My keyboard is in need of cleaning. I’ll be honest that I haven’t really done so often. I’ve cleaned the top of the keys regularly of course, but underneath it looks less appealing, so to speak. The main reason why this is of importance is because my “o” key regularly gets stuck and gives twice the input. So if you see some weird double O’s in this text, I apologize in advance. I’ll try to fix most of them if I spot them. At worst it’s a minor inconvenience. Speaking of minor inconveniences, Clayman ended up being even less impactful than I expected. His entire story arc seemed to revolve around no one actually wanting to work with him, and it turns out even Frey and Milim weren’t actually on his side. I’m starting to almost feel bad for the guy, if I’m honest. If only he didn’t see the one final chance he was given as an opportunity to do even more damage. At this point he’s being manipulated by everyone involved. If only he listened to his few allies in the Moderate Harlequin alliance.
Beretta undid one of Clayman’s creations so fast it wasn’t even seen.
I’m going to keep this review short, since I’ll be doing an extensive review of the entire season next week (which should come out on Friday instead of Wednesday or Thursday, so do keep that in mind). The main thing they did this episode was show the different fights. Shion is seen kicking ass against Clayman, so that Rimuru doesn’t even have to make his hands dirty. Veldora entertains Milim, and both him and Raphael are shushed when they try to tell Rimuru that Milim is not actually mind controlled. Rimuru wins Raphael back a bit this episode, but I do think he needs to be careful about constantly pissing off the all knowing voice in his head.
Bring your niece to work day?
Clayman, now no longer having any allies in range, gets manipulated one last time, this time by Raphael. For a moment I thought that maybe Raphael was offering him some sort of deal outside of Rimuru’s knowledge, which would have been a fascinating development to the story, but alas, it was something done with Rimuru’s knowledge, to set up for the next stage of the fight. In next week’s conclusion we’ll probably watch Rimuru comfortably defeat Clayman, and then the story goes back towards the status quo. I can’t wait to see what’s next in the volumes, but we’ll have to be patient for that. It does bother me a little bit that we are heading fast towards an “all was well and they lived happily ever after” situation. I do like my stories to be a little bit more gritty than this. There seem to be no consequences to any of the bad decisions made, and everything always goes Rimuru’s way. That’s obviously a shonen hallmark at this point, so it’s nothing new, but it’s something that shows like Demon Slayer and to an extent Jujutsu Kaisen do extremely well. There’s bigger stakes involved when characters actually die when they are killed (I’m looking at you, literally every character in One Piece besides the two obvious exceptions). Regardless, I thought this episode was good fun, but it wasn’t as mind blowing as I would have hoped. Next week is the conclusion and although I’m sad to see it go, I am looking forward to finding a new show to discuss weekly. I might do Demon Slayer’s new season, but I’m not sure about that yet. I want to do something that’s only one cour, because I’m eyeing up JoJo Part 5 as well, that’s coming in Winter. Let me know if you have any suggestions for what to keep up with during fall in the comments down below, and I hope to see you here next week for the conclusion of this show.
So this man was Carrion after all, and Raphael was about to point that out to Rimuru when he shushed her.It’s kind of sad that they did actually all care about each other.
After two months and nine episodes of build-up, we’re finally here! It’s time for Walpurgis. This episode covers the debate itself and sets up the fight that we’ve been waiting for all season. Let’s go through it step by step and I’ll give you my thoughts. First we are once again introduced to all the demon lords present. I gave the entire list last week so I’ll spare you a repeat.
Our small slime is all grown up and scary looking now.Clayman is not as intimidating as he likes to think
To favor a more lengthy episode we skip the opening this week, which I never have qualms about, even if the opening is a banger. Clayman tells the banquet his made up story about how he is the victim and his poor subordinate Myuran (I’m still not sure how to spell her name) was murdered by Rimuru. Not only that, he implicates Milim as the main aggressor towards Carrion. It’s basically a long story about how he’s never done anything wrong without showing any proof.
Rimuru telling it like it is
Rimuru explains his side of the story and shows some footage of Clayman’s people being abused and then quickly defeated by Rimuru’s people. His biggest arguments include Myuran not being dead, Yamza being turned into a small Charybdis and the clowns speaking about the plan being bad and how they shouldn’t have been involved. The clowns mention Yuuki (I presume) but don’t name him. Raphael tries to explain to Rimuru what is going on but he dismisses her too quickly as usual. He basically has an all knowing ally that keeps shushing. Clayman keeps stringing lies to defend himself but this can now only end in a fight.
The big showdown is happening
Guy Crimson creates a barrier for the two groups to fight in, and they both squad up. Rimuru has less people but when he tries to call on Beretta the barrier is already there. A lot of the fights seem fairly evenly matched, except for Rimuru versus Milim. The latter being on the attack the entire time. Clayman barely has to get his own hands dirty as he lets his minions fight everyone. Rimuru is trying desperately to figure out how to make Milim snap out of it, but once again he doesn’t listen to Raphael and thus misses out on important information. I get that we like skipping the hints in the loading screen, but Rimuru should really stop doing so.
