Rating: B-
Though Atou is a Hero in this setting, and was mentioned in episode 3 to be capable of defending the forest on her own for now, she was also described in episode 1 as not being particularly strong to start; a true warrior-type Hero was portrayed as being a 5 strength compared to her 3, with her main advantages implied to be in realms other than combat. However, despite the claim that Heroes can take on armies, we haven’t had a clear sense of how strong a Hero is compared to, say, a trained humans or even a Paladin. With the end of episode 4, we finally have our answer: even a comparatively weak Hero in this setting is, indeed, still capable of slaughtering an entire company of trained mercenaries and putting even Paladins back on their heels.
That more of Atou’s conflict with the Paladins and mercenaries wasn’t animated is disappointing, but that was probably too much to expect from a series which clearly doesn’t have a stacked animation capability. The scene of Lornius waking up on his back and rising to see the carnage still effectively conveys how devastatingly strong Atou is. Referring to her as a Witch suggests that the rumored Witch in the northern lands may also be a Hero type for a different civilization. Certainly the Seven Great Savior Saints mentioned in episode 3 are at least on the same level as well (or at least Saolina is), so they’re probably Heroes as well. That High Paladin Wedrel seems almost panicked before Atou’s true nature suggests that he isn’t on that level and seems to know it, so will he and Lornius back off next episode, or are they going to be the series’ first two named casualties? I’m actually not sure at this point which was the series is going to go on this.
What this episode also clearly reinforces is that the series is not going to remain insular to Mynoghra. I’ve heard that the novels tend to spread the viewpoint around a lot, and we certainly see that here, with nearly half of the episode focusing on the forces sent from Qualia. Combined with episode 3, we’ve now seen a handful of key personalities from that nation, and arguably Werdel and Lornius get more personality development than Ira does. It seems like the writing recognizes both that Ira is not a strong enough personality to carry the series and that the story will be more dynamic if approached from opposing viewpoints. There’s definitely precedents for this in these “building” shows, as both Farming Life in Another World and Overlord leaned heavily on outside viewpoints as they progressed, so this isn’t really a problem. Besides, the series has already established that seeing others react to Ira and Atou is one of its key components.
Getting back to the Hero thing, a giant mantis-like creature is featured prominently in the OP, so that’s probably the Isla, Queen of Bugs that Ira and Atou are talking about summoning. Given what happens at the end of the episode, seems like she will probably make her appearance sooner rather than later. Ira and Atou’s comments about the other Hero options having “horrible personalities” is intriguing, so hopefully we’ll see one or more of them pop up eventually within this season.
We cannot forget the game aspects here, either. I like the visual theme of using old-fashioned game icons to illustrate various troop movements, even when the Qualia personnel are talking about them. Using SD figures or other constructs to represent troop movements is hardly an unusual feature in anime series (Lord Marksman and Vanadis in particular used them heavily), and this also maintains a consistent theme with the old-school game screens used for major developments, like successfully generating units through regular production. And speaking of the latter, even the more complex 4X games tend to greatly simplify what it means to “produce” a unit, so playing up a bog-standard aspect of these games as a miraculous feat is a clever way to handle it.
One negative consequence of the approach that the writing is taking so far is that the story’s overall development is on the slow side, but that’s not really a problem. 4X games always take a while to build up to anything substantial anyway, and the series is offering enough neat little details and fun Atou/Ira exchanges to stay involving enough. Besides, now that Mynoghra has officially started interacting with other civilizations, more complications should be forthcoming.
USA Anime 