Vinland Saga S2 – 17 – Going Home

The fight between Snake and Thorfinn is impressively badass as expected. He’s shocked a warrior of Snake’s skill is guarding a farm, and Snake is shocked a warrior of Thorfinn’s skill is a slave. But Sverkel was right: it really came down to luck who ended up as what.

Snake is a warrior of Miklagard, AKA Constantinople (now Istanbul), but he can only imagine what “monsters” surrounded Thorfinn, and how he must not have “experienced a single good thing” to be a match for him.

Call it a combination of Thorfinn being unarmed and a little rusty, or chalk it up to Snake simply being a bit better, but Thorfinn isn’t able to keep Snake away from the cart where Gardar lay. Gardar’s last line of defense is Arnheid, begging Snake not to take his life.

Snake is unequivocal: Gardar took the lives of five of his men, so he must die. He and his men may be “stupid nasty scumbags” who can’t even use their real names, but he’s right that Gardar’s life isn’t worth more than those five. So he stabs Gardar in the gut with his sword.

While he’s telling Thorfinn and Arnheid that they’ll be bound pending punishment fitting their actions, Gardar grabs Snake from behind and puts him in a chokehold. Neither Snake nor Thorfinn can so much as nudge Gardar’s tree trunk-like arms. The only one who can stop him from killing Snake is Arnheid, whose voice breaks him out of his trance.

Gardar and Arnheid take Sverkel’s cart (with his permission and blessing) and they intend to ride it home to their son Hjalti. Arnheid doesn’t tell him the truth because, well, why spoil the last moments the two of them have? Gardar drifts in and out of consciousness, and has visions of abandoned souls lining the road.

He also dreams of the day his son was born, took his first steps, pissed on his face while he was changing him. These memories are as full of love and happiness and joy as reality is full of pain, anguish, and despair. They were the best days of his life, when he was with his wife and son, at home, living in peace. No matter what happened afterwards, they lived those days together.

Gardar also relives the day he decided to leave his home and family to fight for honor and wealth, only he’s watching himself leaving while sitting beside Arnheid and Hjalti. He couldn’t see her face then, but he does now, and he’s filled with regret for leaving.

When he comes to one last time, he asks Arnheid how old Hjalti is (six), imagines he’s forgotten them but still become a prankster like him, and is certain that he’ll want to go off on Viking adventures. But he tells Arnheid he won’t let him go. Then he takes her hand and slumps over in her lap.

As Arnheid sheds tears as her husband’s life fades, Gardar finds himself riding the cart into his village, untouched since he last left it. He spots Hjalti on a sad looking morose until he spots his dad and starts running towards him. Gardar is home. Arnheid holds him in her arms, welcoming him home. Snake’s men catch up to the car and surround it, their shadows long in the low sun.

This was perhaps the most heartwrenching depiction of a death we’ve seen on Vinland Saga. In this period of Thorfinn’s life the loss of even one life is terrible and agonizing to behold, but also beautiful and sublime. Arnheid got to see her Gardar in life and Gardar will get to see their Hjalti in death. And one day, they’ll all be reunited in the hereafter; a family shattered by war and violence whose bonds of love frayed but never broke.

GODDAMN TEARJERKER™ CERTIFIED

The Devil is a Part Timer!! – S2 E08 – Boars, Stars, and Bears

While the apartment is now repaired (and the kitchen faucet no longer drips!), the MgRonald remodeling isn’t done yet, so Maou needs some new temp work. That notorious NEET Urushihara brings this up is indeed the height of hypocrisy, but he’s not wrong.

When Chiho’s great aunt is injured by a boar at the Sasaki family farm in Nagano, all the young temp workers quit out of fear of attacks. Chiho’s mom drives her, Maou, Ashiya and Urushihara to the farm to help out with the harvest. Maou is happy see sides of Chiho he hasn’t seen before.

Maou & Co are overwhelmed by the sheet vastness of both the Sasaki farmlands and their spacious house (you can’t even see the stairs from the entrance!), but Chiho’s aunt Hinako eases them in with some lighter work, after which her uncle takes them to a hot spring to unwind. There, Chiho suddenly feels something clutch her leg; it’s Alas Ramus!

Turns out Emi and Suzuno tagged along, and it’s clearly not a simple coincidence. That said, when Alas calls Emi and Maou “Mama” and “Papa”, Emi and Suzuno have to spin quite the yarn about long-term babysitting and Alas forgetting her parents’ faces (which is obviously a real thing that happens in families where the parents have to work a ton of hours).

That night, Maou gets his wish to see another side of Chi-chan as she visits him in the night dressed more casually than he’s used to (though he seemingly forgets he saw her in a bikini during the beach arc). They go on a walk, her marvels at how many stars are in the sky.

Chiho tells him about Emi’s mixed feelings about him, Ashiya, and Urushihara doing farm work, since the Demon Army destroyed her hometown and family’s farmland. Chiho reiterates her desire for everyone she loves to live in happiness.

Maou doesn’t get much sleep, as Emi gets the three lads up at 4:30 AM sharp (though Urushihara clings to his futon and gets Emi’s fist in return). Everyone else is already up and eating a hearty breakfast prepared with help from Suzuno.

