Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis features a highly stratified cast, from immortal gods and angels up in their heaven or doing their work down on earth, to the demons…way down in the hole, and humans like Favaro and Kaisar in the middle, with their half/formerly-human companions.
Put simply, Shingeki no Bahamut simply kicks ass at telling rousing, impeccably-orchestrated stories of adventure. Last week featured a town of illusion and undead ruled by a powerful, devious, but ultimately bored necromancer. Rita ended up following Kaisar looking for a change of pace and a little excitement…and her decision paid almost immediate dividends.
Entitled “Reunion at Ysmenport”, we’re immediately treated to a beautifully-rendered, well-worn and lived-in city; I could almost smell the fish…and other things such cities have. As street swindler ends up giving both Favaro and Kaisar information how where to get where they want to go. Favaro needs to get to Helheim (and can only keep up the lie about knowing how to get there for so long. Kaisar simply wants to get to Favaro.
What ensues is perhaps the most complete and exciting episode of the series so far, a journey on the high seas with giant sea monsters of varying tastiness, demon sailors, zombie sailors, demon sailors fighting zombie sailors, demon girls fighting sea monsters, et cetera, et cetera. There’s a lot going on!
But it’s not just action: after three episodes of Kaisar chasing Favaro across the ends of the earth, we finally learn why: Favaro’s dad was the one who attacked the convoy carrying the king’s tribute, which was overseen by Kaisar’s father. Kaisar and Favaro were childhood friends despite being from different classes, but Kaisar saw what happened as a betrayal, and his desire for revenge has driven him on a continuing quest to nail Favaro to the wall.
Oh, and also…the demons in demonworld finally stop commenting on what’s transpiring in the regular world and spring into action! I’m not the biggest fan of the dog-demon-girl with her puppets Cerberus (!), but at least these guys are consistent. Every time Amira transforms, they’re able to locate her.
Amira does so when that giant crab emerges from the deep and threatens the ship…and Favaro. While there was probably no way Favaro could have dealt with the beast himself, it was still a risky move that ends up giving Favaro’s dad’s old friend and fellow “honorable thief”, Captain Amon, an opportunity to reveal himself as having “gone into business for himself”, just like Favaro. The jewels he and Favaro’s dad stole were filled with magic that brought forth killer demons, and only Amon survived, but he did so by becoming a demon himself…a bounty-hunter demon! And right now, Amira’s price is so high, Amon is fine simply killing Favaro rather than turn him in.
Meanwhile, Kaisar and Rita have not been standing still. They secured passage on another ship, which turns out to be pirates who aim to rob Kaisar and sell the girl. What’s so great is that so many people would find this a relatively alarming situation, but Kaisar knows what he’s doing and easily dispatches several pirates with his superior swordsmanship.
Also, Rita isn’t really a “girl” anymore; not entirely. What she is is someone who you most definitely want on your side. The pirates numbers are meaningless; she kills them all then reanimates them as a freaking Zombie Pirate Crew under her command. It just keeps getting better!
She rams her newly-acquired (and much larger) ship into Amon’s and that’s when the previously-mentioned battle between amphibious demon sailors and zombie pirate sailors commences, with Favaro, Amira, Amon, and eventually Kaisar literally above the fray in the rigging. Up here we get some Pirates of the Caribbean-style tightrope combat for good measure.
Frankly, I really liked Amon as a friend of Favaro’s and as a link to his past, but not all baddies can become allies like Rita. Speaking of baddies, after Amon is vanquished, the head demon dude Azazel sends a giant tentacle to pluck up Amira, inadvertently bringing Kaisar along for the ride, too. He stops Cerberus from killing him instantly, but whatever he has in store for the bonus human can’t be good.
I…I didn’t see that coming! Who am I kidding, I hardly saw anything coming this week, and that’s why it was so fantastic. I was almost always on the edge of my seat. Now we have quite a predicament on our hands: both Favaro and Rita’s traveling companions have been taken prisoner by powerful but unknown foes. Will these two team up to get their respective partners back? I’m guessing Favaro still wants to get rid of his tail, and Rita wants to turn more things undead, sooo…yeah.
