Much of the story territory covered by this episode was also dealt with in the last regular episode of the live-action TV version, but I infinitely prefer this version of how Kana’s potential scandal is handled. That’s because this version both provides a lot more context and portrays Kana in a way much more in line with her established character.
To be fair, the scandal hasn’t entirely played out yet; by the end of the episode, Kana’s only been approached by a reporter and made aware that she was photographed leaving Shima’s office and Strawberry Productions has also become aware of the situation, so we’re only seeing initial reactions and not the actual release of anything accusatory; so far, the potential accusations are only in Kana’s head. And her immediate reaction is the kind of one which would be expected from an 18-year-old, even a notably industry-savvy one. The most interesting part of this is that Kana’s quickest thought is about how this would negatively affect B Komachi, not herself, but this isn’t a surprise or at all inconsistent; we’ve always seen her in the headspace of worrying about how her own perceived failures affect others.
Conspicuously, Miyako doesn’t panic; she just laments that this is going to be trouble. This could be her greater experience or because of the point made during Ruby’s earlier ruminations in the dressing room: that scandals in the entertainment industry aren’t necessarily the complete career-killers they once were. This is bolstered by a few real-life cases in recent years of individuals in the anime and manga realms who have managed to continue despite scandals that have even extended to legal issues. Ironically, the same social media flood which has made these scandals so much more difficult to hide is also making it easier for entertainers to survive them, as individual scandals don’t stick out so much anymore with so many of them now out there.
That’s not even factoring into Kana’s thought processes at this point – and the fact that it isn’t makes Kana’s scream late in the episode all the more triumphant. Kana has felt like the deck was stacked against her ever since the waning years of her time as a child star, and that’s made her more resilient than most give her credit for. She hardly immune to feeling inadequate, depressed, or even despair, but her sass isn’t artifice. And frankly, I think she hates the fact that she used memories of Aqua to bail herself out in the incident in Shima’s office and is ashamed that she’s starting to do that again. Her rant after her scream is a powerful declaration of self, and easily my favorite scene of the series so far this season.
While that’s the main feature of the episode, there are other ominous moments at its end. Akane is starting to get closer to a possibly-dangerous truth, and someone mysterious in an alley is tracking someone – maybe her? And is that Hikaru Kamiki? We’ll have to find out more about that and how Strawberry Productions handles the impending scandal next episode.
Episode 3 ended with Stark and Fern set to go out on a date, and the first half of episode 4 deals with how that date plays out. The whole affair is as awkward as might be expected. Stark definitely tries, but he’s still operating more off a pre-set plan than being adaptive to Fern in the moment. That’s not fully what Fern wants, but she can tell that he took the date seriously even if he did propose it in flippant fashion, and that’s enough to satisfy her – for now, anyway. Methinks Stark will have to up his game for the next time around. This is also one of the rare times we’ve seen Fern dressed in anything other than her normal traveling clothes (albeit still in purple!), so seeing her dolled up a bit is a definite treat.
The beginning of episode 4’s second part also casually provides what may be the solution to one of the series’ long-standing mysteries: how the trio can get away with traveling so light. (They’re never shown wearing backpacks, for instance.) While this has never been even hinted at before that I can recall, Frieren’s suitcase is here strongly implied to be a Suitcase of Holding.
The rest of episode 4 and episode 5 then bring us the first tastes about why a First-Class Mage is necessary for an excursion out into the Northern Plateau. Given what the trio encounters, it’s a wonder that anyone can actually live out there still, even with connections to past generations on the land. The Norm Company, introduced in the second half of episode 5, provides a partial solution, but even though it wields power equivalent to a nation, it has its own struggles. Both that encounter and the previous one involving the dwarf obsessed with a legendary liquor bear direct connections to Frieren’s journey with Himmel’s party. In the one case, it involves Frieren taking on a task that her party passed on the first time; in the other case, it involves a debt incurred in the past being used to connive Frieren into finding a new silver vein to help finance the company.
The first of the two episode 5 cases is arguably the more interesting one for two reasons. The first is that it introduces an elf other than Kraft or Serie, one who Frieren apparently knew in the distant past. (The implication here is that she lived in the village that Frieren did, so she may have been slain in the attack that Flamme came across all those centuries ago.) The second is that it addresses a point I’ve long wondered about in my study of history: the possibility that something recorded as history or legend was written facetiously, or even as an outright joke. Per the series’ usual style, It still gets turned into a philosophical point in the end. The second case, which harkens back to a debt incurred during Himmel’s days, is mostly just an excuse to have Frieren truly show off her magic. It’s impressive, though I have to wonder how much of that was just Frieren deliberately making a spectacle out of it to emphasize how irreplaceable her action was.
