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

Tenten Kakumei – 08 – Brother’s Keeper

Laine’s life has been one ordeal after another. First she was born a commoner, hardly the most desirable station in this world. When her parents died, she was sent to an orphanage, where her unconscious power caused her to attract the adoration of some and bitter resentment of others.

Then Baron Cyan adopted her, and before she knew it she was the Crown Prince’s handpicked bride. It’s that latter part she thinks back on while looking into her tea. She saw a poor girl fall in the street and thought There but by the grace of God go I. She also remembers admiring Algard.

She admired him because he vowed that when he became king he’d demolish the walls between nobility and commoners. But now, like Euphie before her, Lainie is feeling lost and useless, and Ilia is there to give her small comforts like tea and kind words of support.

But suddenly, that pleasant moment is interrupted by one of Anis’ alarms and the lights going dark. Ilia tells Lainie that the villa has an intruder, and quickly whisks her away to the safety of the castle. I already admired the hell out of Ilia for many reasons, but add to those the fact she doubles as a bodyguard!

And she’d be an effective bodyguard against most anyone…except royalty like Prince Algard, who brutally impales her with a spear of light and then snags Lainie up like a fish on a pole. He tells Lainie he won’t apologize, nor will he seek forgiveness, before impaling her through the chest as well.

We know what he’s after: her vampire magicite. It is probably what he’s been after all this time, but Anisphila once again ruined his and Lord Chartreuse’s plans by harboring Lainie. At this point he believes he knows what must be done, but also knows he can’t do it without stealing someone else’s power.

The post-lecture gathering goes on seemingly forever, with Anis totally checked out. Then Moritz approaches her and is extremely pushy in his apologies for what went down with Euphie. Then the alarm goes off and he physically restrains her, and his friendly mask drops.

Moritz is Chartreuse’s son and Al’s buddy, and his job is to keep Anis and Euphie here while Al gets the magicite. The plan almost worked too, because Anis and Euphie took a summons that amounted to an elaborate diversion as a sincere attempt to sway some of the magical ministers.

When Moritz starts raving about Princess Anisphilia suddenly going mad, Anis says eff it and unleashes her dragon power to force him to let go of her. When a magical attack is thrown her way, Euphie is immediately there to reflect it.

Just when it looks like the two are in for a protracted fight against the guards who are swayed by Moritz’s ranting and Anis’ odd behavior, Tilty steps in and immobilizes everyone but Anis and Euphie, allowing them to fly off without delay (this time with Euphie carrying Anis). Great teamwork all around!

They arrive at the villa courtyard where Ilia and Lainie lie bleeding out. Anis assures them both they’ll be fine. Euphie starts using healing magic but isn’t sure she can save Lainie, but Anis tells her to do her best and hopefully Lainie’s vampiric body will heal itself.

That said, with the magicite now in Algard’s possession, all bets are off. While Anis had a dragon tattooed on her back, Al goes the Final Fantasy Big Bad route and just shoves the magicite straight into his chest. After a little wrenching in pain, his eyes turn red, and he looks much more like an opponent to be worried about.

More distressing than what Algard has done is why he’s done it. At the end of the day, both he and Anis have the same basic vision for the kingdom: one where everyone will be on equal ground. Except in his case that will be achieved through the wielding of the absolute power the vampire magicite provides.

A life of waiting has thoroughly curdled Al’s personality, to the point where he’s not even going to try a peaceful or bloodless path to reconciling nobility and commoners; he’s just going to kill and subjugate who he needs to until he’s satisfied a new kingdom has been born.

It goes without saying Al doesn’t believe magic should be used to make people happy. He sees his magical ability and his position as heir apparent to the throne to be nothing but curses, so of course he has no problem exacting suffering on others.

On the surface Al’s your typical deranged villain who is probably going to end up destroying himself before being beaten by our heroes. But there’s a lot more dimension to him. I still find him a pitable man (probably the last thing he’d want to hear). For someone who says they’re abandoning emotion (like his genuine affection for Lainie), he seems awfully angry!

What I can’t say is exactly how much Anisphia contributed to the creation of the present villainous monster that is Vampire Bro Prince. Al truly hates her for having so carelessly cast aside her birthright, and it could be she spent so many years buried in her magicology she neither spent enough time nor kept a close enough eye on her increasingly troubled little brother.

