It’s been a busy few weeks but the end is finally in sight. Deadlines are being reached, work is being done, and we’re only three weeks removed from my last day of teaching before endless meetings slowly bleed into summer break. But in those three weeks we should still have the time to finish up this first cour of Tensura season 4, and if all else in life fails, we’ll at least have our dapper slime to fall back on. Let’s have a look together at episode 9.
We get a little bit of history about this place at the get-go. The city built into this mountain – underneath Clayman’s castle – is the city of Amrita and it was modeled after a city in the sorcerous nation of Soma. This nation has long fallen but it was once a place where elves prospered. The people of Soma were caught up in the wrath of Milim after a handful of them angered her. Kagali was one of the elves that escaped from Soma and founded this new city here in Distave. It’s pretty clear that the people of Soma were the ones that killed Milim’s dragon and were then the source of her becoming a demon lord. And with Milim later on killing Kagali it’s no wonder that she has some good reasons to dislike the dragon princess.
The Amrita ruins are divided into three layers which means that the top layer is being used for the dark elves to live in. It is also filled with ancient elven magic and after taking very little to be convinced, Milim has already promised to let the elves continue to live here now that the domain belongs to her. We get to our first hurdle, a door with a magic circle on it. Visually this magic looks absolutely stunning and as you’re all well aware, I’m such a sucker for magic circles. It seems like this one is more focused on its design than any actual logic and reason – like in Witch Hat Atelier – but sometimes a cool looking circle is all you need. It’s why we used to love those drawings, what were they called again. Mandela! Not the former South-African president, but the circles you would color in. Those were neat. Rimuru solves it all in moments, ruining the fun for everyone. At least that’s what he thinks, but the archeologists are very much impressed with what he did and want to learn more. They seem like good people.
The next morning we descend into the middle level of Amrita. Things immediately look a lot more “ancient ruins” and a lot less like a holiday destination. We see things that feel like an ancient fairy tale to Rimuru and the rest, but is just a memory for Milim and it’s not even that happy of a memory. During lunch time, Kagali and Rimuru bond over their respect for ancient murals and I think these two would really get along if they weren’t currently politically opposed. There’s still a chance that Kagali and Yuuki might end up on the same side of this larger conflict with the east that has been hinted at for ages. It’s almost a shame that there’s hostility between the two groups, since this would just be a fun expedition if not for whatever creepy business Yuuki and Maribel are doing on the surface. Releasing an ancient dragon here on the people of Amrita is probably at the bare minimum going to piss off Kagali. Unless she really has no more love for her former life, which I doubt.
Nah, Yuuki and Maribel are fucked. Bringing back the sealed undead dragon that was Milim’s best friend just to mess with her is not cool. Even if Yuuki does end up actually being controlled by Maribel and isn’t making his own plans he deserved some pretty bad beating up for this one. Milim has never been this serious since the show started and with Rimuru and Milim split up things could actually get dangerous from here on out. And of course, to make the tension feel more serious, the author made sure neither Benimaru or Veldora were present for this, eliminating some of the strongest forces on Rimuru’s side. And inside the ruins things aren’t much better with an army of golems attacking the party. They flee to the bottom level of the ruins with Ranga, Gobta and Shion holding down the fort.
Rimuru does bring up the very fair point that all of his enemies so far have actively come after Rimuru and he hasn’t really started any fights. Having said that, he wasn’t very sad about having to deal with Falmuth and gaining some power himself. I’m sure that he wouldn’t look for strife on his own, but he does a good job of making the best out of a bad situation. Speaking of bad situations, while Yuuki and the Chaos Dragon are making Milim’s life very difficult upstairs, we finally come face to face with Maribel inside the ruins. Both Maribel and Rimuru offer to rule over the other and obviously it is not going to work. Their mentalities are just too different. Rimuru is a good bean and Maribel sucks. Simple as that. It’s the ruling elite thinking they’re above everyone compared to the idea that every person has potential to become someone great. You don’t have to even guess which side I’m on if you’ve paid any attention to my politics in the past seven years. With Yuuki and two more stooges here to fight Rimuru and his team, we finally start the climax of this arc. I am curious where Kagali will end up at the end of all of this. She seems to have more personal motives than any actual desire to become a ruler, and I can see a world in which she actually didn’t know the depth of Yuuki and Maribel’s scheming and is severely disappointed by all of this, but on the other hand she was on team Clayman before this, and he really sucked. So she’s probably just a really good actress. Whatever happens next, I’m excited for the next episode, but that’s true for every week. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 