Overall, both of these episodes are fine but unspectacular for the franchise: enjoyable and with the requisite bits of signature spectacle but not as deep or insightful as much of the rest of the series.
Scarlet is the latest original project from Mamoru Hosoda, the director acclaimed for movies like Summer Wars, Wolf Children, and BELLE. In this case the story is more an original take on one of the classics of English literature: Shakespeare’s Hamlet. This being anime, this naturally wasn’t going to be a straight or close adaptation; given the format available, why do an effort like this without applying a few fantastical spins?
In this case, the base setting (16th century Denmark) and many of the key character names are largely the same as the source material, with the major difference being, of course, that the role of Hamlet is replaced by young princess Scarlet. There are a couple of other key differences: rather than Hamlet/Scarlet learning from her father’s ghost about her uncle’s treachery, she witnesses it first-hand but she’s powerless to do anything about it. That leaves her powerfully driven by revenge as she determinedly trains for the opportunity. Unlike Hamlet, she doesn’t try hide it (or at least doesn’t appear to), which raises the question of why Claudius doesn’t get rid of her, too. This isn’t the last significant logical gap the movie faces, but it’s also largely pushed into irrelevance because the physical world isn’t the main venue for this movie.
No, that would be a barren landscape that isn’t explicitly called Purgatory but might as well be that, one which Scarlet winds up in after being poisoned. There she meets people of many different cultures and times, but also some familiar faces; many of the key characters from Hamlet (though, interestingly, not Queen Gertrude) are also present. The logic behind this is also quite shaky in most cases, even if one accounts for the fact that they wouldn’t have all had to die at the same time to wind up here. You’re also not supposed to think too hard about how Claudius got himself set up as king here, where he got that castle from, or how he came to control access to the setting’s literal Stairway to Heaven stand-in. And hey, let’s not be too concerned about the ultra-massive dragon swimming around in the sea in the sky which generates electrical discharges like a storm. That’s not explained, either.
And that’s at least partly because explaining any of that would distract from the most important person Scarlet meets in that wasteland: a paramedic from modern-day Japan named Hijiri, who’s pretty sure he doesn’t belong here because he doesn’t remember dying. His pure, kind, helping nature presents a stark contrast to Scarlet’s anger and fixation on revenge, which allows him to show her that revenge isn’t necessarily the only way to live. In effect, this is a gender-reversed version of the normal scenario where the woman is the one who soothes the violence and revenge-driven man, and Hijiri was likely made a paramedic specifically to allow a good reason for him to be empathetic. Though he isn’t entirely successful in dissuading Scarlet from revenge, he at least shows her that a life not dominated by it is possible.
Whereas the original Hamlet was a tragedy defined by the destructiveness of revenge, this version ultimately takes the opposite approach by making the story all about Scarlet finding a way to step beyond revenge and despair. Of course, having such a laudable theme doesn’t prevent the movie from liberally sprinkling violent action scenes throughout and finding other excuses for spectacle (see the aforementioned dragon, among others), but those parts are fine, and Scarlet does herself make for a somewhat compelling character as a young woman struggling with revenge. And I have to give the movie some credit for finding a way to fit in Hawaiian dance and song in a credible fashion.
The problem comes with the execution of the story’s structure. The film clocks in at 112 minutes but feels like it was edited down from a significantly longer plan, as there are several places (especially in the late going) where events jump from scene to scene with little plausible progression and some events seem to be there just for spectacle’s sake. The writing also tries too hard to shoehorn in additional Hamlet characters and allusions and never explains why Claudius sees Scarlet as such a threat in Purgatory (or how he’s even aware she’s appeared there). Who or what the old woman who occasionally pops up is supposed to be is also left a mystery, but that’s less of an issue. On the plus side, Hijiri’s efforts to get through to Scarlet are convincing enough to at least partially offset the other narrative problems, a sub-theme about finding a balance between idealism and pragmatism does gel, and the movie does stick firmly to its overall themes about the self-destructiveness of becoming obsessed with revenge.
