After unfortunately having to take a week off last week, we are so back. I wasn’t aware there was a week off at first, so when I sat down to watch the episode I was thoroughly disappointed, but it is what it is. Without further ado let’s head to the capital of Engrassia and meet the council.
But first, it’s time for a shopping episode. Whenever I hear that, I’m brought back to about a decade ago where I was watching Critical Role (a Dungeons & Dragons podcast) and they did a shopping episode, where half the cast spent hours roleplaying a day of shopping for potions a gear while Travis was fully asleep by the end of it because of how boring it is. But if I get to see Shuna in those casual clothes I can sit through any shopping episode. The guys look good too I guess. I love Rimuru’s trick for buying good clothes, just ask the shopkeeper for advice, he’ll know best after all.
Now I’m not one to judge other people’s coffee habits all that sternly. I put a lot of milk in my coffee because drinking it black is far too bitter for sensitive lil’ me. But I draw the line at putting in too much sweetener or sugar. Coffee that’s too sweet is disgusting. I take sweetener with my coffee because I’m trying to monitor my weight, but sometimes I’ll accidentally put two instead of one in there and it is vile. Hinata calling him out is great. She’s here on Rimuru’s request to give him the download on what happened in the previous meeting. These two have such great chemistry as friends / murderous rivals. Then again, anything Hinata does is drenched in murderous intent.
I like when shows save on animation and instead add in some really cool hand-drawn art to show some scenes. Animation is a very stressful job with long hours, so if you get creative about saving time I think that should be applauded. With three routes for the Eastern Empire to attack, Rimuru is confident that they are unlikely to do so, but we already get some hints that Raphael thinks differently without yet having any data to back it up. As viewers we of course know that with how much an attack by the Eastern Empire has been hinted at, they are likely to play a big role at some point in the future, but the characters in the world don’t have that same kind of information.
And of course nothing will go as smoothly as it seems, with Maribel Rozzo (I flip flop on how to spell her name) having plans. The fact that she says Rimuru will be the one to stop it from happening is giving me Sabaody Archipelago vibes. Some old-fashioned racism combined with needless violence will definitely do the trick. Rimuru has already shown that although he wishes to coexist with humans, if they mess with him that’s off the table. With Maribel trying to mess with everyone involved, I wonder if Yuuki is going to reveal that he’s not actually under her control. Perhaps I’m wrong on this, but I cannot imagine he’s actually caught under her spell.
All councilors are created equal. Some are created more equal than others. And we dive right into the racism from frame one. It’s a funny scene, but sometimes having these over the top bad guys can get a bit dull. They’re even laughing like cartoon villains, but I suppose that’s their job. We enter into the meeting room and get to hear the three conditions that the council has for Rimuru to join them:
- Adhere to international law
- Opening up their market
- Supplying military forces
So far this seems like some minor inconveniences but nothing major that they can’t accept. Of course there are some objections that Rimuru – I mean Raphael – has written down on paper. You can’t come across as overly eager. And it helps to have essentially a supercomputer living in your head. With everything looking like it’ll go well, the reviews of Rimuru’s reviews come in and the conclusion is clear. They fucked up. Whatever is written down by the humans has seriously pissed off the latest demon lord and we all know what happened the last time that a human nation pissed off Rimuru. I’m guessing there’s some sort of language included that makes the monsters lower on the totem pole than humans instead of equals. We’ll have to wait until next week to find out though, and I have to say, this is probably the most excited I’ve been about an episode in a while. I thought the avatar team stuff was cute, but it wasn’t exactly a high-stakes scenario. Now with all the pieces coming into place, I’m curious to see what will happen from here on out. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 