Just let the all knowing voice in your head finish her sentences
The last important bit of this episode is that we learn about Noir, or Diablo, being even more powerful and important than we already thought. Him and Beretta are from the same demon family and from what I could glance, Diablo might even be of a similar stature to Guy. It makes me even more curious about Diablo.
Beretta speaks her mind
The last point I want to make, and I feel like I’m repeating myself, is that I really enjoyed the long set-up. I’m seeing this season get very bad reviews and I feel like it’s unwaranted. This anime is slower than some other shonen shows, but I think the shows that jump from action to action to action get painfully boring after a while. I think good build-up is needed to make for good fights. Else there is no narrative weight. Now we have all of the information we need to be fully invested and I’m a big fan. It makes the pay-off that much more satisfying in my opinion.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, who shows up to save the day:
It’s everyone’s favorite tsundere ancient dragon!
My opinion on this show is clear by now, do you all agree that it’s been a fun ride to get here, or are you more on the side of some of the reviews I saw, that things have been too slow? I’d love to know your opinion! And of course, I hope to see you all here again next week. Hopefully it’s not as warm out by then, because it took my all to find the energy to write this!
Things are finally advancing quickly, after a very enjoyable, but slow start to the season. Since this episode really set the stage for the upcoming discussions, I think it’s for the best to look at this episode a little bit differently than normal. I will be skipping around through what happens today, so bear with me.
Veldora’s attention span has passed, back to manga
Shuna, Hakuo and Soei go to Clayman’s castle to take control of it while Clayman is at Walpurgis. The person guarding the castle is Adalman, the wight king (not the white king, like my subtitles said). He has an army of undead. Unfortunately for him, he is a bad match for Shuna, who not only uses holy magic that is very effective against the undead, but she’s also angry right now. She realizes after a while that Adalman used to be a priest, and we get a small bit of insight into his past. He used to believe in the god Luminus, but was turned into an undead creature by the former/recently returned demon lord Kazareem (the blonde lady that was with Yuuki and Laplace a few episodes ago.) He ends up being no match for Shuna. As a matter of fact, after Shuna inadvertently undoes his binding spell, he asks to be brought to her “god” as in Rimuru.
All the other ogres are very strong, so it’s no surprise that Shuna is far from a push-over, but that was amazing.
I like analyzing the deeper meaning behind things. I would never say I’m particularly good at it, I had to resit some of my literature classes in uni several times before I got a passing grade, but when the source material is interesting to me, I do enjoy looking for hidden things that might be there on purpose, or are there just by coincidence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all of Clayman’s people fall so easily. Yamza was an opportunist that was ready to run as soon when things went south. Tear, Footman and Laplace seem to be on the same team as him mostly because they have a common leader figure in Kazareem, but none of them seem to really trust Clayman or think him competent. Frey seems to have been lured in by promises of power by Clayman, but without her help he would have never been able to brainwash Milim. Even the followers of Milim seemed fine with jumping ship when it got to it, and now we learn that another one of his lackeys, Adalman, was only there because he was bound by his own past, and not because he actually wanted to work with Clayman. I think it’s fitting that all of his allies go down easily when he never bothered to give them a good reason to work for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if Clayman himself goes down easily after Rimuru figures out how to get Milim back in control of her own mind.
One more for the fanclub, and a pretty strong one at that!
And that brings us to the last part of this episode, that mixes in with the discussions had early on; the start of Walpurgis, the demon lords’ banquet. Misery, one of Guy’s maids, picks up the different demon lords and brings them to the discussion table. And here we meet all of the other demon lords, some for the first time.
Guy Crimson seems to be the oldest demon lord in attendance and from what we’ve been hinted at is probably the strongest person in the room. He seemed like a nice bloke when he was talking to Leon in a previous episode though.
The giant demon lord, Dagruel. We know very little about him except that he’s seemingly very powerful and his footsteps are loud enough to cause light tremors.
The Vampire demon lord, Valentine. I’ve highlighted the people in his party as well, because Rimuru pretty much confirms that the maid (the one on the left, the blue haired on on the right is Rain, Guy’s maid) is the stronger one there. So she is probably the real demon lord that Veldora pissed off ages ago.
I’m grouping Dino and Ramiris together for this one, since we know a lot about Ramiris and very little about Dino. All we know is that they’re on friendly terms. Dino is the lazy one that Ramiris spoke about earlier this episode. He seems like a nice person so far. Ramiris we’ve met so many times that I don’t need to talk about her much here.
We’ve already met Frey in a previous episode, when she put the mindcontrolling necklace on Milim. I do have to wonder what her endgame is, since there’s no way she believes Clayman can keep Milim under control right? There has to be another layer to this. That or she’s just not very smart, which is also a possibility of course. Shion does mention that the lion looking man behind her could be Carrion, since he looks like beastfolk. I wonder what’s up with that. Raphael seems to agree, but Rimuru shuts her down too quickly and she hmmmpfs away.
