The main story finally returns to view… sans our main party.
What They Say:
Arslan returns to Peshawar. In the meantime, Hermes must walk the fine line between remaining useful to Lusitania and furthering his own interests.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
We’ve spent half a cour dealing with the Sindhuran situation that suddenly arose after the halfway point of the series, just as the plot revolving around Hermes was really reaching the heights of intrigue. It had its moments but also served to deflate some of the tension that had been built up with virtually no mention of Hermes or any of what had made up the plot since the beginning of the series. Fortunately, that’s now completely over and at least we got a new party member out of the deal, as much as that probably doesn’t warrant the time commitment in a series of limited length. As if making up for lost time, this episode focuses on Hermes and the storylines associated with him almost exclusively, even staying away from the show’s own main characters until the very final minutes. To be fair, it’s not as if they’ve been missing out on screen time.
Hermes can be a little too intense to take seriously as a villain all the time, but I do give him a decent amount of credit for being a character with his own goals that don’t necessarily need to directly oppose the heroes at every moment. He caused the initial turmoil of Pars using Lusitania and ultimately intends to take the crown that Arslan is on the path to snag first, but there’s an important step in between of dealing with the problems going on in Lusitania before taking his next big step. Since most of the people of power in this series are pretty awful in one way or another, there’s no shortage of conflict, with madmen like Bodin offering no ambiguity and making Hermes look like the epitome of kind justice in comparison. Hermes has only gotten this far because he’s a clever man, though, and he’s already amassed a decent following among the Pars soldiers. As has often been the case, it’s hard to paint those who chose either potential Pars successor as inherently evil, because they all have a loyalty to their nation and must choose one path or the other based on limited information presented and moral ambiguity. Arslan is generally the better person, but Hermes is the rightful successor and the victim of atrocities committed by the man who happens to be the reason Arslan could ever be considered a crown prince at all.
For that reason, Hermes has always been something of a sympathetic figure. He goes about things in all the wrong ways, especially compared to Arslan, but the original motivation to undo what Andragoras has done is pretty easy to get behind on its own. Again, pitting him against Bodin only further serves to get viewers rooting for him, because there’s certainly no reason one could think of Bodin as the one deserving of a victory. Andragoras is briefly visited on the subject, but speaks cryptically and teases greater mysteries that may prove to introduce more complexity to exactly what actions he took in the past. Hopefully that’s something we get to learn about in this adaptation. With the way things are positioned at the moment, it seems likely enough that once Bodin is out of the way, the battle between Hermes and Arslan can begin in earnest. With the source material and… its own source material both still running, that may not be in the cards unless an original ending is made for this anime, but it would be nice to receive some closure.
In Summary:
With the Sindhuran arc finally out of the way, the focus shifts back to Hermes and feels a lot more substantial as a result. The lost time is made up for to the extent of not even including Arslan and his party until the very end, but it puts things in a good place for them to clash soon.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