The town of Nebelville is cloaked in foreboding fog, which causes Kaisar to pass out while searching for Favaro, who now has a bounty out on him. But when Kaisar went into that fog, he already had a fog around him: a fog of singlemindedness bordering on obsession, that occludes his ability to see he’s stumbling into a very carefully-laid TRAP.
The funny thing is, he’s so successful in tracking Favaro down, he arrives at Favaro’s next destination before he even gets there. Lucky for him Favaro’s mind isn’t as fogged up with vendetta and loathing for his nemesis. Favaro wants to get rid of his damn tail. That means escorting Amira to Helheim (which is still way way way far away, Missy), which means he needs coin, which means he has to do what he does best: bounty-hunt.
After climbing a cliff to snatch up herbs to make an antidote before facing his quarry, he realizes he could have used Amira to simply fly up to them. Amira corrects, him, saying she cannot fly (though she can clearly jump really high) after losing a wing in “The Incident.”
That “incident” she speaks of is the time she, as a demon, broke into the realm of the gods — where demons aren’t supposed to be able to tread” — and stole the God Key, which is to say, absorbed it into her soul. So yeah, she’s down a wing, but she’s also totally the God Key, which explains why we’re taken to the realm of both angels and demons as they discuss how to neutralize/exploit this development. Bahamut is waking up, after all. That’s not good…right? It’s probably not good for a simple bounty hunter like Favaro.
Meanwhile, both Kaisar and I are totally taken in by the Fog of Nebelville, seeing it how he sees it when he wakes up: a quaint but cozy town whose doctor’s daughter Rita rescued him, set his broken arm, and fed him, before her father asks him to help them out with a troll-like demon problem. Kaisar, the valiant knight, would be happy to assist in any way he can. All of this seems to piss Rita off.
Kaisar sees a bit of himself in Rita’s disdain for her family, inspiring him to regale her with pretty much his life story: family of knights; hard upbringing; resented folks and rebelled against them. But then, when a King’s Tribute was stolen under his father’s watch, his dad was hanged and the entire House of Lidfort ruined and torn asunder. It’s a sad tale well-told with energy and drama by Kaisar, but Rita is unmoved, sick of “playing house.”
The next morning (if you can call it that; so damn foggy!), the first of a multitude of dominoes the episode had artfully set up is nudged over, and everything comes together. As soon as the one of the trolls Kaisar faces starts talking with a somewhat Favaro-y speech pattern, I knew the fog was having some kind of hallucinatory effect on Kaisar. In reality, everyone in Nebelville is dead and rotting.
And who’s behind it…Rita! Rita, who also happens to be the target Favaro was preparing for all along. He and Amira come in with handkerchiefs soaked in the herb potion he made, protecting them from the fog’s effects. Whether she aimed to use Kaisar as a pawn to defend her, or was just bored with two hundred years of necromancing, the jig is suddenly up for Little Miss Rita.
She sics her town’s worth of zombies, but again, as they’re both highly capable fighters, Favaro and Amira have no trouble shaking them off. I love how while hunting a bounty, Favaro ends up saving the life of the bounty hunter hunting for him. When Rita’s own father bites her, and she collapses to the ground, I’ll admit, I felt bad. That’s right when I learn Favaro isn’t even after her, just her book, a “black bible.” In another example of how Favaro, like the Honey Badger, don’t give a shit, he leaves Kaisar bent over Rita’s bloody, soon to be zombified corpse, with the decision of having to finish her off before she rises.
She does rise…but later Kaisar walks across the same landscape as Favaro and Amira had earlier, with Rita following behind, seemingly alive and well, but probably…something else as well. And now, just like Favaro, Kaisar has a lovely and powerful traveling companion all his own! You gotta love the dichotomy of these two.
This was one of those episodes that had a little bit of everything, and just kept getting better and better. I don’t care if this is based off a Pachinko game; it’s a blast. The cold open takes us to an Olympus-style heavenly realm, then down to a legendary battle between Jeanne D’arc’s army of knights and the forces of darkness. All with the titular Bahamut floating in the sky, dormant but ominous.
After an awesome OP with a healthy dose of metal, we return to the present and to Favaro’s latest predicament: in kissing him the previous night, the pink-haired maiden gave him a demon’s tail, which won’t go away until he tells her the way to Helheim as promised. Life’s tough in a world without Google Maps. The only thing that matters to Favaro is getting rid of that tail. But he probably lied about knowing where Helheim is. Probably, because when he looks the lady straight in the eye, it isn’t long before he has to smirk.