Now, desperate for power, Al took a shortcut and stole it from Lainie. Can we really say Anis is any better for having killed an ancient and noble dragon and taken its power? I don’t know, but at least Anis wants to make the world a better place for humans the right way, with cooperation, understanding, and rad inventions.

But at the end of the day, if Algard insists that the one with the most power wins, then she’ll indulge him by using her power—which she is confident far outstrips his shoddily stolen vampirism—to stop him. It should be one hell of a battle.

Attack on Titan – 41 – Nobody Knows a Damn Thing

This week begins with Marlo and Hitch, a pair of military police on patrol in the woods, just shooting the shit with a little mild flirting mixed in. They’re not evil or anything, just ordinary people…just two more bricks in the wall. They find Armin by a stream, and when they try to arrest him, they’re ambushed by Levi and Mikasa.

They don’t expect any valuable intel from these two grunts…they’re merely one step in a whole sequence of steps that might lead them to Eren and Tori’s whereabouts. Meanwhile, Hange rescues the Reeves scion, Flegel, and challenges him to do more than spend the rest of his days scampering around like a rat.

Levi first chooses Sasha to tie up and guard the prisoners, but Jean volunteers to do it, and takes Marlo and Hitch to a secluded spot where he threatens to kill them. He then stumbles—on purpose?—and gives the captives an opportunity to kill him.

When they don’t—both lost people in Schoess District, but Marlo seems sincere about wanting to side with the Scouts—it would seem they both passed Jean’s “test.” Two more soldiers for the revolution, perhaps.

Flegel is cornered by military police once again, but all by design. As gratitude for letting them find him, they agree to tell Flegel why his father was killed: he betrayed the police, who threatened him with death if he didn’t agree to kidnap the scouts.

It’s a very inflammatory monologue—perhaps too conveniently so, considering Flegel is not the only one listening. The supposedly “deserted” area where he let himself get cornered happened to be the perfect spot for Hange and her men to turn the tables.

Even better, dozens of the public overheard the police’s schemes, including two journalists. After seeing Flegel face up to his enemies even at the risk of his life, will they or other citizens feel motivated to question the “truth” the military police dispenses? We shall see; that’s certainly what the Scouts want and need: public support to sway back in their favor.

After ambushing a checkpoint, Levi tries to beat intel out of its commander, but when he finally pretty much breaks him, the guy has little of value to say because he wasn’t trusted with the location of Eren and Tori. Kenny—whose last name is Ackerman, we learn—is too cautious for that.

Finally, in the royal capital, a beaten, tortured, starved, one-legged Erwin Smith still manages to maintain both his sanity and dignity, casually asking one of his tormentors about his family. Erwin is brought before the king for sentencing.

Erwin is to be the first of the Scouts to be officially tried, found guilty, and executed, and the Military Police won’t stop until they’re all gone…all to maintain the kingdom’s secrets.

Aldnoah.Zero – 16

Oho…A/Z straight up brought it this week. Not to be outdone by Durarara!!’s best episode to date, it fielded its best as well. I held back a 10 last week purely due to the pure dumb (non-Kuma) shock from the suddenness of what had unfolded. This episode had no such shortcomings, and not only had time for a decent amount of well-paced, efficient action, but also time and room to paint some nice character strokes.

That started with Inaho’s sister and guardian Yuki, whom we’d only seen in flashback form when she accidentally discovered Inaho could activate Aldnoah cores. That turned out to be a curse for a big sister, or any parent figure, for that matter, as his new ability meant things were only going to get harder for him as the earth leans more and more heavily upon him. She feels that again when he wakes up in the hospital.

Like us, Yuki thinks it’s all just too much for one young lad to bear, to say nothing of the strategic vulnerabilities of staking all your hopes to one prized thoroughbred. But her mothering ended up getting her separated from Inaho and reassigned to the Gulf of Aden, along with Marito. When news comes that the Deucalion is coming to port, the tee-totaling Marito declines Calvados, but Yuki drowns her tea in it. Being Inaho’s family is a stressful thing.

Speaking of bearing burdens, Count Slaine is enjoying a brief honeymoon free of criticism from other counts who find it distasteful to gang up on him while Vers is still mourning the loss of Saazbaum, who despite his later decisions remains well-regarded in the empire. Slaine doesn’t just inherit his lands, titles, and equipment, but guardianship of Princess Asseylum, as well as the care of Princess Lemrina.