Because of Emi’s experience harvesting eggplants and Maou’s lack of same, the two are paired up for a greenhouse, where Emi explains why vegetables have to be picked in the morning rather than the afternoon, and before they over-ripen.

Emi also tells him she’s still mad and not ready to forgive him for what he and his army did to her home, but if he were to start regretting his deeds, her anger and hatred might subside…if only “the length of a flea’s turd”, which is a hell of a withering turn of phrase!

After working all morning Maou and the lads get a siesta in, but Maou and Ashiya want to still be useful. They escort Chiho’s baby cousin Hitoshi to see her mom in the fields, since he’s being fussy. I love the little scene of Maou, Chiho, Ashiya, and the little ones getting along, and Hitoshi pulling Ashiya’s hair.

Unfortunately, the good vibes are suddenly extinguished by the arrival of a starving black bear that’s come down the mountain looking for food. The group gets down low and tries to quietly get away, but Hitoshi gets unsettled and starts to cry, alerting the bear to their presence…and that’s how the episode ends.

With a “civilian” among them in Aunt Hinako, dealing with the bear through supernatural means (like, say, Alas turning into a sword) is probably out. Still, I can’t imagine the bear will succeed in attacking anyone. More likely another Sasaki will arrive and scare the bear off.

The Faraway Paladin – 12 (Fin) – Illness of the Strong

Last week Will hit rock bottom as he fell into the same trap as countless other heroes, anime, isekai, or otherwise: trying to go it alone out of fear of getting others hurt. Fortunately, his beautiful first and best friend and brother Meneldor’s head is harder than it looks, and he’s not about to let Will slink off in the rainy night. Their first fight ensues, with Will even going so far as to break Menel’s arm so he can’t follow him.

He would’ve needed to break the other arm—and both legs, because Menel doesn’t give up. He employs the gnomes to knock Will on his ass so he can use his good arm to help Will up. Will surrenders. Reystov calls what befell Will to be the “illness of the strong”—an instinct to isolate oneself and take all the burdens on one’s shoulders—and knows many who succumbed to it and died.

Thanks to Menel, Will is able to realize the error of his ways. He can’t go it alone against the Chimera and demon forces trying desperately to keep the Beast Woods in chaos. He’s just one in a whole slew of variables in the equation necessary to break the demons’ hold on the region. Through careful scouting and preparation and by rallying his band of adventurers and priests, Will is able to attain a victory he’d never reach all by his lonesome.

Even the final boss chimera isn’t someone Will can take one by himself. Sure, he detects the monster using invisibility and even trying to trick them into lowering their guard, but Menel’s mastery of faeries, nymphs and gnomes provides decisive backup in the Chimera battle. With its defeat, Bee writes new songs of their heroic deeds to be spread throughout the lands.

As the party celebrates their triumph, Menel points out something that had totally escaped a naïf like Will all this time: that he is at this point the new de facto Lord of the Beast Woods. This is where Will learns another axiom common to heroes: true leaders don’t seek power, but it is thrust upon them. Will must either rule his new realm or choose some trusted people to do it for him as he continues his adventures.

And make no mistake: there will be more adventures. A second season of Paladin has already been announced, something I never felt was in doubt (though I’d also like to see second seasons of Shin no Nakama and World’s Finest Assassin). Will also has an ultimate goal: turning the City of the Dead into a City of Living—thus making Blood, Mary, and Gus proud.

The Faraway Paladin – 11 – The Other Side of the Coin

At the start of this outing, everything’s coming up Maryblood, as he, Menel, Anna, Reystov, and his merry band of adventurers march throughout the Beast Woods, clearing them of demons. With help from Bee and Tonio, the newly-safe villages are gradually revitalized. When Will returns to places he’d seen at their lowest point, he can see firsthand what his good works have wrought.

Then one grey day Reystov reports that one of the more talented adventuring parties is two days late from a scouting mission. Will rolls out with Menel, Reystov, and two capable parties in search of them, and eventually find their corpses. They’re then led into a ravine and surrounded by demon beasts, led by a particularly ferocious chimaera.

Will & Co. put up a stout front, but the bottom line is they’re very nearly outmatched, which comes down to a lack of caution and preparation. When Menel is severely injured by the chimaera’s dragon breath, Will flies into a panic. He tries to cast lightning on all of the beasts, but is interrupted and hits himself, a rare unforced error. He has to resort to pure adrenaline and matching the beasts in viciousness with his demonblade to survive the day.

When he wakes up, he learns from Reystov that he and Menel were carried out after the Chimaera fled, and that he burned himself out fighting too hard. Even so, Will doesn’t see this as an inevitable occasional slip-up. Rather, he suffers a total and complete crisis of confidence, cursing himself for believing he could treat Menel and the others as equals despite being so much stronger than them.

We even get the first glimpse of Will in his previous life before coming to this world, just when I’d come to grips with the fact the show didn’t care about that part of Will’s story at all. But the person he was is crucial to how he’s feeling now: full of guilt and regret for expecting too much of his comrades because he doesn’t want to be lonely. He doesn’t have to say anyting to Bee and Tonio for them to know something’s very off about him.

