Just when things seem like they can’t get too much worse – enter Kadowaki!
What They Say:
The stage is the world of Amawakuni, where mankind coexists with the many gods. There, a boy called Arata is wrapped up in a coup d’état led by the Twelve Shinsho, wielders of swords called Hayagami. When he is accused of murdering a princess, Arata escapes to a forest, where he finds himself transported to the modern world.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The series took a pretty interesting turn that I’ll admit I didn’t see coming with having Kadowaki arrive in Amawakuni, and having the power of a Sho as well with his weapon of Orochi in hand. The time spent on Earth with him definitely worked nicely as Arata realized what he was like, and having those on Amawakuni bring him here to further their own goals has a larger than expected result because of it. While Hinohara has grown well in his brief time here so far, there’s still that scared, bullied little boy that’s there and seeing his bully arrive in what he felt was a safe place, even with all the dangers there, is psychologically damaging. Even worse, Kadowaki is just brutal with his yelling at him, making it clear that he views coming to this world as open season on abusing the hell out of Hinohara.
While there is that aspect to him, he does also fight back now that he does have the means and the ability to do so, but he doesn’t have the control yet to do it right. Which is why when he does attack, he lashes out more than anything and causes more than enough other problems with his friends in Amawakuni. But that lashing out has a secondary and more powerful effect in that it causes him to feel like he’s just like Kadowaki and just having the ability to do it may be all that he needs to turn to the dark side. It’s a difficult situation to grasp for him and he struggles with it, but there’s the even more complicated issue that comes up along the way when he helps Kotoha to recover, and he finally – finally – reveals to her that he’s not Arata but rather Hinohara and from the same world as Kadowaki.
Thankfully, because of Kadowaki being there, this challenges Hinohara to really change who he is an take charge of himself, though it’s not easy or without pain or mental stress. He gets some decent training from the others, including some time well spent with Kannagi that reinforces his ability at a time when he just seems to keep getting stronger and stronger. This helps to get him to where he needs to be, with more room to grow, but now he has a different opponent that will help motivate him towards it. While the other Sho were definitely a problem and he wanted to help, now this all becomes a lot more personal because of Kadowaki being there. And the two definitely have issues that go back a bit between them, which is also explored just a touch at the end. It is, admittedly, juvenile material that drove Kadowaki to this at first, but that’s often how things go at this age and stage.
In Summary:
While Arata – The Legend has felt a touch uneven at times, I wasn’t sure how the addition of Kadowaki to Amawakuni would impact it. Going by this first episode and first encounter between the two young men, it definitely has livened things up and given Hinohara more to think bout in a lot of ways. One of the things that I continue to find welcome about the show is that we are getting a character with a troubled past in Hinohara and his being bullied has colored a lot of things that we normally don’t get with the male leads, who are either confident too quickly or just a mess of a person to begin with and they blunder through things. Here, he feels more realistic and accessible with what he’s gone through and how he deals with it in the grander scheme of things.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.