Learning everything we already know about characters, and a dip in animation quality…
What They Say:
“In Like a Dragon, Out Like a Snake (Part 2)”
The Warrior of the Dragon, elder of the Tatsumi Brothers, is a superficially arrogant but cool-headed warrior who acts as commander in his collaborations with his brother. Using his “Heaven’s Holding” ability to remain in the air, he watches over Snake, now a “Walking Dead,” waiting for his own chance to join in the battle. While he does so, he thinks back on a trial that they became subject to as a result of their actions on a different battlefield.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This episode is loaded with flashbacks and a flashback of that flashback… Once again this put the tournament on the backburner. This is a good idea for more context on these boys and we get some background on their teamwork but not very much is new or original about it. We start with the Dragon still hanging around in the air watching the Ox and Tiger struggle with the severed arms of his brother. Whilst commending how much he’s been able to do in this tournament beyond the grave, he looks back to a time before the tournament.
In this flashback, we see the Dragon attending a hearing where they are both being put on trial for their deviation from the zodiac warrior norms, which aren’t explained. They were hired by both sides of a shady arrangement, one for a pharmaceutical company with human test subjects for an experimental drug and the other for the supplier of these subjects. They were to kill the leader of the other’s organization. The twins are of course only in this for the money so they kill each side and their employers, taking the money on the way out and burning the company’s building down adding to the casualties. There are some survivors who get places in other hospitals but they, of course, are hired to get rid of any trace of the experiments done by the company.
During the hearing, there is a judge who mentions their charitableness of taking money from the rich and giving to the poor, but this in no way justifies what they’ve done or made them any more than two men who only care about money. This flashback ends when the Dragon leaves the hearing with the defense ruling out and going home to find that they have officially been invited to the Juni Taisen.
Don’t fret though, we finally see the resolution of the situation the Ox and Tiger were involved in where they both break out of the hold of the Snake’s arms. They take on the task of dealing with the Snake’s body before their own issues with each other, at least the Ox makes this clear himself. The dragon, still floating in the sky, decides he will make his move, finally.
I find that I can’t sympathize with these characters because all that has been told about them is that they are thieves that kind of do something good, but also leave chaos in their wake. Two episodes in a row do this for the same characters and it makes this week just as uninteresting as the last. To add to the gripes, the animation in this episode is a travesty. Considering how this show looked in the start it’s such a shame to see it downgrade as much as it did this week. I still have hope that it will get better, maybe this is just a cutting corners thing like we’ve seen in some shows in the past, but it does look a lot better for the production if the quality is consistent. I’m disappointed but I am optimistic.
We did not see a death this week which I again expected but it seems the time for the Dragon to die could be next week. I am excited to see an episode centered around the Rabbit, which is the preview we get at the end of this episode. Whether he will die or not remains to be seen, but only time will tell.
In Summary:
This episode felt like a lot of filler with only a reiteration of what we already know about the Snake and the Dragon’s characters. It didn’t focus much on the Dragon being involved in the tournament which I am disappointed with, as I am with the animation quality and the episode as a whole. I’m still optimistic and hope it will improve and revert back to the quality it was when it started.
Grade: C-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