Despite the writing issues, the movie is worth seeing for its visual component. While there are a few places where the animation is a little stiff, it fluidly handles its fighting action scenes and produces some true visual spectacles, such as an early scene where Scarlet has to struggle to break free of a horde of grasping hands or a late scene involving a volcanic eruption. The movie also looks great in general, with striking character designs and stark depictions of barren landscapes; especially impressive was its willingness to let Scarlet (an unquestionable beauty) get all grimy. There were some slips in artistic quality (one shot at the very end looks rough, and I wasn’t particularly impressed by a couple of sequences in modern-day Japan), and a visual style more reminiscent of limited-animation titles might throw some viewers off, but overall it’s a solid visual presentation. The musical aspect impressed much less, but wasn’t a hindrance.
I went to a showing featuring the English dub and found the vocal performances to generally be quite satisfying, especially Erin Yvette (Tia Noto Yoko in the more recent version of BASTARD!!) as Scarlet; she has one sustained scream scene early on which could put her in the Scream Queen Hall of Fame. She’s fine but less impressive in a couple of places where she’s singing, though the flaws in those cases may be more an issue of working with an awkward translation for the songs. Chris Hackney (Gohan in Dragon Ball Super) also hits exactly the right notes as Hijiri and does well enough in one place where he sings, too. In fact, the only song which isn’t translated into English is the Hawaiian one.
Overall, this isn’t Hosoda’s best work, and I have to agree with it not getting an Academy Awards nomination. However, it’s still plenty worth seeing, especially on a big screen.
After four episodes focusing primarily on Ruby, the series finally remembers that Kana is a core part of the cast rather than just a bit player and gives her some love. Almost too much of it, in fact, and plenty enough to set up the franchise’s next major crisis.
Kana is, understandably, at an emotional low point. Though she’s being successful as part of B Komachi, she’s fully aware that being an idol is more her current role than her nature, and like MEM-cho, she’s now being thoroughly outshone by Ruby despite being the group’s center. She much more desperately wants to be an actor, but her B Komachi and Tokyo Blade successes have not panned out into more acting roles. She also still can’t get over Aqua or the distance he’s keeping from her, and now she think he hates her, too, after misunderstanding what was going on during their encounter in the rain. That’s left her desperate and, thus, vulnerable.
That’s not to say that Kana is entirely unaware of the risky situation she’s putting herself in with this director. She’s been around in the business plenty long enough to have seen and heard things, and so she’s fully aware of all the red flags she’s seeing in this scenario even if she plays it off. Her problem is that she’s her own worst enemy here. The director, while being a bit pushy, isn’t actually forcing anything here. He offered her drinks but didn’t actually try to get her drunk and gives her the option to decline. (Cynically, this could certainly be his way to cover his rear against any potential accusations that he took advantage of her, or it could just be that he’s only partial scum instead of complete scum.) Kana is thus left in the position to decide on the spot how far she’s willing to go to get more acting work. Ironically, it’s ultimately Aqua (or at least the Aqua still firmly lodged in her head) who keeps her from agreeing to something that she almost surely would have regretted later. And, somewhat surprisingly, the director’s actually a decent guy about it. He clearly wanted to get Kana in bed, but he may have also been genuine about wanting to use her as an actor, too.
The problem here is that Kana only defended herself against one part of the pitfall before her. While she did take precautions going into the director’s office (the hat and glasses are hardly a foolproof disguise but should deflect at least casual looks), she didn’t coming out, and that leaves her more vulnerable to a paparazzi who’s just a bit too conveniently waiting for her outside. Frankly, it very much looks like Mako, the actress Kana had gone out to meet, deliberately set her up, too. Why Mako would do this isn’t even hinted at, but she clearly pushed Kana into connecting up with a director with a certain reputation, then deliberately isolated Kana with him. Kana’s cooked, and even (truthfully) asserting that nothing happened isn’t going to be convincing. Perhaps next episode will get into Mako’s motive, but I’m not holding my breath; the series has thrown in things without much explanation before (see the final scene of s2).
That’s not the only big thing going on this episode. At the end of last episode, Akane identified Aqua’s probable father, and now she’s determined to do whatever’s necessary to keep him and Aqua from meeting. Very curious to see how far that goes, especially considering that she didn’t seem to be joking or exaggerating last season when she told Aqua that she’d help him kill someone if that’s what it took. The possibility of B Komachi getting a fourth member has also now arisen, and this episode’s installment of “Behind the Scenes in the Entertainment Industry” involves how agencies for idols handle their idols’ social media accounts. There are also some neat little artistic touches, too, like the bags under Kana’s eyes as she leaves at the end of the episode, and we can see that Ruby hasn’t entirely abandoned her ditzy, immature side on the path to becoming an evil mastermind. But all of that’s just a prelude to the bomb that will assuredly drop next episode.