Will decides he’ll never let something like this happen again, visiting the still-unconscious Menel and healing him a bit more before going off on his own. However lonely he might feel, he’ll feel even worse if he ends up killing those who have stood beside him. Still being an impressionable young whelp, he instantly agrees with the chatter of passing soldiers referring to him as a “monster”, and concludes that he must walk his path alone.

You can tell from Gracefeel’s expression that Will is off-base here. He never forced Menel or anyone else to stand beside him or be his friend. It’s pretty clear Menel, and Bee and Tonio, and Reystov and Anna, are with Will because they believe in him and his strength and want to do everything they can to make a difference in this world with him. The question is, will they be able to bring Will out of these doldrums, or does his new self-imposed isolation represent the new normal?

Bokutachi no Remake – 09 – The Price of Success

Kyouya has no idea why he’s now in 2018 any more than he knew why he jumped back from 2016 to 2006, but one thing’s certain: it’s not a dream. Aki is his loving wife, Maki is his darling daughter, and he has a job as a troubleshooter for a decent mid-tier game company. He may not want to admit it, but he was successful in remaking his life. He should be happy, and he would be…if only he never found out how he achieved his success.

Despite being suddenly thrust into a new life and job, the details of which he can only guess, Kyouya comports himself well, serving as a troubleshooter and talent whisperer on behalf of Eiko, who is also still in the business. The talent in question is Minori Ayaka, an illustrator with 200k followers, but who has seemed to lost her motivation and passion for drawing. When Kyouya praises a piece of her work that strongly resembles Shinoaki’s style, Ayaka seems to build a new head of steam for her work.

A good day at work, and the realization he’s fortunate to have such a cute wife and daughter, is soured when Kyouya brings up Comiket and asks if Aki will submit anything. The truth is, she hasn’t drawn in years…and the reason is the same as Ayaka: there was “nothing she wanted to draw anymore.” That’s now two members of the Platinum Generation from his original timeline who are now completely out of the creative world.

While having lunch with Eiko, Kyouya realizes she’s much the same, only even she seems to have suffered due to his success: she’s working at a smaller company in a lower-ranking position than his original timeline. He also learns that Nanako’s last song online has less than 2,000 views and she’s decided to retire from singing, stating she “doesn’t know what she’s singing for.” I half-expected Tsurayuki to show up as a doctor on Google, but all Kyouya finds is some blog entries.

Learning that by directing HaruSora with the Platinum Generaion, he inadvertently ruined their futures as creatives by sapping their creativity and passion for a greater commercial good, Kyouya is understandably beside himself. He gets completely boiled, lands in a literal pile of garbage, than stumbles home where his wife and young daughter have to console his tears. Knowing what lives Aki, Nanako, Tsurayuki, and Eiko would have lived without his interference, he can’t accept the lives they live now.

And yet, IMO, that’s exactly what he should do. BnR has not shed one single diode of light on the precise supernatural mechanism that shot Kyouya back ten years or forward eleven. Kyouya did what he thought was best, and while he did get a bit caught up in wanting to make something with the creatives who would end up celebrities in his present, he had absolutely no idea the damage he’d do.

Add on top of that the fact that everyone in this timeline has most likely moved on, and all he does by bringing it up is reopen old and long-healed wounds. While it’s sad that Nanako is quitting singing, she’ll be fine. Tsurayuki, who comes from money, will be fine. Aki, who has Kyouya and Maki, will be fine. In exchange, Kyouya got a second chance with his past, did something admirable with it, and now has a loving family and solid career. Maybe he needs to be fine too.

The Promised Neverland – 21 – More Important than Revenge

By arriving just in time with Mujika and Sonju, Emma is able to talk Norman down and get him to drop his knife. Despite all the time they’ve been apart and the things Norman has done and planned to do, Emma still feels absolutely certain that he doesn’t really want to do those things he planned, even going so far as calling him an “arrogant coward”.

The show deems that she is correct in her assessment, and that, when offered, Norman is willing to share the suffering, pain and fear with Emma, Ray, and the others instead of shouldering it all himself. Mujika then goes around the town administering her blood to those who have degenerated, not only curing them but ensuring they’ll never degenerate again.

As Norman’s plan to annihilate the demons of the village is reversed, Barbara prepares to kill a demon girl and her infant sibling, but when she sees herself in the cowering girl, she finds herself unable to do it. We’re to understand this is the first time she’s been presented with the opportunity to kill a demon child, and was all talk before.

Norman and Emma emerge from the burning town, and Norman tells his comrades the truth: he didn’t want to get revenge on demons, but to save his family. He used the ticking clock on his life to justify taking a path he wouldn’t have otherwise chosen. And he lied about not having succombed to the same Lambda drugs as all of them because he wanted to project reliability.

Barbara, who just stopped herself of her own accord from murdering a child, can’t very well argue, and says Norman is more important than revenge. Cislo and Zazie are also extremely understanding of Norman’s coming clean. Vincent isn’t, but the others tell him to stand down.

