Vinland Saga S2 – 20 – Icelandic Pride

Fox is a pretty tough guy. He’s killed thirteen men. He enjoys it. But these Jomsvikings are just too much, man. They carve through the hands, limbs, and heads of the ragtag volunteer force like they’re carving through room temperature butter. Fox admires how long Badger can hang in there despite losing a hand. He wants to help his friend, but his legs fail him. Snake saves Badger and orders a retreat.

Ketil, whose delusions truly know no end, protests to the fleeing non-soldiers. When he plucks one of them by the scruff and says his debts won’t be paid if he flees, the man laughs in his face. Who cares about debts to Ketil? He’s finished! Now he’ll see what it’s like to be poor.

When Wulf reports that a man who looked like Ketil was cut down by a Jomsvikings, Canute is annoyed. He wanted Ketil captured, and he ordered the soldiers not to pursue the enemy if they ran. He can’t even make little improvements in the rules of engagement, because utter mayhem is too ingrained in these warriors.

It certainly is in Thorgil, who is a pure, dyed-in-the-wool predator. Emerging from the ocean and leaping at Canute from behind, the king just manages to draw his sword and block Thorgil’s blow, but it destroys his sword and sprains his wrist. In the blink of an eye, Canute’s two guards are beheaded.

Thorgil isn’t just a typical King’s Guard. He’s one of the best. In fact, the only other one who is able to put up a fight is their commander, Wulf. He pierces Thorgil’s wrist with a thrown sword and tackles him to the ground protect his king.

As he chokes Thorgil, his eye is poked out, and Thorgil slips away before reinforcements arrive. It’s an ugly, bloody, brutal encounter between two seasoned killers, but it really doesn’t accomplish much of anything, except to put Canute more on guard.

Meanwhile, Arnheid hears the sounds of battle; the same sounds she heard when her village was attacked. It’s the sound of the world falling apart. Einar assures her the battle is of no concern to them: they’re free now, and they’re leaving the farm. Arnheid’s first question is where they’re going. Leif says they can go to his village.

Her second question is whether Leif’s land is free of slavery and war. Leif is honest: he can’t guarantee war won’t follow them there, but it’s a good place. Arnheid declines. Her husband, son, and unborn child are already waiting for her elsewhere. She asks why she should keep living in this hellish world full of war and slavery when she can go to them.

Einar is about to tell Arnheid he loves and needs her, but she closes her eyes and loses consciousness, apparently breathing her last. Thorfinn pushes Einar aside and tries chest compressions, to no avail. Arnheid is gone. May she rest in peace and be reunited with her family, and may her seiyu Sako Mayumi win every voice acting award there is this year.

Thorfinn lifts her head and tells her about a warm land far to the West where there is no war or suffering. He wanted to take both her and Einar there. These are the same words Thorfinn heard his father Thors say to a dying slave when he was just a young boy.

When the man who saw to it Arnheid would never make it there arrives on Snake’s back, Einar charges him with a full head of steam. Thorfinn holds him back, gets slugged in the face, then punches back, using violence, in this case, to keep Einar from committing violence.

Thorfinn knows all too well that killing Ketil won’t quell Einar’s rage. It only brings about a curse Thorfinn has only just begun to treat. He begs Einar not to fall down the same hole he did. Einar relents.

After Arnheid is buried on a beautiful bluff overlooking the ocean, Thorfinn walks off. Leif, who is preparing his ship for departure, wonders where he’s going and what he’s going to do. Thorfinn tells him: He’s going to go talk to Canute. Maybe there’s a way to convince him that enough blood has been spilt; that maybe there’s another way to get what he wants.

If the worst case scenario happens, Thorfinn is confident he’ll get out of it alive. He also tells Leif that the story he used to hear about how their people went to Iceland to flee war and slavery once bummed him out. He was a boy who couldn’t wait to fight; the prospect of his village avoiding fighting was lame.

But not anymore. Thorfinn isn’t a boy, and now he’s proud of his Icelandic progenitors. They had the right idea, and he’s going to try his best from now on to honor their deeds by following their path away from hate and blood and towards love and peace. But first things first: Canute’s men probably aren’t just going to give him an audience. He’ll have to take it.