Lemrina tells Slaine she was the product of an affair by her father on the Moon, which is now in tatters. The only one who came to her aid was Saazbaum, and while she will never know his true intentions, she cannot deny that he owes her, as well as whomever succeeds him. She’s no Lady MacBeth—yet—but Lemrina and Slaine have the makings of an epic power couple. And at this point, Lemrina would really prefer if her sister never wakes up.

Things seem calm and leisurely on the UE side as the Deucalion prepares to return to the surface, but Slaine wastes no time making his next move. He knows it’s only a matter of time before other counts start to move against him (we see two of those dandy counts indeed planning to accuse him of killing Saazbaum), but he also knows simply destroying them will accomplish nothing.

Instead, he will wrap himself in the very glory and honor of Vers: “The key is to show yourself to be so superior that they will not defy you in the first place.” This is Slaine at the top of his game, focused and merciless, and prepared to use any and all of the considerable resources he has come into to reach his goals.

The same sentiment about demonstrating overwhelming superiority in order to crush your foes’ spirits is what fuels Count Mazuurek, who is one of the counts who wants to avoid unnecessary destruction and death so as many as the earth’s resources are preserved. He has been convinced/nudged into attacking Aden by his fellow counts Marylcian and Barouhcruz, and his victory is meant as the foundation for a coalition they mean to build against Slaine.

They fail miserably, because as awesome as Mazuurek’s Gravity-Tornado Kataphrakt is, he’s only focused on the forces in front of him, not the battleship directly above him in low earth orbit, where Inaho disables him with one shot.

Marito is able to distract him the proper amount of time because he’s able to overcome the traumatic flashbacks. Where they used to cause him to freeze up and become useless in battle, now they seem to fire him up. Souma believes that’s worth some celebratory hooch.

But because Inaho and the Deucalion helped Marito and Yuki out, Trident Base was left unprotected. This wasn’t necessarily a foolish choice under the circumstances, as it was believed an attack would be highly unlikely so soon after the last battle, especially with the huge debris field to contend with.

But the UE brass probably weren’t thinking that someone like Slaine would pilot the Tharsis through the debris and blow up transport shuttles packed with the brim with munitions as they were in the process of docking. By the time the Deucalion hears of the attack, the base has been obliterated.

Slaine returns to base triumphant, and one by one, everyone, aristocrat and mechanic alike, salute him, for doing what he set out to do, and doing it brilliantly. Not only did he deal a serious blow to the enemy and make them feel weak and helpless than ever, but he headed off any potential moves against him by his cowardly fellow counts. The mangy cur has become a wolf, and they can no longer touch him and come away unscathed.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Slaine’s troubles are over—far from it—but he’s in a far stronger position now than he was at the beginning of the episode, and he knows it. Bravo, Slaine. You are doing all the heavy lifting and power consolidation, while Inaho is content with small operations.

…Or is he? Frankly, I think that Inaho would prefer not to do any of the shit he’s had to do. He does it because he’s the only one who can, and because he can’t close his eyes and will the war away. He, his friends, and his planet’s existence is at stake, so as always, he will try to use what he has to make a difference, and step up his game when necessary. And Inaho doesn’t complain or hesitate, even for a second.

He discovers pretty quickly that his nemesis is responsible for Trident’s fall, which he admits has forced his hand. I’m glad the gloves are coming off, but has Slaine progressed too far for Inaho to ever hope to catch up?

I’m gonna say no. And that can only mean good things for this show moving forward.

Stray Observations:

• I have to mention Sawao Hiroyuki’s musical contributions to this show, which hit new heights of awe and cinematic grandeur this week, particularly in the scene between Slaine and Lemrina, and his triumphant return to base.
• Yuki’s reunion with Inko, Rayet, Nina and Calm is a sweet little scene I’m glad was included.
• Along with the drinking scenes, that reunion was proof that even in an episode and a show packed with Huge Events, it doesn’t forget about the little moments.
• The episode’s title is “Soldier’s Pay,” with significant scenes of Yuki and Marito. Marito’s “pay” are his dark memories he must make work for him; Yuki’s “pay” is her beloved little brother she’d tried so hard to protect. But consider what they’re both buying: Not just survival or pride, but freedom and victory over Vers. If Inaho pans out.