Oshi no Ko has quite the reputation for the plot twists it throws out, but nothing which happens in this episode really counts. That each of the big events in this episode would eventually happen was fully predictable, and that they would all converge is both logical and fits the series’ presentation style. And the consequences will run deep.
We knew from the end of last episode that Aqua was going to confront Ruby over her recent change in behavior, but Aqua finally being at peace with himself has (for better or worse) caused him to lose his edge. Ruby ran circles around him as she leaned into a manipulative villain kind of role; even his best attempt at rebuttal – the point about how Ruby once hated artifice – swiftly gets shot down. Ruby was someone he used to support and help along, but she’s now well capable of getting ahead without his help. And that’s only the first big blow he takes.
The second is his conversation with Saito. It’s only natural that Aqua would eventually figure out that Ruby was seeing him and go to confront him, and now Saito’s explanation allows his motives to make more sense: he saw Ai as a daughter (which was heavily implied way back during episode 1 of season 1), and so wants revenge every bit as much as Aqua did. He left Miyako because he didn’t want to involve her in his dirty revenge quest (much like Aqua tried his best to leave Ruby out of his), and is helping Ruby now as an apology to Miyako. The difference between him and Aqua is that he wasn’t seeking a way out of the revenge quest, and so didn’t let his desire for freedom from that crusade blind him to the logical inconsistencies that Akane picked up on herself. Aqua may not want to accept that the director’s right, because that means he will again be dragged back into his ghost-fueled revenge fixation, but he’s too smart to deny this.
I do feel somewhat bad for MEM-cho and especially Kana, though. The former realizes that she’s gradually being outstripped and left behind by Ruby, while the latter has been left behind by Aqua – and on top of that, she gets unwittingly slapped by Aqua when she tries to help him during his freak-out moment. Her umbrella pattern is telling on where her heart still lies and Aqua can’t have failed to notice that. Have to wonder how much of his funk during his call with Akane was because of that as because of realizing that he may be forced back into Revenge Mode.
Akane, meanwhile, has her own concerns. While her career is also skyrocketing, she finally gets the final puzzle pieces to figure out who Aqua and Ruby’s real father probably is. That Akane would be the one to do it makes complete sense, but this is also likely very dangerous information and she likely knows that; the resemblance between Hikaru Kamiki and Aqua is great enough that it’s almost inconceivable that no one in the entertainment industry has noticed, which means there’s a continuing cover-up. And as Akana realized herself, why Ai never talked about him is also understandable, since her was too young at the time. But that also must mean that Hikaru was quite the playboy from quite a young age; assuming Taiki’s mother did have an affair with Hikaru, that was some much more serious cradle-robbing than what Ai did. And if the last scene of season 2 is to be believed, he apparently fathered at least one other child back in his teens, too.
There are three points I’m not yet clear about, though. First, if Hikaru is being protected, then why? Second, why did Hikaru seek to eliminate his former paramours but not his first three kids? And three, is he trying to get himself caught with stunts like the white roses, or is that his idea of a sick tease (given that he almost certainly has to know that Aqua is dating Akane)? Curious to see where the series goes on a logical front with all of these, and how everyone’s going to react to all of this next episode.
The production effort also deserves some call-outs here. Did you catch the star emblems blowing in the wind on the fence at the beginning of the episode? The way Ruby is framed in those early shots, especially the way the camera draws back on her at one point, set the ominous mood nicely, and Takeru Iga’s musical effort her absolutely kills it. For all of the entertainment industry minutiae, the series is at its most fun when it leans heavily into the drama, and thanks to the great production support, it certainly does that here.
So even a series as grand and respected as this one ultimately has to break down and have a hot springs episode. But that just means it’s going to be done Frieren-style.
