Eren was in worse shape by episode five. You’ll be fine.
What They Say:
Episode Ten The Kotetsujyo had been linked to the Kokujyo, and Takumi and the others were under the rule of the Hunters who demanded their blood be collected.While people fell into despair, not everyone has given up hope as Ikoma devises a counteroffensive.He has to take back his freedom, his pride, and Mumei.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Things have been better for our heroes. Biba has assumed the role of absolute, unambiguous villain of villains, enslaving everyone and using them as livestock to be drained of blood to continue his mad ambition. That’s about as bad as it gets, right? It sure seemed like it, so our boys and girls weren’t simply going to sit around and become pawns in Biba’s game that they wouldn’t be able to escape from before too much longer. It’s time to plot a rebellion, of course! And so, as they carry that out to the best of their ability, they accomplish one very specific thing: learning that their previous situation was not even close to as bad it gets. In fact, the episode ends about as badly as one could imagine for the protagonists, one of those classic cliffhangers made to make the audience wonder how there could possibly be any more show after this point.
How did this seemingly well-formed plan turn into such a catastrophe? It’s a given that Biba is the reason, as he is the entirety of the opposing force. Hell, Kabane hardly exists in this episode. And it’s the important distinction of a very evil and very intelligent human being from the mindless monsters that were considered the enemies previously that cause the plan to fail. Biba knows exactly what plan Ikoma and the others would set even without hearing a single word from any of them. This is not a unique trait, and in fact a certain villain from the same seiyuu and director is one of the best examples of this character type in the past decade of anime. Still, Biba’s thought process could’ve been more involved than simply figuring out what they must be plotting and perfectly countering it. They’re all imprisoned by him, after all; it wouldn’t have been hard to have someone listening in on their talks. Things were never going to go as smoothly as the team had hoped for, though, so how they got to that point isn’t necessarily the most important component.
What really matters is just how screwed everything gets in just these last few minutes. One point that I’ve mentioned now and then is that, even at its most brutal, the stakes never seem as high in this series as in Attack on Titan, because there hasn’t been much precedent for main characters being killed off. This close to the end of the series, it’s downright lighthearted in comparison. And it’s honestly not really a spoiler to bring up that that may be changing now because… I have no idea what the fates of at least three major protagonists are by the end of it. It seems likely that at least one is truly gone, but considering how the actual star of the story is left, all bets are off. This, of course, recalls to an iconic Attack on Titan cliffhanger, even down to the loss of an arm just before what could be the end of a life, but just as was the case then, it can generally be assumed that a show is not going to simply off its lead before the ending. It has been done before, and a series from just a couple of years ago immediately springs to mind, but the patterns this one follows can inform predictions of how things will play out enough to doubt the possibility this time.
In Summary:
Biba continues to be the big bad to the point of no ambiguity not only for himself but for anyone else in the cast, and effectively removing Kabane from relevance for now. He leaves things in a state that seems irreversible, but of course things will work out in the end. It’s not that amazing.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Amazon Prime Video
Review Equipment:
Roku 3, Sceptre X425BV-FHD 42″ Class LCD HDTV.
