Vinland Saga S2 – 12 – No Love Lost

Here I was thinking Canute was going to march into Ketil’s farm and say “Mine.” But he can’t do that without angering other landowners. No, there’s an art to this. One that involves a mysterious man in a cloak who can kill a moth with a flipped coin, a pack of hyenas, and Olmar’s reliable hot-headedness and incompetence.

The five hyenas are sent to deliver the message that Olmar has been rejected for the guard, something he already knows. And since they know he failed to even pierce the skin of a roasted pig, they mock him mercilessly, unable to keep from laughing maniacally. Olmar is humiliated and drunk, of course he’s going to draw his sword.

Olmar challenges the lead hyena to a duel, and the hyena promptly dog-walks him, not even bothering to put in any effort against such a feeble opponent. Olmar is face down in the dirt and weeping when Thorgil arrives to see what the commotion is about.

He’s not here to bail his little brother out. Rather, he’s there to make sure one of two outcomes takes place: either Olmar properly addresses the insults by killing his opponent, or he’ll die by that same opponent’s sword. Kill or die. This is Thorgil’s lifelong philosophy.

Just as Olmar is sufficiently fired back up and charges the lead hyena, the cloaked man flips a coin right into the latter’s eye, which gives Olmar an opening he wasn’t expecting. His sword goes through his opponent’s throat, killing him. The coin was so fast no one saw it.

Thorgil, proud of his brother for finally becoming a man an killing someone, “handles the rest” with baroque, Thorkell-like gusto, not just killing the other four hyenas but chopping them to pieces, all while a clearly-in-shock Olmar kneels on the ground, wondering what the hell just happened as he is splattered with blood.

Upon inspecting the body, Thorgil sees the maimed eye and suspects something. When Ketil arrives and demands an explanation, Thorgil calmly says it was a fair duel that Olmar won, and the others were killed because they decided to attack the brothers, and got what they deserved.

Then royal guards arrive to arrest them for disrespecting the king, but Thorgil won’t give up his sword. Instead, he kills the guards, leaving one alive to tell him why they let Olmar win. When he won’t answer, he pierces the guard’s eye with the tip of his sword, and then he talks: they let Olmar win so that Ketil would be arrested.

It is then that Ketil realizes the king probably had his sights set on him and his land all this time, but his two sons certainly didn’t help matters by getting themselves tangled up in such a bloodbath. Even though Wulf’s men failed, Canute doesn’t care; he has the excuse he needs to move upon Ketil. Wulf also has to report that Ketil, Thorgil, and Olmar got away, but that too is of no consequence.

Canute is sending over 100 men to overwhelm the farm and take it over, whether Ketil is there when they arrive or not. But they will be there, as we see that Leif Erikson smuggled them out of Jelling in barrels, not out of the kindness of his heart, but in exchange for Ketil buying all of his cargo and releasing Thorfinn into his care. Ketil can hardly refuse such an offer.

Back at the farm, Thorfinn and Einar are wrapping up another day of good honest hard work, but there’s something about the sunset that seems to unsettle Thorfinn, as if he knows the storm that’s coming. Canute ignores King Sweyn’s head mocking him and stares into that very same sunset. War is coming to Ketil’s farm, just when Thorfinn has something to fight for besides the fighting itself.

The Devil is a Part Timer!! – S2 E05 – Change of Scenery

After last week’s huge battle, you’d think a laid back rest episode would be in order…right? WRONG! On the very same day, Maou learns he’ll be without a job as their MgRonald is closing for two weeks to be remodeled (though apparently not with those horrid self-service kiosks that sap vital jobs!) and that he’ll be without the Devil’s Castle for the same period of time due to the need for repairs.

Even worse, Maou would have known about this much earlier, but he was too distracted by the potential of having lost Alas Ramus forever that he paid no attention to the warnings about these changes. That said, his globetrotting landlady sent him a mysterious package wrapped like a mummy, which only Emi has the balls to open, revealing…a VHS tape??

Chiho’s family still has a functioning VCR, so she invites Emi and Maou to her place to watch the video. In so doing, she can’t avoid having her mother finally meet Maou, on whom she’s well aware her daughter has a crush. The video is of the Landlady telling Maou about an opportunity to work for room and board at her relative’s beach shack in Choshi City, Chiba.

Maou calls the number on the video, and by the end of the call he’s got himself a job, as well as Ashiya and Urushihara. Maou returns home with the good news, while Chiho’s mom can tell that Chiho is worried about Maou leaving her behind. She tells Chiho that she can do as she pleases as long as she does things “the proper way”.

Chiho, who knows all about the ongoing feud between Maou and Emi, would prefer that all her friends got along. That said, she also wants to be useful to Maou, even if she can’t fight like Emi or Suzuno. She calls her mom and is granted permission to go to Choshi…with Emi and Suzuno, on a girls’ trip.

Emi and Suzuno are all too happy to go along with the pretense, as they were as uneasy as Chiho about the status quo changing. After a ride on a charmingly retro train, they arrive at Choshi and are picked up by the Landlady’s relatve, Ohguro Amane.

When they arrive at the beach shack, it is in horrendous condition after an off-season, which suddenly turns right the ef back on tomorrow. Needless to say, she’s in a bit of a pickle, and Maou, Ashiya, and whatever manual labor they can get out of Urushihara may not be enough.

Demonstrating that at the end of the day they’re both angels, Emi and Chi-chan pitch in to bring the shack back into presentable professional condition. Maou impresses Amane with his ability to organize and delegate tasks, a product of both his past as an overlord and his experiene at MgRonald.

Emi purchases supplies needed at cut-rate prices, Chiho polishes the beer taps, and Urushihara removes the foam from the stools so they’re more inviting. Even Suzuno, who serves ostensibly as Alas Ramus’ babysitter during the cleaning, reveals a heretofore unknown-to-Maou talent of building perfect elaborate Japanese sand castles, which he knows will be a draw for customers.

Working together as a unit, the denizens of both Heaven and Hell manage to restore Ohguro’s to peak beach season condition, while Maou secured a bonus from Amane if he could fill the shack to full capacity. That night the group kicks back with fireworks on the beach, but are suddenly unnerved by the foghorn of the nearby lighthoue, along with strange lights on the ocean horizon.

Amane tells them the story of dead sailors creating those lights in hope of making “new ghost friends”, but considering the presence of Maou, Emi, and Alas Ramus, the fog that suddenly rolls in could also spell additional trouble for our pals.

That said, this was a fun outing that shook up the status quo. Unfortunately, it loses a half-star for being distractingly janky-looking throughout its runtime. I honestly don’t remember the first season’s animation being so rough…fortunately, I love these characters enough to mostly overlook it.