Once again, the episode is divided into two distinct parts, this time connected by a common theme: experiencing the hot springs prevalent in this volcanically-active part of the northern plains. The first part involves searching for a hidden hot spring way up in the mountains after their originally-intended destination turns out to have dried up. Surprisingly, Stark is the one who pushes for the side jaunt this time, based on something that it turns out he heard from Eisen about it when he was a kid. This does give the series opportunity to show its staple scenes of the trio traipsing over treacherous terrain and the episode’s requisite dose of action in a relatively brief battle against a three-headed, four-legged lizard with hydra-like characteristics (i.e., its heads can regenerate, so all three have to be destroyed or lopped off at once). That’s not a particularly difficult challenge for this group – with Stark being chased around front-lining and Frieren and Fern striking from the sky – but that isn’t really the point; how put-upon Stark is by his companions has become as much of a running joke as the small fish he catches (on display this episode) or Frieren’s sloppy sleeping habits (also on display this episode). And for the second time this season he also winds up on the bottom of a pile of the trio later on in this segment.
But the action scene is more just ticking off a few boxes than the point of this segment. The “hidden hot spring” does turn out to be little more than a foot bath, but that never was the point here, either. Frieren’s original quartet also visited here and experienced the view together while soaking their feet, and now she’s getting to do it with her new party, too. Eisen’s comments about this in Stark’s flashback are particularly telling here. Aside from frolicking in the flowers back in season 1 episode 2, Eisen has mostly been portrayed as a pretty grumpy character, the one most apt to question things in the original party and at least as apt as Frieren to complain. He had complaints here, too, but in one of the episode’s most deeply sincere moments he also acknowledges that, despite the bother of getting to that hot spring, he wouldn’t trade the memory of it for anything. That fits in quite snugly with the franchise’s overall theme about the value and importance of memories.
The second segment – where the trio is in a fortress city so Frieren can luxuriate in its hot springs – is the more decidedly light-hearted part, though it has its serious moments, too. This centers on a development that has been a long time coming: to throw Fern off from one of her pouting fits (this time about having nothing to do while waiting on Frieren), Stark jokingly invites her out on a date. Fern’s had to put up with a lot because of being around Frieren for so long, but I daresay nothing has stunned her as much as this offer by Stark:
The ceiling-level camera angle used to play out her mumbled acceptance as she left the room is an inspired choice here, helping to emphasis the irregularity of this scenario. Hard to say if Fern is more stunned by the offer or Stark is more left adrift by the fact that she took it seriously and accepted. Frieren’s expression as she’s licking on the popsicle as she walks in on this from a hot spring visit is also classic.
The scenes following it, with Frieren talk first to Stark and then to Fern about it, are also great. Frieren’s not completely blind to the fact that she’s one of the last people anyone should ask about relationship advice; after all, this is a woman who prides herself with a smile on having once thrown a three-day-long tantrum while with Himmel’s party and doesn’t seem to realize how hypocritical she’s being by accusing anyone else of lacking tact and sensitivity. But even in these lighter moments, the series’ trademark sentiment comes through. What Frieren knows about Fern and about dating isn’t something she’s developed through her own observations; they’re things she has been taught by others (i.e., Heiter and Flamme). She just remembers them. But as Stark points out, there’s meaning in the fact that she does still remember these things spoken by people now long past.
Somewhat surprisingly, the episode ends without resolving the date, so apparently some important encounter must happen while they’re on the date. (The Next Episode preview strongly suggests this, too.) So we’ll have to wait until next week to see how that plays out. Still, this whole episode is very much an exercise in the series doing what it arguably does best, so I have no complaints.
While I expected this series to take a markedly different angle on the cosplay scene than Dress Up Darling or 2.5 Dimensional Seduction, I’m not sure I quite expected what we got in this episode. But as usual, the series uses it as an opportunity to examine behind-the-scenes issues in the entertainment industry.
The crux of the problem is that the director of Impawsible got sloppy on multiple fronts. He didn’t make sure he had proper permission in timely fashion from an IP that’s notoriously restrictive, he didn’t respect the impact that a sudden change would have on the cosplay scenario, and he overestimated how far he could push the boundaries with the kind of questions he gave Meiya without getting consequential push-back. All of these are big issues but the latter is arguably the most serious one, as it does (as Meiya later points out) cross the line into the realm of sexual harassment Asking questions like “do you ever have sex in costume” would be a norm for (to use the Japanese rating system) R-18 content, and you could maybe get away with it in a casual conversation among adults comfortable discussing such topics, but it’s wholly out of line for what’s ostensibly a family show, especially in current times.
The director did come across as a bit of a creep last episode in some of his observations about the photos of the prospective cosplayers, but his reaction to the social media backlash (something that probably wouldn’t have happened 20 years ago) and willingness to go along with Ruby’s proposal for an episode about digging into a controversy the show inadvertently created itself suggests that he does accept that he went too far. Whether he genuinely accepts the error of his ways or is just trying to salvage his career is unclear, but his contriteness here feels very Japanese if one sets aside how gimmicky it is. And yet does anything really seem out of line about this given some of the other gimmickry the series has pulled off?
