Shin no Nakama – 07 – Wasted Wings

They say bad news comes in threes: First a bloodied Al is brought to Red and Rit’s; fortunately, he’s fine. Then he says his parents were attacked by Ademi, the bully and son of the captain of the guard. They turn out not to have suffered life-threatening injuries. While his folks recuperate, Al stays with Red and Rit, who get a taste of what it might be like to have a son—a son with the Weapon Master Blessing.

But then the third Bad Thing happens: Gonz and Nao come by saying Tanta was arrested. This starts a big and frankly pretty boring sequence where Red and Rit first go to the Adventurer’s Guild to request a join query with the Townsguard. Turns out their captain, Ademi’s dad Moen, didn’t intend to treat Tanta badly. It’s just that his men suspect Ademi was killed by a resident of Southmarsh.

In exchange for helping them out, the Adventurer’s Guildmaster asks a favor of Rit: track down a drug dealer. She lets her guard down and he blows up in a spray of sticky substance that prevents her from drawing her dual blades. Fortunately, she’s bailed out by Red’s former party-mate Danan, who admits he was originally going to drag Gideon back into the party, but is reluctant now that he sees Red living a happy life.

That said, Danan sees that there’s a lot of strange and upsetting things transpiring in the once-sleepy town where Red intended to settle down Also…Danan might be evil now? Or at least being controlled by that guy he met last week. When Rit comes home, all she wants is to nibble on a sandwich and then relax in Red’s lap. She sees the writing on the wall: they may not be able to enjoy their quiet life much longer.

Did I mention there are some complex dynamics going on with protests in Zoltan and Southmarsh, possibly egged on by the Thieves Guild, keeping those towns’ guards from properly investigating the attacks? Yeah…while the moments between Red and Rit were lovely as usual, there was precious little of it, and there was simply too much else going on.

By the time we checked in with Ruti, Tisse, Ares, and Theodora, I felt a bit exhausted…not what you want from your fantasy slice-of-life show! The party defeats a behemoth and then commandeer a damn airship, and Ruti laments that such a craft is wasted on someone who can’t go where she actually wants—her brothers side.

Unfortunately, the scene is undercut by the fact the show has nowhere near the budget needed to model and animate a halfway-decent airship. Instead, it dredged up memories of the similarly goofy pirate spaceship in Rogue Galaxy—a PS2 game released back in 2005.

Shin no Nakama – 02 – Party of Two

As expected from the spoilery ED, Red doesn’t remain alone in his shop for long, as he’s joined this week by Rizlet of Loggervia, AKA Rit, whom we learn is both a B-rank adventurer and a princess. She took it upon herself to leave her kingdom, lest those who favor her over the crown prince instigate a power struggle.

She’s very happy to have run into Red, an old “comrade” from back when his party crossed paths with her in a pub. A huge chunk of this episode consists of flashbacks to those times, which on the one hand gives the episode a static quality, but on the other, at least shows us who these two people are, through who they once were.

Rit was all gung-ho about fighting on the front lines for her people until she was hoodwinked by a general in the Demon Lord’s Army, who killed her sword shishou and assumed his form. Red (then Gideon) swooped in like a trusty knight to save her, but a lot of people she cared about died, for what she believed to be her mistake.

Rit holes up in her lavish royal bedroom, but Gideon sits beside her and tells her that while he knows she’s afraid of losing more people, he also knows she still wants to fight, and gives her an opportunity to do so. They end up handing the Demon Lord’s Army a satisfying defeat…off-camera. If there’s one thing this somewhat action-packed episode of Shin no Nakama taught me, it’s that it has no business trying to do action—you can actually hear the animation budget creaking and straining.

Fortunately it doesn’t have to lean on that as a strength. Instead, your enjoyment of this episode will depend on how much you buy into Red and Rit’s once-and-future relationship. The two try their damndest not to get too lovey-dovey, but at the end of the day Rit is asking not just to work at Red’s shop but also move in with him, and Red isn’t really putting up much resistance after an initial moment of shock. I enjoyed their chemistry, and the balance of their attraction.

So this episode took a step away from its borderline iyashikei premiere, but in the service of showing us how Red used to be in the party and how Rit used to be before their sudden reunion. I look forward to watching them working and living together. As for the party, the apathetic behavior of two of its members suggets Ares’ move to banish Red was a wholly unilateral one that doesn’t sit well with them.