The fight against Voban builds up even more as Kusanagi takes it to the next level.
What They Say:
Voban has caught up and Godou is running out of ideas. Mariya makes the ultimate sacrifice, in front of Erica.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the introduction of Voban in the previous episode and his plans to deal with Kusunagi and Erica while taking in Mariya for his schemes, things built up well there as it was a straight on shot for the group to just go and attack rather than wait for it to come to them. Unfortunately, the fight isn’t going all that well overall, though Erica is holding her own against Lili while tossing out some good verbal jabs that throws her off balance, especially in calling her out as someone who isn’t willingly serving him. There’s some good bits to come into play here with the status of the two young women and their rank in general as knights with who they serve and what they do.
While that does some good damage to her game, throwing her off at a couple of key moments, it gets even more so when Mariya gets into the mix. She’s one that’s willing to go the distance and makes the claim and suggestion to her that she can in essence defect to Kusanagi and that he’d be someone who would treat her better. It’s a hard one for her to wrap her head around considering the way she views honor and the like as well as having spent time with Voban and understanding his own abilities. You also have to factor in experience which makes Voban a powerful opponent, which we see with the wolf form he’s using out there. Add in a good dose of confidence and it can be undermining easily.
What again makes this show something special in a way if it can jus tmake that final leap is when you see Kusanagi and Mariya work together, bonding their hearts for the moment to attack, and it goes truly epic with the swords and attacks. It’s the kind of animation that we don’t see in many shows these days and it does it expertly as an attack sequence, making for some engaging storytelling and visuals. That’s just the start of the fight when you get down to it though and I love how it progresses, giving us a strong Kusunagi as it moves on and we see him binding the other three to him, using them as they want to be, and serving as instruments for the attack on Voban. It has a great sense of scale and power to it, even if it does fall into some of the usual traps. Just watching how Kusunagi’s expressions are here is striking and fun to watch.
In Summary:
Campione has quite a good episode here as it focuses on the fight and all that it entails. Seeing how Kusunagi is able to continue to grow and utilize his abilities and to have a strong supporting foundation grow around him is wonderful. With the three women here, we really have an episode where they’re strong, able and willing to do what needs to be done without any real fanservice to be had. When it does offer some silly semi-romantic stuff at the end, it’s an ease of the overall pressure of the episode. Kusunagi continues to be a character that I’m thoroughly enjoying as a male lead that’s not a dork or just nervous and scared all the time. They’re building a strong ensemble here with some great characters.
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.