Upon returning to the hideout, the kids there tell them they just got word from the Grace Field radio: Phil and everyone else are being shipped. We cut to a scene with Petri and Isabella, who have sent the message as a trap, knowing the kids who escaped will come to the rescue.

What’s odd is that Petri is talking with the demons like Norman and the others just escaped from Lambda; presumably that happened weeks if not months ago. And don’t get me started on Isabella, who we were led to believe was on a short leash, and yet has been allowed to fail for quite some time now.

Of greater import in this scene is Petri’s announcement that the Lambda materials weren’t lost in the bombing, and the entire high-class farming system is poised to be replaced by Lambda-style farming through drug-induced brain enhancements.

Ray rightly suspects the message about the premature shippings is a trap to lure them there, but it doesn’t matter, because they still need to return to Grace Field if they want to save Phil and the others. The fact we haven’t seen one second of Phil or the others at the farm somewhat dulls those particular stakes…as do the developments at the hideout.

Vylk, the grandpa who’d regularly visit the hideout—and who Norman almost killed—and his granddaughter Emma visit so he can tell a story about a small piece of a pen a dying human was grasping, and the remorse he feels for not using his blood to save others besides his own family. When screwed into Emma’s pen, it not only provides blueprints for farming HQ and the gate to the human world, but a cure for the side-effects of the Lambda drugs!

That’s an inordinate amount of coincidence and suspension of disbelief in one little flash drive! But even with all this new information, and with almost everyone on board with returning to Grace Field, the one holdout—Vincent—ends up betraying everyone by using the radio to exchange intel for a deal. I guess he wasn’t moved by the embrace of the Emmas…

The Promised Neverland – 20 – Emma

Instead of being slaughtered for meat, Norman was introduced to Peter Ratri, his “new father”, and asked to assist with his research. No matter how much they up the difficulty of the tests, Norman always scores perfectly.

Peter is trying to wrest control of the farms from James, presumably his brother or father. Norman also observes how gently he’s treated compared to the other children at the Lambda facility, who undergo all manner of horrific surgery and used as fodder for experiments.

Norman eventually meets Vincent, and together they clandestinely plan a prison break, which is initiated when Norman grasps the king while playing chess. He gives the surveillance camera a blank look, immediately followed by the blast of an improvised bomb.

Norman and Vincent rush through the facility, now in total chaos, and save what humans are still able to be saved, like Cislo and Barbara, the latter of whom asks Norman if he’s a “god” when he frees them. Standing over his great victory, Norman tells the captured demons he won’t stop until their kind has “died out from this world”.

I’m glad we were shown these events, as in this case where it’s important to see the horrors he saw, showing is better than telling. I only wish Norman and his comrades hadn’t spent so much of the last couple episodes spouting so much exposition, which in hindsight feels redundant.

Still, we get a very foreboding shot of a robed Norman at sunset, looking quite a bit like Anakin Skywalker after being seduced by the dark side. He doesn’t care if he has to be a god or a devil if it means Emma and the other children will be able to live in safety and peace.

This episode suffers from a considerably less interesting middle act involving the four days and change Emma, Ray, Gilda and Don are searching for Mujika and Sonju. They basically trudge from one point of the forest to the other in their demon disguises, coming up empty until they reach final search area.

Naturally, this area is crawling with those giant creepy wild demons, and naturally Emma almost gets her head bitten off not once, but twice. The first time, Ray shoots the demon in just the right eye to bring it down. The second time, Sonju and Mujika arrive In the Nick of Time.

But before Emma can even get out how they need the two demons’ help, there’s a blast from afar: Norman has started the operation a day early. Bombs detonate all over the town, releasing the degenerative drug in a sickly purple cloud. It spreads and affects the demons precisely as Norman calculated, turning them into wild vicious beasts that rip each other apart.

This creates a horrifying situation in which demons watch their loved ones degenerate, but beg other demons of sound mind not to hurt or kill them, only to themselves be killed by those transformed loved ones. Soon the streets are full of the cries of terrified children, their mothers and fathers either dead or transformed and about to kill them. It is the scene of hell.

As his comrades stand atop brick columns watching their vengeance unfold with glee, Norman enters the town square and finds one of the young demon girls alone, scared, and crying. Norman, determined not to waver, prepares to kill her with a sword, but he’s stopped in his tracks when her grandfather—the same elderly demon who visited the kids’ hideout—calls out the girl’s name: Emma.

A fresh cloud of the drug falls over the square, infecting the little one but not the old man, who Norman suspects to have devil’s blood like Mujika, and is thus immune. He stabs the old man, but he has Emma drink his blood, reversing her degeneration, and begs her to run.

Before Norman can re-commit to killing the old man or the demon Emma, someone calls to him: his Emma, with Ray by her side. Thanks to Sonju’s horse they managed to make it back to town just in time. When Norman sees Emma he starts to tear up, and when Emma sees him she sees him as the little boy at Grace Field House, in whose hands a bloody sword just doesn’t look right.

While Norman has the intellect to know what exactly to do, and that it may be the only way to save Emma and the others, and he even possessed the will to do the horrible things that needed doing, he still doesn’t have the heart to follow through, at least not without the wavering we saw.

