Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – 11 (S1 Fin) – Sharing the Load

Roxy comes upon a bulletin board outside of Roa (at least I think it’s Roa) and is relieved to find Rudy and his family’s names missing from the lists of the dead. She also finds a letter from Paul to Rudy, saying he’s not worried about him making it home, while asking anyone who knows his family or the members of their old adventurer group to help him find Zenith, Lilia, and Aisha (Norn is with him).

The Fangs of the Black Wolf to write back to him care of the adventurer’s guild in Millis. Roxy happens to encounter two former Fangs—a she-elf and a dwarf—forming party of three in search of Zenith, Lilia, and Aisha. Meanwhile, Rudy’s party of three are taking jobs and starting to make money, thanks to their arrangements, thanks to the cooperation of the two remaining pet kidnappers, Jalil and Vizquel.

Their first high-ranked job is to investigate a monster in the Petrified Forest—a suitably dark and spooky venue—but they find the job has been triple booked, both by Kurt and his two young comrades and a third group led by an older orc. The three groups go their own ways, but Kurt & Co. immediately run into trouble.

Rudy sees an opportunity to improve Ruijerd’s rep by rescuing them, but wants to wait for the right moment. While delaying Ruijerd from charging in to save them, one of Kurt’s buddies is brutally killed; his body flying gracefully through the air before hitting he ground with a horrific splat. Ruijerd and Eris don’t wait for Rudy’s signal, and deal with the two monsters themselves.

Rudy explains he thought it would “work out better” for them if they waited, but Ruijerd is furious. Instead of Eris, it’s Kurt who grabs Ruijerd’s arm, insisting that neither he nor his dead buddy are “kids”; they’re adventurers who knew this job could mean their deaths. As the leader of his party, it’s his fault.

When Ruijerd sees Kurt take responsibility and weep for his fallen friend, his hand hovers over the kid’s head before resting on firmly on his shoulder, demonstrating that Ruijerd acknowledges Kurt as a full-fledged warrior, and apologizes for treating him like a child.

The monsters Ruijerd and Eris weren’t the monster the job mentioned. That turns out to be the forest boss, a redhood cobra, who has already killed all of the orc’s party but himself. Ruijerd manages to slash along one side of its body, but when Eris’ blade bounces off its thick skin, she’s blasted backwards. Fortunately she’s able to use her own sword to cushion the impact, and recovers quickly.

Rudy launches magical attacks that lure the cobra to him, and Ruijerd stops it in its tracks before it can swallow the boy. Eris then tries again with her sword, launching a devastating attack from above that called to mind Haruko smashing away with her Rickenbacker bass in FLCL. She manages to slice clean through the cobra’s body, allowing Rudy to blast a hole through its hood, finishing it off.

Unfortunately, they’re too late to save the orc adventurer’s life, and when they return to town to claim the reward, Bojack Horseman is there to tell them he knows they switched jobs with Jalil and Vizquel, and unless they pay him half of all their earnings monthly, he’ll make sure their licenses are revoked. After lowering his head in frustration, he raises it, as if to ask the heavens themselves why everything he’s done since coming to the city has gone so wrong.

Eris can tell he’s troubled and takes his hand in concern, and he tries to reassure her with a fake smile. She reminds him of his solemn duty: to get her home to her family. He’ll bring down the whole goddamn city if he has to. His staff begins to glow through its cover, and storm clouds begin to gather…then Ruijerd dumps a jug of water on his head, revealing his green hair, and he then threatens a thoroughly terrified Bojack to back off before fleeing the city on his own.

Rudy and Eris leave the city to search for Ruijerd, and eventually find him. To Rudy’s surprise and shame, Ruijerd apologizes to him, when he thinks it’s he who should be apologizing. He was so focused on making money as efficiently as possible and improving his reputation that it became too much to juggle and got away from him.

But Ruijerd doesn’t hold it against him. He sensed Rudy’s resolve to kill Bojack, and could tell Rudy was trying to protect something—someone, in Eris—which makes him a warrior, not a child. To Ruijerd, warriors protect children and treasure their comrades. Helping Rudy out back there was more important than his tribe’s reputation.

The two shake hands, which of course leads Eris to add her hand to the pile so as not to be left out. The next morning, Ruijerd shaves his head so it will be easier to move around, and the three wear matching head/armbands to denote their status as members of Dead End.

Going forward, Rudy stops trying to figure out everything on his own, and trusts both Ruijerd and Eris to help share the load on their mutual quest to reach the Asura Kingdom. As the credits roll, we watch them camp and travel on a ground dragon, watch Ruijerd pull Rudy away from snooping on a bathing Eris, and Eris punching Rudy when he opens a dressing room curtain before she’s dressed (she acquires some super-cool knight’s armor for heavy-duty battles).

Eventually they reach a new port city…which I believe happens to be the same port city at which Roxy and the two Fangs arrive via ship. Whether Rudy & Co. are still in the Demon continent or have reached Millis isn’t clear, but one thing’s for certain: there’s potential for a tearful reunion of master and apprentice, and should that happen, they’ll be an even more formidable party of six.

Unfortunately, as Mushoku Tensei is a split-cour series, we’ll have to wait until July for the continuation of the story, just as it’s getting seriously awesome. Not that it wasn’t before. MT completed a masterful transformation from excellent fantasy isekai slice-of-life in a sleepy rural setting to an excellent grand-scale fantasy adventure romp packed with colorful characters, gorgeous locales, and breathtaking action. The finale could not have done a better job getting me pumped up for season two!

Read Crow’s review of episode 11 here!

