren part ways, he’s sure he’ll see her again in a few centuries.

It’s nice to know that even if and when Frieren outlives Fern and Stark, she’ll still have someone in the living world who knows who she is and what she did long before anyone else was born. But that’s a long way off. With winter behind them, Frieren, Fern, and Stark begin their traversal of the mountains on the way to Ausserst. And what matters more to Frieren isn’t fame, but enjoying and treasuring the time she does have with her friends.

P.S. For an example of the companionship Fern and Stark have forged together, look no further than when Fern starts to slip off a snowy rooftop and Stark catches her.