I’ve heard many rumblings about how dissimilar and inferior this second season is to the first due to the fact it’s passed over large swaths of the original manga’s story and basically doing its own thing. I’ve also learned that this was apparently the author’s choice to do this, so it isn’t as if his work was getting short shrift against his wishes.

Whatever the case may be, a second season that takes place after escaping the farm was always going to be a thoroughly different kind of show, despite the same title, and that’s certainly proven the case. But now that Norman, Emma, and Ray are reunited once more in the epicenter of his grand plan, I remain thoroughly engaged and excited to find out where in the world things go from here!

Read Irina and Crow’s discussion of episode 20 here. They know their stuff!

The Promised Neverland – 19 – A Future Without Regret

By bringing up Mujika and Sonju, Emma clues Norman in on a major threat to his plan. He’s never met either, but heard stories about a mutation of demons who could maintain their human-esque form and intellect without eating meat. He thought they’d all been hunted down and killed by the Demon King and royalty committed to maintaining the status quo that lines their pockets.

With the “Evil-Blooded Girl” still out there, the demons presumably have a defense against his degenerative drug. Emma sees it the other way: instead of eradicating the demons, they can treat them all to be like Mujika and Sonju, so they won’t need to eat human meat anymore. But that misses the whole point: the Demons in charge would keep eating humans even if they didn’t have to, simply because they want to.

If that’s the case, then Emma thinks they should escape to the human world rather than committing demon genocide. Again, Norman has researched this, and the only gate he knows of is deep beneath…Grace Field House. It’s too dangerous and there are too many unknown factors, including whether the humans would even accept them.

Emma can’t accept a future she has to kill her friends and countless other innocents to achieve, in which she’d never be able to smile again. Norman knows the kind soul Emma is and always was, but here again they disagree: he says it isn’t “tough” to do what he’s doing, because he’s working towards the future he desires.

The debate would seem to be over, with the two sides at an impasse and Norman politely shuffling Emma and Ray out of there, but Emma proposes a deal: give her ten days to find Mujika and Sonju before proceeding with his plan. Norman gives her five…because he doesn’t expect her to succeed.

When Emma and Ray leave, Norman joins Cislo, Barbara, and Vincent in the bowels of their headquarters, and tells them that his siblings from the farm don’t want to annihilate the demons, and have also met with and are friends with the Evil-Blooded Girl. Just the thought of not eradicating the demons sends Barbara into a jar-shattering rage, leading to a “Lambda seizure”, which seem to be happening to her and the other two with increasing regularity.

They’re running out of time fast—just when Emma asked for more of it. Cislo is disgusted by Norman’s siblings’ “naive nonsense” but understands they’re good kids. So he asks Norman on behalf of the other Lambda survivors: Is Norman still on their side? Norman tells them he agreed to wait five days, but nothing else has changed. If Emma returns successful, Norman will kill the Evil-Blooded, but his plan will go forward without further alterations.

To show how far he’s come and why he can’t back down now, he shines his lantern on a massive Lilith-like demon, which he’s no doubt used for research and development of his anti-demon drug.

So now we know—if it wasn’t clear from the end of their conversation—that Norman has no intention of cancelling or changing his plan to commit genocide. Even if he wanted to, he has more than just Emma to think of. If the Lambda kids feel he’s betrayed them, he’s just as sure to die by their hands than demons’. And then there’s the matter of him doing what he did when he got shipped away: putting all of the burden on his own shoulders.

Of course, Emma thinks deep down the same Norman she knew and loved is still in there somewhere, and will honor his part of the bargain. Ray seems to want to trust Norman too; clearly being around Emma so much has blunted his cynicism. So they return to their mountain hideout, and there Emma presents her view and gets everyone onboard, even the terrified Gilda.

She uses the kids own grumbling bellies to drive home the point that killing all the demons would only spread more fear and hate, making the world a worse place. Emma can’t accept any other path but a peaceful one, but what she doesn’t yet grasp is that she’s already on the path Norman has paved for everyone—he just gave her five more days to pretend otherwise.

Back at Norman’s HQ, he suddenly coughs up blood into the same hand Emma took into hers when forging their doomed bargain. It would seem that whatever happened after he said goodbye to Emma to be shipped off, he didn’t fare any better than the other Lambda victims. His time grows short too, to the point even if Emma’s plan was most certain and logical, there wouldn’t be enough time to realize it.

Irina and Crow had a discussion on this episode. Check it out here!

 

 

The Promised Neverland – 18 – The Norman Invasion

After a recap week, Neverland is back, and as good as its been all season, although not for the reason you’d think. Norman’s back, and that’s great! Emma can’t believe it’s not a dream, and I don’t mean that metaphorically. This literally doesn’t seem real that their old friend is alive, well, and not just deep in the anti-demon resistance, but its leader. It changes everything.

Norman comes to the Temple where he receives a hero’s welcome from the other kids. Like Emma, they initially can’t believe it’s really him, but unlike her they weren’t in charge of ensuring everyone’s survival all this time. They see how they’ve fared, and how things aren’t going so well, and how now that Norman’s here everything will be fine.