That’s beside the point, as after escaping once again from his noble nemesis Kaisar, Fav immediately considers simply murdering the woman in order to break the spell. That’s right, this guy shot Greedo first; he’s no saint, and he’s always looked out for one guy: Favaro. When he brings her along to a manor to slay a demon goat (ram?) mounted in the wall, he sees her demon power again and realizes killing her won’t be so easy. So he plays a longer game.
With the bounty Bacchus pays him for the work the lady mostly did, Favaro buys her some clothes (after trying on a good number of outfits), some food, and then some drink, which she’s apparently never had before, but enjoys quite a bit, to the point that when the music picks up, she joins Favaro for some stirring, sexy and very well-animated dancing, followed by a dip in a gorgeous starlit lake.
At this point, Favaro is thinking it’s the perfect time to stab her in the back, but then he learns her name—Amira—and why she wants to go to Helheim—to reunite with her mother—and he hesitates just long enough for Kaisar to burst out of the lake, having held his breath an untold amount of time. Kaisar, momentarily dazed by Amira’s beauty, gets drop-kicked by Favaro, and the two escape again. Between the goat in the wall, the fantastic dancing, and Kaisar, this episode is full of surprises.
Here’s another, though I shouldn’t have been surprised: the next day, Favaro sells Amira out to knights for what looks like pocket change. Can you believe this piece of work? Lucky for him, his own horse won’t sit back and let her get killed. And oh yeah, the knights, with all their bad-ass armor and magic circles, only manage to give Amira strange and oddly pleasant tingles, so she was never in much danger.
Still, now that he’s with Amira again, Favaro decides, for now at least, to stick with her. When they’re blocked on either side of a rope bridge over a massive waterfall, Fav shoots the bridge and they drop, Fugitive-style. I imagine a lot more thrilling predicaments and death-defying stunts are in store for this trouble-prone couple, as they now have a bounty out against them (which Kaisar takes up), while a collection of demon authorities watch the progress of Amira, who bears one of the two “God Keys” that can unlock Bahamut.
Even if Amira is your standard fish-out-of-water bishoujo with hidden powers, it’s a hell of a lot of fun whether she’s hanging out with Favaro having fun or showing off those frightening (and slick) powers. The cat-and-mouse between the roguish Favaro and Kaisar, stemming from some incident we don’t yet know about (but the details of which vary greatly between the two) is similarly amusing to watch unfold.
Shingeki no Bahamut’s first episode was a breathless and unrelenting assault on the senses…in a good way! From a beam- and explosion-packed prologue to a highly-caffeinated chase through a Renaissance-era town, this show doesn’t let up for more than a few moments before it springs back into action.
Mind you, I’m still processing everything that happened, but basically, Favaro Leone is a maverick bounty hunter who does what he wants when he wants it, and somehow because of him the wealthy Kaisar Lidfort has also become a bounty hunter. Favaro tracks down his target, Garth, then celebrates at the bar, where he boasts of heading to Helheim soon. A mysterious but beautiful woman overhears this.
She asks him to lead her to Helheim, and he agrees, in exchange for a kiss. Before that kiss can happen, Garth’s brother Ghos shows up, summoning an even bigger beast than his brother to batle Favaro. The pink-haired lady steps in and transforms into a monstrously-powerful demon woman who takes care of the summon as Favaro kills Ghos, another bounty for his godlike patron Bacchus.
The woman reverts to her human form and give Favaro the kiss he desires, and he passes out, entering a dream world of crumbling earth and ferocious Bahamuts. When he wakes up the next morning he has a demon tail, which is an unusual, frightening thing even in this world—and there’s no doubt the woman is responsible.
It’s one hell of a loud, boisterous, and elaborate opening salvo for Shingeki no Bahamut. It’s great to hear the always-hilarious Yoshino Hiroyuki (Bossun, Sket Dance; Meow, Space Dandy) voicing a lead role, and the brash swashbuckling rogue Favaro is a perfect role for him. The setting is lush in detail; the action frenetic, and the pace is fantastically brisk. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but I like it.