One Punch Man – 05

No bad guys to fight this week; just a Hero Association registration exam to complete. Saitama’s peers snicker at him right up until he demolishes all of the records during his fitness testing. Watching Saitama snap from dopey blank look to serious glare is always a delight, and the way he took those tests around the corner and had his way with them made for some hilarious images, particularly the vertical jump. Why whack-a-mole?

Unfortunately, there’s a written test too, and Saitama doesn’t do to well on that. Genos gets a 50/50 in both tests, and assumes from the top of the letter in Saitama’s packet that he’ll be joining him in the rarefied Class-S, but it’s just a lowly Class-C. His subsequent analysis of the letter only gets Saitama madder.

Meanwhile, Genos’ special rookie exception attracts the attentino of a blue-haired fellow hero. Saitama and Genos meet the goofy Class-A hero Snek (not “Snake!”), but Saitama couldn’t care less what the man has to say, preferring to see how big a bubble he can blow with his gum (another riotously funny image).

Now that he’s Class-S, Genos wants to try his hand at Saitama once more, to see how far he has to go to reach his master’s level. In a vast, abandoned empty space, the two go to town, with Genos unleashing his entire arsenal at Saitama without managing to touch a hair on his–I-I mean, touch his head.

Genos insists Saitama stop fooling around and fight him seriously, but Saitama stops an inch short of his face on a “serious” punch, his trademark One Punch, and then suggests they go to lunch. Genos, suddenly a little paler than a moment ago, saw the murderous intent in that punch, and knows what would have happened if it had landed.

It’s a frustrating exchange for Genos, who can’t see a scenario in which he’d ever come close to Saitama’s power. But unlike Saitama himself, he does want to figure out the secret of that power (stubbornly refusing to believe it was just moderately strenuous training). But Genos does end up beating Saitama…in a giant udon bucket eating contest.

Then the blue-haired hero, Amai Mask, finally tracks Genos down and talks to him. Being at the top of Class-A, Genos shot one spot above Amai, and he seems a little miffed by that. Still, it’s only a friendly-ish welcome chat, and Amai is soon off to his penthouse. But the power of his celebrity leaves a lasting impression on the other patrons of the restaurant, and just by being seen with Amai, Genos gets the attention and admiration of everyone, including cute girls.

So both Genos and Saitama were frustrated this week. Genos with the seemingly unclimbable heights to approach his master’s strength; Saitama with being underrated and undervalued by the HA, as well as by Genos deciding to move in with him. Once Saitama gets jobs and completes them quickly and forcefully, I wonder if he’ll actually rise in HA, or continually fall victim to technicalities.

Indeed, after failing to secure a salaryman job, Saitama is now entering employment under a large corporation. Now that being a hero is a job and not just something he does for fun, will he feel even more stifled and unfulfilled, or will he become a celebrity and get fulfillment through the love of his fans? We shall see.

One Punch Man – 04

This action-packed, side-splitting OPM comments on the severe wealth gap, the rise of individuals with no motivation to work, the concept of what I’ll call “power relativity”, and the necessity of jumping through bureaucratic hoops in order to receive due recognition for one’s heroic efforts. Also, a bunch of people get beheaded and someone gets punched in the Gentleman’s Vegetables.

Saitama catchphrase is “I’m just a guy who’s a hero for fun.” For fun, not for fame. So why is Saitama so hurt that no one knows who he is? Well, for one thing, when an army of stolen battle suit-wearing baldies start tearing down buildings (the first one by accident) and the news warns the public to look out for bald people, then it becomes a problem!

That army calls themselves the Paradisers, they’re led by a giant fellow Hammerhead, and they all share a kind of lazy Robin-Hood philosophy of taking from the rich and giving to, well, not just the poor; the poor who don’t feel like working.

Their chief target is the richest man in town, Zeniru, who resides in a skyscraper topped with a golden turd. Unfortunately for the Paradisers, Zeniru has a cocky, smirking ninja named Sonic under his employ.

Battle suits or no, the Paradisers are lower on the food chain than Sonic, who has no trouble lopping the heads off of all of Hammerhead’s comrades, before dodging all of Hammy’s rock and tree-based attacks and throwing a kunai in the back of his head. While

Sonic calls his boss to report his success, Hammy disappears; turns out he has a really really thick skull. And that darned kunai stays lodged in the back that skull for the rest of the episode!

This is not Hammerhead’s day, because he almost immediately comes afoul of Saitama, who is rather pissed off that his “look” has been stolen. Hammy powers up his suit and starts throwing dual paddlewheel attacks, but obviously nothing works against the OPM.

Here’s the thing: Hammy reminds Saitama enough about his past self that he goes easy on him, which means destroying his battle suit with a glancing blow and letting him escape without clothes or his pride, but with his life.

Then Saitama encounters Sonic, who is stronger than Hammerhead, and believes himself the fastest, strongest sonofabitch around who has trained in ninjutsu his entire life…he’s just not as fast or strong as OPM.

Saitama doesn’t really have to exert any effort to neutralize Sonic, and he only neutralizes him accidentally, when Sonic’s junk comes down on his fist (the slow motion shot is priceless). Frankly, Sonic got off easy, as Saitama didn’t put anything into that fist. Yet he considers this encounter a motivator to train harder so that next time they meet, he’ll beat him.

That brings us to Saitama having tea at his place with a recently-repaired Genos, where Saitama expresses his frustration that even after three years of saving various cities from evil villains, no one in either the hero community or the general public know who he is. He doesn’t have a fan club of well-dressed blushing maidens, either.

So Genos brings up Hero Registration, something Saitama didn’t know was a thing, but which he sees as his ticket to recognition. Going online, filling out forms, and showing up to morning exams: it’s the life of a professional, officially recognized hero. Doesn’t sound very fun though, does it?