Of course, they don’t consciously put it in a way that diminishes Emma’s leadership to this point. Instead, they see it as a great lifting of a weight from her shoulders she never should have had to bear alone. But with the lifting of that weight naturally means there will be a shift in power and authority.

That’s especially apparent when Norman regales the group with what he’s been up to since he left Grace Field House. Rather than processed for food, he was sent to Lambda, a facility for testing and experimentation. There, he made use of his superior intellect to wreck the place, freeing himself and many other captives who had suffered horribly.

Ever since then, he’s been developing a means of utterly defeating the demons: a drug that will cause them to degenerate into wild beasts who will turn against each other. In effect, it’s a biological weapon, and Norman intends for its widespread use in order to decimate their tormentors.

There’s no doubt that if the drug works as Norman claims, it will usher in a new era of freedom and peace for humanity. This is a big deal. And when you consider all he’s accomplished in the same amount of time Emma and her group have only barely managed to feed themselves, it really puts Emma’s relative lack of progress in relief.

Of course, Emma’s overwhelming concern with Norman’s plan is that it’s so barbaric, and renders humans as no better than the worst demons. Demons have names, thoughts, family. She wants a future where they don’t have to hate, fight, or kill. Ray can sense this, and he gets it out of her fairly easily, which means those so-called “secret” thoughts could have come out at a far worse time, in front of a far less receptive audience.

Ray doesn’t agree with Emma. He’s fine with annihilating the demons, but he also wants to make sure Emma makes her feelings known to Norman. They don’t know, for instance, if Norman knows about demons like Mujika who can maintain their intellects without human meat, so it could be an exchange of information that could help Emma better determine and articulate a more peaceful counterproposal.

As soon as they reach Norman’s holdfast and meet his fellow Lambda escapees, the immense scale of Emma’s task becomes clear. After what they and their friends both dead and alive endured at Lambda, Cislo, Vincent, and Barbara harbor a pure and intense hatred of demons. Cislo can’t wait for the high that comes from massacring demons, while the suspicious-looking haunch of meat Barbara is chomping on turns out to be demon meat.

That’s right: Barbara says her anger melts away when she eats their meat. She believes every single demon should suffer what they endured, and worse. The atmosphere wasn’t altogether welcoming at the beginning of the scene, but as the Lambda kids start talking about how much they hate demons, the mood of the scene turns that much more sinister, to the point I feared for Emma’s safety!

Indeed, when Barbara can see what she’s saying is disturbing Emma, she makes it clear that Emma better not have any disgusting ideas about changing Norman’s plan. Cislo and Vincent tell Barbara to take off and cool down, but they feel the same way: the demons must go. When they leave Emma and Ray to wait for Norman, Ray tells her there’s no stopping hatred like that once it’s begun.

I honestly couldn’t help but think of the current situation in Attack on Titan’s final season, in which the “good” and “bad” sides have long since melted away, and everyone arms themselves with enough hatred to commit any atrocity against anyone who stands in their way. I’m with Emma that this isn’t the right way to forge a future, but I’m also with Ray: in this climate she’ll be steamrolled by the hate long before she can come up with, let alone implement, an alternative plan.

When Norman is free, he sits down with his brother and sister, and shows them a bottle of the drug that will be used in the plan. Emma doesn’t even get to the part where she objects to that plan when Ray mentions the demons who didn’t eat humans. Norman reacts in a way neither Ray nor Emma expected: like someone who had staunchly believed their nemesis was dead and buried suddenly having to call that into doubt.

Referring to Mujika as the “Evil-Blooded Girl” while glaring and grasping his face dramatically, Norman shows a side of himself Emma has never seen, and part of the New Norman with whom the other Lambda kids are familiar and comfortable. No doubt Norman cast away those parts himself that weren’t relevant to The Cause. And now she and Ray may be the bearer of news that could ruin his intricate plan for demon eradication. Not the reunion anyone wanted!

Read Crow and Irina’s discussion of the episode here.

The Promised Neverland – 17 – Living On Grace

It’s been almost a year since the children escaped from Grace Field House. Rumors of how they have yet to be hunted down spread in a demon city, but more often than not they’re dismissed as having died long ago. All the while, those same children who escaped a year ago are walking among the demons who’d do almost anything for their high quality meat.

Neverland does a lot of efficient world building this week, and this opening scene lays bare the general social strata of the demons. Ordinary demonfolk who shop in the street markets will never see, let alone taste Grace Field meat. As for the kids, they’re older and wiser and more capable and resourceful than ever, but food is still scarce. The struggle for survival is constant.

While each and every one of the younger kids are absolute troopers, not even complaining about eating only thin soup day after day, the decision to leave the farm weighs heavily on Emma each night. When she can’t sleep in the night, she faces a wall, cursing her shortsightedness and arrogance.

Ray reminds her they all made the right choice—the only choice—to leave. If they hadn’t, Ray would be dead, and the others would soon find themselves on the wealthier dinner tables of the demon world. Better underfed than dead.

