It’s hard to give the finest treatment to all when your soldiers aren’t very good at playing nice.
What They Say:
The newcomers continue to make trouble within Arslan’s camp and they must find a way to settle these squabbles before they leave on their campaign to take back Pars.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Gieve is a fun guy. In a party of soldiers who otherwise worship Arslan as a god stemming from royalty he doesn’t actually have, Gieve has always been the finest cynic, scoffing at the society around him and probably better suited to live in current times – not that there’s not plenty for one to be cynical about these days, mind you. If anything he might even have more in common philosophically with Hermes, but compared to the level of anger and passion that drives everything Hermes does, the comfortable atmosphere Arslan presents for his men is much more appealing. And he only started helping out for the unmatched beauty that is Farangis, which still remains a reason to stick around. But these same personality traits that keep him from being a dull sheep also mean that he’s generally not a great guy to be around. After all, he can’t help but seeing the fault in people and in the world in which he exists, it’s hard to live without having a few traits that he finds particularly easy to pick apart. Despite this, things have gone pretty smoothly between Gieve and his growing team of allies for a while now, so it’s about time for some conflict.
The fact of the matter is that Gieve is essentially in the right, and Arslan has offered much greater supplies of mercy to people who deserved it far less. But Gieve takes any opportunity he can to provoke those around him, and even if Arslan found this to be acceptable behavior, his wisdom hasn’t expanded his fundamentally idealistic mind to the point of being able to truly appreciate cynicism. As such he makes a judgment call that Gieve is more than willing to coolly accept, and it can be guessed from the moment it’s spoken that it will soon prove to be the wrong decision.
This is basically all in service of providing character moments for characters who haven’t had enough in recent memory; it’s been all about Arslan, Daryun, and Narsus for some time now, and the endgame is fast approaching. While Gieve’s unconventional personality has been refreshing, he’s another fine example of how ridiculously perfect the party members are at everything. He’s a bit less of a specialist than some, but instead he’s effortlessly smooth and proficient at far too many applications to list. That can be frustrating in efforts to build suspense in the series, but realistically a story of this kind with its large-scale battles almost needs its leads to have the kind of superhuman abilities typical to anime to be more personally engaging to a viewer than just showing a couple of big armies clashing. Results may vary by viewer, but it’s hardly surprising.
The production values of this series have never been phenomenal but have generally been solid enough. That doesn’t change substantially in this episode, but I do feel that it’s worth noting some lazy shortcuts in animation that could’ve been pulled off better. Gieve is a musician, but just as when Farangis sang early in the series, insufficient effort is put toward his performances. If anything, he’ll slide one hand down his lute a few times to play a little tune that anyone who’s ever seen a string instrument played could discern involves more than just that simple action.
In Summary:
The big war is still forthcoming, but it would appear only the last few episodes will feature it, because for now the series is still dealing with some preliminary issues. Taking a classic party member out of the lineup is significant, but in the end he’ll likely contribute just as much as ever.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
