“Legion from the Netherworld”
What They Say:
Upon hearing Snow’s voice, Joseph regains his sanity. He is immediately taken into custody by Zwölf to have his enhancements tuned up once again. Meanwhile, Xargin is heading a battalion of Demoniacs to mount an attack on the Zwölf headquarters. His purpose is to find out whether Joseph, who has the power to enforce submission of the Demoniacs, has awakened or not. Amanda, with her own agenda of retrieving Malek from Zwölf, succeeds in infiltrating the headquarters on the pretense that she has captured Hermann.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
In a way, talking about each episode of Blassreiter is somewhat awkward since you almost feel like you could write about it just from reading the summaries that get posted with each episode. What’s been the challenge is to read the summary first (because you simply can’t help it, it’s there) and then see if the episode actually provides anything beyond that to engage the viewer. And, more importantly, whether what we do get is actually engaging. Blassreiter has been such an odd and difficult show to get through that reading the summaries really just reminds me of what kind of dull time I’m in for.
The twentieth episode of Blassreiter sets the stage for the final set of episodes, maybe, since you can’t tell just how different things can turn from episode to episode. With all that’s happened, right now it’s all moving into the realm of setting up events for a big confrontation. Xargin has marshaled his legion of Demoniacs outside of the Zwolf headquarters and is marching them down the ruined streets. It’s here that Amanda and Hermann catch sight of what’s going on and feel a chill run down their spines. Their hope now is that Joseph may be able to do something about this while the two of them figure out a way to get into the Zwolf headquarters so they can find and rescue Malek. Almost out of Star Wars, they come up with a crafty plan that will let her get the both of them in without any problem. Supposedly.
Where the bulk of the episode goes is in dealing with the confrontation that Joseph brings to the table. Xargin’s after him since he can control the Demoniacs himself and that could be both useful or problematic. With his mighty army with him, he’s ready to see what will happen. But there’s discord on his side as well as Beatrice feels she’s being cast aside and isn’t useful to Xargin anymore. That has her trying to figure out what’s really going on and becoming desperate to make him happy. We finally get a bit of her background and her character ends up coming across as weaker than ever now, no more than a saved little girl doing her best to please her master. It almost goes against how we’ve seen her portrayed since the start, but there’s been little real consistency in many aspects of this series so it isn’t surprising.
In Summary:
As episodes go for this series, episode twenty isn’t a bad one. It’s fairly on message continuity-wise from the previous episode and it doesn’t introduce too much that goes away from what it’s trying to accomplish. The background for Beatrice was almost amusing in that it turned the character into something of a whiny sad sack at this stage of the game as she’s close to being cast off, if only her white knight would save her. It’s moments like this that make the series even more comical. The only real plus to the episode is that there are more fun CG action sequences, especially with Joseph getting out there in full force, but these scenes still have a hard time essentially carrying the series. Once again, Blassreiter is more of the same.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