Their hilltop temple hideout is periodically visited by a solitary demon, who is blind and walks with a cane. He knows there are children there, but it’s left up in the air whether he knows whether they’re human. Perhaps he can’t smell so well anymore, or perhaps he’s just a very nice demon.

For the first time, Emma helps him when he drops his offering, and he thanks her before leaving. Gilda scolds her recklessness, but even if the old man is a human-eating demon, she couldn’t let him continue to fumble in the dark.

Returning to the pair of demons from the market, we see that they are trying to keep two starving demon children from degenerating to wild (and presumably vicious) state. But the low-grade, vat-raised human hand is hardly enough. When one of them reminds them of the Grace Field stock is still at large, they start to seriously consider searching for them.

These aren’t the plans of evil monsters who kill for sport, they’re desperate adults trying to save children with no other options in sight. This is the state of the demon side of the world a thousand years on. While there are certainly bad actors, demons are no longer homogenously “evil”, any more than the humans on the other side. There have no doubt been generations living under this system, and know of no other system.

It’s in this newly expanded picture of this world that we find Emma and the Kids fighting against the long-established norm, daring to sneak into towns to collect enough food to keep everyone alive. This week Thoma and Lannion convince Emma to accompany her, Ray, Gilda and Don, but they end up bumping into that desperate demon pair, and a stiff wind fills the demons’ noses with the scent of humans.

An tense and intricate chase ensues, one that demonstrates just how extensively the kids have trained and practiced evading pursuers. Emma and Ray end up luring the pair away while the others melt into the crowd, only to end up cornered by the pair and a group of other demons who have taken interest.

Then one of the other demons kills the pair who were chasing Emma and Ray, and a blue-cloaked demon lifts his mask to reveal none other than Norman. HI NORMAN! Not only is he still alive, he’s got some friends. Looking back at the beginning of the episode, he’d already  spotted Emma & Co. Months after losing their blessed shelter and on the cusp of losing hope for survival, the universe has graced Emma and the kids with a blessed break.

See Also: Irina’s review of episode 17, via Crow

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 06 – Trial by Fire Lily

After a decidedly slice-of-life episode last week, Assault Lily delivers an almost entirely action-packed outing at its halfway point. The new Hitotsuyanagi Squad (notably named for Riri, not Yuyu) was going to simply sit back and observe as Alfheim takes care of an approaching Huge.

But this isn’t any old Huge: it’s a battle-hardened Restore that’s able to withstand their Neunwelt Tactic finishing move. With Alfheim’s Magie spent and their CHARMs damaged or destroyed, Riri & Co are thrust into a real battle far earlier than expected.

For her part, Riri doesn’t shrink before the task at hand, rushing to pick up the ball Alfheim dropped. Yuyu joins her, but is soon paralyzed by the discovery that the captured CHARM at the core of the huge is her old CHARM Dainsleif…the weapon with which she stabbed her old senpai Misuzu.

Yuyu’s PTSD kicks in and her Rare Skill Lunatic Tracer is activated, and her chaotic, indiscriminate slashing makes it impossible for the others to join the battle. Riri jumps in to try to calm Yuyu, blocking her attacks and trying to reassure her that she’s not alone and needn’t despair.

It’s Misuzu who told Yuyu that Lilies are essentially Huge who have retained their hearts and thus aren’t controlled by the Magie they wield. But if there’s a Lily closer to an out-of-control Huge than any other, it would be Yuyu while under the influence of Lunatic Tracer.

Yuyu snaps out of Lunatic Tracer, but she’s still an emotional mess. As the other team members rush in to harass the huge and pull Dainsleif out of it, Riri tries to pick up the pieces with Yuyu. Yuyu starts to tremble and weep, calling her Rare Skill nothing but a horrific curse that makes her hate and attack everyone and everything.

She doesn’t even want Riri to look at her, she’s so worthless and volatile … but Riri isn’t interested in Yuyu’s self-pity party. She doesn’t care how many times she has to pull Yuyu out of her berserk rage or how much she’ll be cut in the process, she’ll never stop doing it. Yuyu can take that to the bank. Yuyu sports some wonderfully subtle facial expressions and her seiyu Natsuyoshi Yuuko really nails her anguished state.

With Yuyu sufficiently calmed (perhaps thanks to Riri unknowingly using her “Charisma” Rare Skill) and the CHARM removed, the squad regroups and Thi Mai produces the Neunvelt bullet, which she has Fumi fire first, producing an orb of Magie that changes color and grows in power as it is progressively passed from one CHARM to the other. Nine Lilies, Nine Worlds.

It’s a beautifully choreographed sequence that almost feels like a game of aerial lacrosse. Riri and Yuyu catch the final pass of the orb together and thrust it into the heart of the Huge, obliterating it once and for all, and the nine Lilies of Hitotsuyanagi Squad spread themselves out on the soft sunlit grass, reveling in their first victory.

It’s a huge win (no pun intended) as it shows that despite its members’ individual eccentricity, they had both the talent and the leadership to get the job done, while bailing out an established squad that didn’t have their best day. As Alfheim’s Lilies have their CHARMs repaired by Moyu, she doubts it was only Dainsleif that contributed to this latest Huge’s power. This was a great win, but it might end up looking like an easy one if the Huge have other tricks up their sleeves.