Forced to return without Mix, everyone awaits Mikono and Fudo’s return. Fudo tells Mikono the legend of Genesis, in which the angel Apollonius shed his wings and joined the humans after falling in love with Celiane. The time has come for the legend to repeat. A disturbing dream leads Amata to sortie without authorization. Both he and Kagura are drawn to the city where Amata first met Mikono, now a deserted ruin, decaying and overrun with vines. Zessica and Cayenne are sent to retrieve Amata, but a powerful mecha attacks them. Zessica is trapped under stones, and kisses Amata so he’ll fly away to safety. Shrade and Sazanka union with Cayenne to battle the mecha, but Kagura and Amata meet and learn they are – and always have been – the same person.
We should have known; the reason Amata is so kind and shy and the reason why Kagura is so forward and aggressive: they’re two sides of the same coin. Amata is Kagura and vice versa. It seems they’re meant to coalesce into a single entity, “Amagura.” This also rather neatly explains why Mikono feels such a close attachment to both of them: she’s the Big Connector, and she’s to be the Celiane to their Apollonius in what is the latest version of the Legend of Genesis, which created the world. Amagura and Mikono will create a new world, which probably means bye-bye old world.
Speaking of farewells, it’s not clear at all whether Mixy will ever be able to become Mix again, Shrade is probably not going to last much longer considering he can’t help but union yet again, and Zessica says goodbye to Amata in a pretty contrived and random sequence of unfortunate events. Her element power allows her to break up rocks, but for some reason she can’t break the ones on top of her. We liked how she made Amata leave her behind by kissing him, thus involuntarily activating his flying powers. But we don’t believe she’s dead. Not yet, anyway. Mikage had plans for her, after all.
Rating: 3.5
Yamanobe announces he and the Sket-dan have been invited to represent Japan at the World Grand Prix of Genesis in the remote kingdom of N’preenu Ch’p’p’s’b, where it’s the national sport. Requiring four players plus a manager, they enlist the help of athlete extraordinaire “Captain” Chiaki Takahashi. They arrive and are perturbed to have never heard of most of the participating countries. They defeat Wyoming first, and after a rough start, Chiaki quickly gets the hang of things and excels, taking over the teamcaptaincy from Bossun and emerging as the MVP.
After a string of Serious Sket, this week marks a return to good ol’ lighthearted comedy. We mentioned we loved made-up sports when Genesis was introduced way back in episode 8, and we’re even bigger fans now that we know there’s a whole international movement devoted to it, including four regional schools. Adding Chiaki into the mix was a welcome move too, as she is the series’ resident expert at all sports, and we liked how her role evolved from unsure noob to MVP (and potential marriage to the N’preenu prince, which she declined.)
While Chiaki’s tangible motivation was the year’s supply of some strange seafood, she also admitted to an apologetic Yamanobe that she just loves hanging out with the Sket-dan, no matter the reason. She finds their passion for whatever comes their way (which sometimes builds up gradually from initial apathy) admirable and addictive. And while Sket Dance had previously done a sports anime parody, this had enough unique elements to provide fresh and memorable laughs. And we also know we need to bone up on our geopraphy – we pride ourselves on knowing the names of all the nations of the world!
Rating: 3
Sket-dan deals with Momoka in the first half and a new client, a teacher, in the second. After their puppet show, Momoka has been scouted, so she comes to the Sket-dan for advice on how to prepare for her seiyu audition. Switch, the club’s resident anime expert, sets up a TV and plays numerous genre-bending anime with bizarre yet strangely believable premises that don’t appeal at all to their original intended audience. Himeko and Bossun are totally lost, but Momoka is committed to doing a good job. After her initial go at the mic, her producer comes in and gropes her, unleashing the punk Momoka within, and an evil aura that has the other producers swooning. So mission accomplished!
The second half gets a bit too hyper at times, but that unrelenting energy is what makes Sket Dance so fun, and I love made-up sports like Quidditch or, in this case, “Genesis”. Its rule may sound fuzzy, arbitrary, and ridiculous, but how is that different from say, cricket, with its esoteric structure and vocabulary? I myself know the rules to most sports, but like probably many others, Cricket will probably always remain a mystery to me. Such is Genesis; although for what it’s worth, the game looks quite fun and challenging: flippers on, morning stars in hand, and a volleyball to volley. Now I want to give it a try! Rating: 3
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