CERTIFIED GODDAMN TEARJERKER

Zombieland Saga: Revenge – 07 – We’ve Got a Live One

This week’s opening minutes are very familiar, because they unfold very similarly to the very first episode of ZLS, when a super-chipper Minamoto Sakura’s life was unfairly snatched away by a passing car.

In the case of Yuzuriha Maimai (Hanazawa Kana!), she trips and falls on the way to the bathhouse, smashing her glasses. Undeterred, she accidentally walks into the men’s bath, then slips on a bar of soap that happened to slip out of a bathing Koutarou’s hands.

Cue the death metal and multiple camera angles that, in its first ever episode, made clear that this wasn’t going to be quite like other idol series.

We quickly cut to the briefing basement, where Koutarou, Maimai’s wrapped corpse behind him, announces they have a new member! There’s no doubt that among the many thoughts going through the girls’ heads is Did Koutarou finally go too far and murder someone??

Fortunately, the “corpse” comes to—apparently, Maimai is too dumb to die (either that, or the blow to the back of her head wasn’t as bad as it looked). In any case, Maimai’s series of errors led to Koutarou panicking and not confirming she was actually dead before exposing the rest of Franchouchou to a living person.

Fortunately, Maimai is a good girl, and also a huge fan of Franchouchou and Number One in particular. She has no intention of telling anyone their secret, but since she’s there anyway, she asks if she could join the group anyway! Koutarou, thanking his lucky stars he didn’t accidentally kidnap someone brighter, agrees, and Maimai is christened Number Seven.

While Maimai knows all the words to their songs and all the moves to their dances, her brain and body rarely operate in concert. As a result, her training does not go smoothly at first, but Ai, consummate professional that she is, never loses her patience, and Maimai eventually starts to improve.

When her school’s cultural festival committee is deadlocked on what the big act should be, she says she can get the Franchouchou. The girls are excited to perform there, particularly since they either didn’t spend much time in high school or, in Lily’s case, never made it there. It’s also slightly implied that Koutarou seduces the principal to get approval.

The girls stop by for a pre-festival tour of the festival, and when Maimai tells Sakura how she thought Saga was “done for” until she heard Franchouchou, Sakura can’t help but remember how negative her outlook was until she first heard Ai and Iron Frill. Maimai is shocked to learn of the group’s intention to have a “revenge” show at EFS, but Sakura tells her that’s what Franchouchou is: they never give up.

The big day arrives, and wouldn’t you know it, Maimai doesn’t screw up once! Instead, she totally surprises her friends and classmates by appearing on stage and performing with Franchouchou, announcing after their first song that she’s the newest member…only to then immediately announce she’ll be “graduating” from the group as soon as she leaves the stage.

Her reasoning is solid: while she initially thought she was “one of” them, and they welcomed her with open, caring, and encouraging arms, the bottom line is that other seven have no choice but to do what they do, because they’re zombies. Maimai reckons she needs to live out her life in Saga first in this new Reiwa era, inspired by their dedication to continue rising up and living life to the fullest despite being dead.

After giving a giddy Saki a parting gift of a 20th-anniversary color Tamagotchi, Maimai parts ways with Franchouchou. Part of me is sad Hana-Kana’s time with the group was so brief, but I absolutely understand, respect, and even admire Maimai’s choice.

And while she’ll absolutely never spill the beans about Franchouchou’s true undead nature, reporter Ookuba Shinta has now matched all seven members except Yuugiri to their living counterparts.

Whether he’ll put this scoop on the front page immediately, or go to Franchouchou first for further explanation, I don’t know the guy well enough to say for sure. All I know is, the preview for next week confirms that Yuugiri, the only member on which he has no info, will finally get her own focus episode, which looks to be a period piece. It’s about time!

Read Irina and Crow’s discussion of this episode here!

Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World – 05 – Hindrances to Her Chosen Fate Arise

Much to the surprise of the mages on guard, Alice and Rin show up at the new vortex site unannounced, and are soon joined by TuxedoLord Mask and his younger Zoa relation, Kissing, whom he considers to be on a power level close if not equal to Alice’s. He assures the princess they’ll be enough to protect the vortex from the Empire’s forces. Alice is troubled that the Zoa family seeks all-out war—and if she hadn’t come, they’d have exploited the vortex to towards that goal.

Meanwhile, Mismis locates the vortex—which wasn’t hard, as its a giant pillar of light on the horizon!—but they’re not the first on the scene. Their unit is confronted by Shanorotte’s, but when Mismis runs over to hug her, Noro-chan reveals her true colors: she and her unit are and always were loyal mages of the Sovereignty. She shocks Mismis with magic and prepares to take her away as a POW.

That’s when Nameless, who was nearby all along, de-cloaks and wounds Noro’s fellow mages. Nameless prepares to send a sword at Noro which will go through Mismis, but Iska deflects the blade. Nameless threatens to bring Iska up on charges for insubordination, but he doesn’t have time for him. He must return to the Imperial Base so he can bomb the vortex, which is a lost cause now that it’s firmly in enemy hands.

Back at the vortex, Noro presents her captive Mismis to Mask and Alice, who fears Mismis will recognize her from the Neutral City. Thankfully, Rin knocks Mismis out before she can say anything that could incriminate Alice. Mask and the Zoas are hawks, after all; the crown princess meeting with the enemy could be all the excuse they need to move against the Lous.

As it is, Alice simply asks Noro where the enemy base is, as she’s eager to meet back up with Iska as the fortune teller foretold. Only Iska has Nene and Jhin hang back while he infiltrates the enemy base, headed to the place Alice was just as she’s leaving.

Iska is able to easily wrest Mismis back from Noro’s sadistic clutches, but Noro is bailed out by Kissing, who attacks with summoned thorns that take on a variety of forms. Iska, who recognizes Kissing as a strong purebred, is able to hold out until Noro uses the thorns to destroy, then reconstruct an incoming Imperial missile.

That explosion is seen by Alice after she returns to the Imperial base. Nameless is waiting for her there, and manages to cut both Rin and Alice, but then Alice goes all out with Ice Calamity, forcing Nameless to flee. The blast in the distance convinces Alice she should never have left the vortex zone; she must’ve just missed Iska.

Iska is able to slip past Kissing’s thorny offense-defense and knock her unconscious with a non-lethal blow, but then Mask shows up to carry her away, shoving Mismis into the vortex to buy time for their escape. Iska jumps in after her and eventually grabs hold of Mismis. Alice returns just in time to watch him leap in, and she leaps in after him.

The ensuing scene is highly amusing for its informality considering the situation. Despite descending through a column of surging astral energy that apparently has no bottom, Alice blushes at the sight of Iska and treats him as if he stood her up at the base. Still, she agrees to help him and Mismis out of there if he agrees to fight her as soon as they’re back on the ground.

Iska agrees, and the two join hands just as the astral energy surges further. Suddenly they hear a fell voice in the din—an astral spirit’s chant—and the column detonates and dissipates, separating Alice and Iska and dispelling them to different remote areas of the surface. Rin meets back up with Alice, who is annoyed her next battle with Iska has again been postponed by outside forces. Nene and Jhin pull up to find Iska and Mismis, none the worse for wear all things considered.

With the vortex gone, there may be nothing left for either side to do, but more vortices are sure to crop up. We’re left wondering if it was Alice and Iska’s holding hands that caused the vortex to close, which could portend an interesting possible destiny for the pair. If astral vortices are akin to nuclear weapons, or at least sources of atomic-esque energy that can bring about great death and destruction, it falls upon these two to ensure those sources never fall into the hands of either side’s warmongering factions.

I may be off-base with that theory, but it fits with both Alice and Iska’s reluctance to escalate the conflict and desire to bring about a lasting peace. This week’s events underscored the difficulty of that goal, with players like Noro, Kissing, Mask, and Nameless all unwittingly conspiring to hinder Alice and Iska’s continued interaction. The more they fight, the more they’ll understand and trust one another, and the better positioned they’ll be to save the world.