Exploring the IP angle allows a good excuse to get Kana some screen time, as she’s the ideal person to interview Abiko-sensei. (Aqua’s expression when he’s caught by surprise on that point is classic, too!) It also provides an opportunity for the series to explain a bit about why some creators might be very restrictive about allowing merchandise concerning their creations. Abiko’s explanation that she has no issue with cosplay that’s done for the love of the series but does have issue with exploitive derivative products that don’t stay true to her work’s spirit is perfectly in line with her stubbornness about how Tokyo Blade would be portrayed in play. One needs look no farther than a franchise like Love Live to see what can happen when creators don’t stick to their guns on something like this. (If you find that franchise to be adorably sweet and wholesome, don’t ever go trolling for fan art or doujinshi concerning its characters without using rating filters.) That women are used to bring sexier derivative product proposals to creators is also an interesting ploy that no doubt is based on actual observations.
The third issue – about the stress put on the cosplayers to adapt on short notice – isn’t a trivial one, either. We’ve seen in other series how much time and effort goes into cosplay costumes, and to suggest that cosplayers can just radically change what they’re doing on short notice is a clear sign of disrespect for the hobby. Here Aqua represents the casual viewer’s take on how silly and gimmicky this looks, but I did like how Meiya recognized the sincerity inherent in the gesture. The director wasn’t just giving lip service to his apology; by making the costume himself, he clearly understood where he went wrong in his assumptions, and that’s something a dedicated cosplayer could appreciate. Still doesn’t avoid looking gimmicky, but it’s more clever in its approach than it initially appears.
But I also like the aftermath scene where Aqua finally confronts Ruby. There’s no way Aqua wouldn’t pick up on Ruby’s scheming, and with Ruby’s personality (or, perhaps more accurately, the persona she’s developed), she can go a long way in playing dumb on this. I must say, though, that I do quite like this newer, much more devious Ruby. She may be getting fed ideas by Saito, but she still has to make them work, and as the scene with her and Meiya at the restaurant shows, she’s becoming almost scarily good at that. The dance the two have in the ED could very well be a symbolic representation of the way they’re starting to dance around each other in a dramatic sense.
Overall, the episode sticks true to its topical approach, but I’m much more interested in what all this conniving by Ruby is leading to. Hopefully we’ll find out soon.
This episode firmly falls into the “events while traveling” part of the series, which many fans of the franchise would argue is where the series is at its strongest. Indeed, even though this isn’t one of the series’ more exciting and impactful episodes, there’s still a lot to like and a lot of meaning to be found in the two vignettes which compose this episode.
The first of the two returns to a theme brought up at least once before in season 1: that while Himmel may be the hero who ultimately defeated the Demon King, he was hardly the land’s only hero. Kraft’s heroism was so far back that even a statue of him still remaining isn’t enough to prevent his deeds from being lost to the passage of time, but that isn’t the case with the Hero of the South. He was a contemporary of Himmel (or perhaps slightly before), but although he was the strongest of all the human heroes, he wouldn’t be the one to defeat the Demon King, and he knew it because of his foresight. He did, however, play a critical role in Himmel’s ultimate success by clearing a path through his defeat of three of the Seven Sages of Destruction in the battle that ended his life. Granted, you could claim that his knowledge that his deeds would help the ultimate hero bolstered him by letting him know that even his failed effort wouldn’t be in vain, but he still went into that battle knowing that his end was pre-ordained. That’s a pretty powerful bit of heroism in itself.
Frieren’s flashbacks on this provide a set of powerful scenes. One is the broken, bloodied sword in the snow symbolizing the dead of the Hero of the South, and a second is the shot of the strike the killed Schlacht the Omniscient; that he and a fellow precognitive would wind up killing each other somehow seems fitting. And the third is Himmel’s reaction to Frieren telling him the Hero of the South’s words: that he would clear a path for Himmel. This is meaningful because it’s just about the only time in the many flashback where Himmel responds with a frown instead of a smile. He, better, than anyone, understands the weight behind the Hero of the South’s message. Much credit goes to the musical score through these scenes for how effectively it delivers the sentiment of these moments.
