Mess.
What They Say:
Episode #17: “Two Heroes”
As the Treaty armies gather around Castle Unicorn, Milza becomes very impatient. He tells his mage that even if Waldlind reinforcements show up, this would only endanger Lady Marrine. However, his mage tries to convince him otherwise that her presence will turn the tide. Will Milza listen to his mage?
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
There is a last moment of rehashing different groups ideals and goals as this episode opens. Milza’s on-loan mage makes one last appeal to wait for reinforcements which goes unheeded. Milza explains that as much as he hated the world essentially being run by mages (oh hey, he knows the score) he can’t abide a future where the people rule. This bit of honesty somehow wins over his mage and they decide to make a run directly at Theo.
Wow, the a-team/b-team animation split in this episode is stark, comparatively speaking. Everything after the first break looks atrocious with off-model characters and uninspired, sloppy blocking. The battle itself is also laughably animated or not animated at all. The son of the theatrical lord from an earlier episode leads his army to attack Milza and it glosses over the battle and only shows the aftermath. There’s a mid-range crash zoom! Why? It’s so laughably bad and this was supposed to be an important episode.
It’s directly after that block of animation that we get to see many of the main characters attack Milza and every shot appears to have been done by a different animation team. Probably from different studios, since this series has about 200 companies working on it. I am reminded of those reanimation projects on youtube where everyone animates something in their own style. The consistency is so far all over the place, it’s nuts.
Milza’s pride has him lead his men on a suicide run against Theo’s. However, Milza wants to go one-on-one against Theo in a duel knowing that he used to be able to trounce Theo. I expected that this is where the animation would ramp up in this episode but the constant changes between styles and the huge number of animation shortcuts really kill whatever impact it could have had. Milza is spent, and he managed his resources poorly. Theo calls him out on all of this, during the battle, and brings Milza to his knees. With very little fanfare Milza doesn’t offer his crest and Theo slowly and painfully executes him. (I still think Theo is a sociopath.)
Before all of this happens there is a great deal of Siluca encouraging Theo with tears. Remember at one point early on where it looked like she was a far more interesting character than she ended up being? Yeah, well, Theo hasn’t earned our interest either but they dulled her down to match him because we can’t have the girl being that interesting. I really want to see Theo just go full ruthless, he now has the power to, but like a soggy piece of bread, he remains a boring figurehead.
Then the sun comes out because it’s a cliché unearned moment of symbolism. This entire episode is poorly executed hammy nonsense.
Episode Grade: C –