Gleipnir – 07 – Fell Deeds Awake

Claire’s pact with Sayaka, the leader of the Weak complete, so Sayaka tells her how she knows Elena. When she transferred to a new school after her lover committed suicide, Sayaka withdrew into herself, but Elena was always friendly, kind, and determined to draw her out. Sayaka sees Elena has having had a positive change in her wretched life, so she can’t simply can’t fathom the murderous demon-woman Claire describes.

Thanks to Ikeuchi’s voyeuristic recording abilities, Claire learns of Shuuichi’s whereabouts, but if she reacts to Chihiro climbing into Shuuichi, she sure doesn’t show it outwardly. Since Chihiro is involved, and Claire is now one of them, Sayaka sees their retrieval as a matter for the whole group, and has the best fighter of them, a fresh-faced 19-year-old named Murakami Yota, to join Clair in the search.

When Shuuichi and Chihiro pick up the scent of her wallet in the hands of Elena’s overpowered allies, Shuuichi decides he’ll make up for letting Hikawa die by facing the threat head-on rather than thinking only of saving himself. It’s a classic case of not knowing when to run. Shuuichi’s fear didn’t kill anyone; it kept him alive. What good can he do to anyone dead?

When Subaru, a blonde kid who can summon a two-headed beast he addresses as “mom and dad”, sneaks up on Shuuichi, the ensuing battle isn’t really a battle, but someone smashing a mere bug between their hands. It’s a sickening scene that took things to the Worst Case Scenario so quickly my head was spinning. It looked for all the world like Yoshioka Chihiro was history, being horribly smashed within Shuuichi’s body.

But it’s not the end for either of them. Instead, their bloody remains merge into a single berserk avenging form. Shuuichi is the raging id, lashing at Subaru’s “parents” and actually making a fight of it; Chihiro is the superego assessing things from a distance and attempting to reel her counterpart’s surging anger. It’s phenomenon we haven’t seen yet, but it has the effect of helping us understand more the bond between Shuuichi and Elena prior to his transformation.

As it turns out, the two were friends, and possibly more. Elena was apparently the one who first found the crashed alien ship, while Shuuichi was the first one to drink the energy shot that transformed him. This means Shuuichi’s memories of Elena are either lost forever or suppressed, and it took a third party in Chihiro to excavate them from his unconscious.

The fight with Subaru ends in a stalemate when Elena arrives to stop the fighting. She insists Subaru save the full extent of his abilities for when they’re needed. Threats from Subaru ring hollow, as Elena is certain that she won’t be allowed to die until this is all over.

The merged being eventually reverts back to an unconscious Shuuichi in Mascot Mode, and a fully-healed Chihiro sleeping inside of him. This is how Claire and Yota find them. Will Chihiro remember what she saw, and more importantly, will she be able to tell anyone? Will Claire be angry with Shuuichi for letting someone else “in”, or just be happy he’s alright? Things just keep getting more interesting…

Fruits Basket – 15 – Lakeside Detour

In a show that is very upfront of being just the first of several seasons—and a 25-episode first season at that—it’s going to move at its own leisurely pace, and there’s going to be the odd episode that feels more like filler than others. This week was one of those times, and it felt like a few disparate story lines were combined to fill the run time, none of which were resolved or even advanced all that much; only inched forward a bit.

Ever since seeing her hat and remembering when he last saw it, Yuki has been quiet and awkward around Tooru. Similarly, Kyou has been quiet and awkward ever since he seemingly kissed her as she napped. Tooru is very weirded out by their lack of arguing and naturally assumes she said or did something to offend them. Before they can assure her, she trips and falls down a hill.

Meanwhile, Hatori, who drove everyone to the cabin, passes the time reading Shigure’s books. Shigure claims he’s just teasing his editor by going AWOL for a couple of days, but Hatori sees a possible other reason: his former fiancee Kana is getting married, and perhaps Shigure just wanted to get his friend away from…all that.

Tooru’s tumble results in Yuki and Kyou transforming into rat and cat for the first time in a while, and it’s apparently enough of a shock to forget why they were so silent and awkward and start arguing again, which makes Tooru laugh with relief and joy. But they still don’t tell her what was bothering them, and because she’s so easily distracted (or relieved), she doesn’t press the matter.

That brings us to the most problematic part of the episode from where I’m standing: Ayame coming out of freakin’ nowhere. Ayame is just way to zany and hyper for the scenes he’s in, which feel like they go on forever: he says something that angers Yuki and Kyou, they react with hostility, rinse repeat. It just isn’t that interesting.

We later learn that Ayame came to give Hatori Kana’s wedding picture, courtesy of her friend Mayuko (whom Shigure dated for a hot minute but they broke up). Even if Hatori has decided there can be no going back to Kana, as his BFF Ayame isn’t satisfied. Shigure hopes Hatori finds happiness with someone else some day; he’s still very young after all.

Hatori just wants to make sure the likes of Yuki and Kyou don’t end up making the mistakes he did—by which I presume he means letting Akito control every aspect of his life, torch his relationship with his soul mate, and blind him in one eye.