Those flashbacks also bring up one other point: as strong as the Hero of the South was, he was just one man, and he is shown fighting alone. Frieren mentioned in episode 27 that the Demon King wouldn’t have been defeated if any of her, Himmel, Heiter, or Eisen hadn’t been there. This scene with the Hero of the South suggests that this wasn’t just because of strength in numbers. No matter how strong the individual, there’s only so much a single person can do.
That idea also pops up – though much more briefly – in the second vignette, the one concerning the sword demon. The battle against the demon towards the end of this part provides the episode’s one flashy bit of animation, but it also is just about the only scene in the series showing the central trio all fighting together in a fully-complementary battle. Otherwise this part is much less remarkable, as it just reinforces some things we’ve already known: about how demons are so deceit-driven and don’t operate within a human moral framework and how Frieren feels obligated to follow up on tasks that Himmel once completed. Somewhat like with the Sword of the Hero back in episode 12 of the first season, what’s so special about that sword that it attracts demons is actually beside the point.
The journey across the north continues. Return next week for the next stage!
One of the recurring themes of the franchise has been the somewhat cynical notion that nearly every successful move in the entertainment industry – even ones that seem fully spontaneous to a layman – has actually been carefully calculated. When characters in this franchise have acted without rigorous planning and intent (Akane slapping Yuki on Love Now, Abiko trying to rewrite the script for the play on her own being the biggest two examples), a mess has transpired, and only those who rigidly stick to that ultimately get ahead. Throughout the first two seasons, Aqua was the calculating one of the two twins, while Ruby acted mostly off of emotion and instinct. That’s definitely not the case anymore.
In fact, Aqua actually takes a back seat for most of this episode, which is almost entirely split between the viewpoints of Ruby, (more briefly) Akane, and a young, frazzled assistant director that Ruby is playing up to on advice from Saito Ichigo. (“Make good connections to ADs because they could one day become big shots” he essentially tells her.) And Ruby is the one that’s doing the calculating now, to the extent that Aqua naturally picks up on how deliberate her effort to come across as the complete ditz actually is; she’s even setting up situations for him to reply within his acerbic “cool guy” persona. Previous seasons have had a penchant for highlighting key moments with rougher alternative frames, and we see that done again here in the key moment where Ruby takes over. No less calculating is Ruby’s pitch to recruit Minami for the upcoming cosplay segment. She knows Minami has the kind of look that would sell in any kind of cosplay piece, and so would be an easy pitch for a director. Minami’s not savvy enough to pick up on how Ruby is using her here, but I wonder if Ruby could get away with that with Frill?
Akane’s presence in the episode is a small one but not at all wasted. She’s clearly happy that Aqua is genuinely trying to be a good boyfriend, but she also understands him well enough to know that, ironically, him keeping such a careful distance from Kana isn’t completely a positive; it shows that he’s conscious of her situation and does care. (She also knows that he’s not indifferent to the attention he draws from the ladies.) Somewhat surprisingly, she also gets the episode’s one true comedy moment in her silent admonition about how cheating by Aqua won’t be tolerated. And remember, this is the same girl who coldly fired back to Aqua last season that she’d help him kill someone if that’s what it came to, so that’s a less playful threat than it would have been from others.
The episode sags some in the parts focusing on the AD. Yes, he does allow the writing a convenient way to fulfill this episode’s quota of extemporizing about behind-the-scene details, but in a series stacked with strong personalities, he doesn’t stand out enough to be particularly interesting. Still, that whole sequence does allow the series to at least dip its toe into the world of cosplay, coming from a wholly different angle than fare like My Dress-Up Darling or 2.5 Dimensional Seduction. It also allows the series to bring up how important obtaining proper permission is at the professional level. Your typical convention attendee doesn’t need such permission, (or, perhaps more accurately, the need for permission is overlooked), but once money is on the table, everything has to be approved. Very curious to see what kind of adaptation the variety show is going to make to adjust to not getting appropriate permission.
This episode also features the debut of the official OP and ED, and both are winners. “TEST ME” by Chamina may not be the massive hit that YOASOBI’s “Idol” was, but it’s still an alluring song backed by such an array of loaded visuals that you could probably write a whole article just analyzing it shot-by-shot. (There are even some clear allusions in it to the long form of “Idol.”) ED “Serenade” by natori evokes the jazzy sound and beat of Creepy Nuts’ “Call of the Night” while having its own dose of striking visuals (including, again, call-backs to the long form of “Idol”); the scene of a cardboard cutout of Ruby during her reporting routine particularly carries meaning, but so does her dancing with Aqua. Both have plenty of rewatch value and could, in the long run, be considered among the season’s best.
While stakes aren’t high here yet, this episode shows that the whole variety show thing is more of an actual story arc than just a set-up. While not the juiciest arc we’ve had, it’s starting to show some potential.
Yumeminga Paradise, which screened in American theaters on January 19th, is a direct sequel to Zombie Land Saga Revenge. Though it does provide a brief summary of past events from both TV seasons at its beginning, this is not an entry point for the franchise, as full familiarity with all previously-established characters is assumed.
Thee final scene of Revenge featured one of the biggest jaw-dropping twists in anime history: an apparent Independence Day-style alien attack. The early stages of this movie reveal that this didn’t happen right away after the climactic concert performance at the end of revenge, however. Instead, four years have elapsed (curiously, the same amount of time that passed since Revenge aired on TV. . .) and Franchouchou has gradually established themselves as a mainstay for representing Saga prefecture. They’re even going to be headliners at a world expo which has been moved to Saga from its originally-planned location for vague reasons. Naturally, that isn’t going to happen without complications, and in this case it’s an alien attack. Oddly, the attack halts right as it seems to be ramping up to global destruction of humanity (Tae having been sucked up by the aliens a few hours beforehand couldn’t possibly have anything to do with that, right?), giving the zombie girls of Franchouchou a few days to find some way to thwart the alien invasion. Because naturally, zombie idols are the perfect group to combat aliens who primarily depend on heat-sensing vision!
If you’re looking askance at the set-up, well, that’s pretty much the whole movie for you. This is absolutely a turn-your-brain-off viewing experience, because think even a little bit about how this plays out and the plot holes start gaping. Tight plotting has never been the style of this franchise, though, and chief director Konosuke Uda (who did storyboarding and episode directing for the first two installments and has since directed the Ranma ½ reboot) wisely doesn’t try. The movie completely rolls with how ridiculous everything about this situation is, down to it blatantly ripping off Independence Day but adding a savage twist. Need a particularly stupid way a devastating alien attack gets abated? Check. Want to see the zombie girls get random power-ups and even see one fight in what’s basically a mecha? Check. The zombie dog gets super-sized for no apparent reason? check. Zombie girls having body parts become detached and use them for very creative purposes? Check. The bicycle-riding cop finally gets to do something useful? Double-check. Oh, and we can’t forget to have a concert with two full performance numbers, either!
The big, long-awaited event here – which has been hinted at enough in advertisements that I feel it can be brought up without major spoilers – is that Tae finally gets her mind back for most of the movie, and she turns out to be quite the bad-ass when cognizant of what she’s doing. This includes revealing why Kotaro insists on referring to her as “Legendary” (but without a qualifier on what kind of legendary) – sort of; much about the exact specifics of what Tae was doing in her previous life is left rather vague, though the connection she has to Kotaro and one of the other Franchouchou members are among the movie’s most interesting revelations. Maybe most unexpected here is the reveal about her age. Another brief scene elaborates a little more on the vaguely-suggested connection between Kotaro and Sakura, further cementing the previous implication that Sakura is here because of Kotaro’s personal preference rather than because she was “legendary.”
The movie even spends just a little bit of time being serious, primarily in the truth of the Franchouchou members’ zombie status being revealed to a few additional characters. Some of them don’t initially take it well, and the strained relationships that creates accounts for the movie’s one bit of true depth. Otherwise the movie is primarily an action romp once the alien attack commences, with time set aside at the end for the big concert. Fortunately, MAPPA proves well up to the task of delivering a number of elaborate action pieces; this may not be quite on the level of the Chainsaw Man movie, but the scenes hold their own and provide plenty enough spectacle to justify seeing the movie in a theater setting if you can.
Maybe the weakest part of the movie (relatively speaking) is the big performance numbers at the end. They slide between CG and regular animation in passable but not flawless fashion and are pretty traditional idol performance numbers rather than some of the boldly-stylish performances sometimes seen during the TV series. They’re still good songs, and there’s even a bit of emotion in the second song because of something happening during the performance, but they don’t stand out anywhere near as much as everything else going on here.
Overall, the movie is a must-see continuation of the franchise for any established franchise fan. It maybe runs just a little longer than it needs to (it clocks in at just over two hours), but it’s still a satisfying viewing experience.
USA Anime 