Leon Cromwell. The man, the myth, the bellend. He is the one responsible for Shizu’s condition and then death. He doesn’t seem to harbor any real emotions about the situation. He seems to have a very clear moral code, although not one that’s particularly good. The two don’t get off on a great start though, but Rimuru does get invited over to his place for a discussion. If he leaves here alive. That’s not ominous at all.
Last but not least, we have Milim, wearing her mind control necklace, and Clayman, the main villain of this arc. I wonder if that magical looking fox is like the conch in Lord of the flies or something completely unrelated. Either way, as soon as Clayman disrespects Milim, which he’s obviously doing to make a show out of his control over her, every other demon lord in the room looks on with disapproval.
With Carrion missing, that’s all 10 demon lords that are expected to attend, in attendance. The only ones not included her, that we know of, are the female vampire that is with Valentine, who might be the real powerful one as well as Demon Lord Kazareem, who is presumed dead at this point in time. Rimuru doesn’t count yet since he became a demon lord only after this meeting was called, but he was still invited, so that’s nice of them.
I hope this brings everyone back up to speed, I sure could use the reminder of who everyone involved was. Next week’s episode is called Walpurgis, and with all the fighting seeming mostly out of the way, we’re finally going to get into the thick of it. I can’t wait to see what kind of politics happen here. The fights, although they looked better this week, don’t interest me a great deal this season, I’m all here for the politics. Who is on whose side, who is going to fall, and who is going to rise. I also, upon further thought, don’t think the guy behind Frey is too directly related to Carrion, seeing as a large part of Clayman’s plan is to convince everyone that Rimuru killed Carrion and has to die for that reason. Or perhaps that is the way in which Frey is going to show her real colors. Maybe she holds a grudge against Clayman and has been working with him to betray him at the last second. Or I’m totally wrong, but that’s the fun in this, is it not? I am glad I got this review out in time, since it was an absolute banger of an episode, and I hope to see you all here again next week!
Edit – It’s very late and I can’t seem to figure out the formatting around some of the demon lord images. I apologize that it looks a bit chaotic and I hope to get back to this post to fix it at a later date.
There are a lot of things that can make a show good. One Punch Man was elevated to new heights by Studio Madhouse’s fantastic job animating it. One Piece’s worldbuilding makes you believe there’s truly a pirate-infested ocean out there. Konosuba wouldn’t be half as good without it’s amazing comedic timing. But as a writer, there is one aspect of media that will always hold a special place in my heart. And that is the quality of the writing. A lot of shows have decent writing. This current anime season has shows like Seirei Gensouki, Remake our Life and Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan. All these shows have, in their own way, solid writing. But one show has been a step above the competition for a little while now, and with episode 8 it reached excellence in it’s writing. And that show is Kageki Shoujo!!
So I bet even the people you think are amazing are just as worried as you are.
For those of you who aren’t watching this show yet, let me give you a quick rundown of the plot. Watanabe Sarasa is a bubbly young girl that has just made it into Kouka Kageki High School. Kouka is an elite acting school that trains young women to get ready to act on the big stage. Sarasa and her classmates all work hard at becoming better actresses and each character goes through their own issues. What’s made the show stand out up until this point is how real it is willing to get. We’ve dealt with sexual assault, eating disorders and stalkers so far, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more of the darker parts of the acting world will come up in future episodes. But episode 8 didn’t focus on anything as severe as those. Instead, it focused on one of the side characters, Hoshino Kaoru, and her personal struggle with expectations and anxiety.
Up until now, Kaoru has been 90% sass.
We haven’t learned too much about Kaoru up until this point. She’s one of the few characters that hasn’t seen much screen time so far. The twins have shown their difference, Yamada has had her struggle with food, and Sarasa and Ai are sharing the spotlight as main characters so they’ve been much more developed. Kaoru (and Sawa, who I’m sure will get an episode at some point) are still a bit of a mystery at this point. That changes with this episode as we take a moment to travel back in time to before Kaoru made it into Kouka. Her grandmother was a famous Kouka actress and her mother was with the troupe as well. Kaoru always knew she wanted to do the same and we’re shown that she’s a hard worker. When it’s hot out, she’s walking with an umbrella to avoid getting suntanned. She has more muscles than I ever will and she’s practicing her entire summer vacation away. On one hand I want to reprimand her for working too hard, but on the other hand I can only be impressed with people who are this driven to follow their dreams. Living her life like this has made Kaoru a bit of an outcast. But Kaoru isn’t the only one who’s under the pressure to perform.
Kaoru wants to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps and Tsuji wants to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
To keep a long story short, the two get along well and develop an interest in each other romantically. The interactions they have are built up very well for a relationship spanning only one episode and it takes no effort to believe that these two like each other. Unfortunately Kaoru gets a realization towards the end of the episode. The pressure they feel is different. And Tsuji’s moment of weakness, so to speak, scares Kaoru greatly. She immediately runs away from the situation. It looks like she pushes him away out of a sense of dislike of his line of thinking, but I don’t think that’s fully it. Tsuji wavers and thinks for a moment if being compared to his brother and becoming as good at baseball is really what he wants for himself. Kaoru doesn’t waver. But the thought of giving up has surely crossed her mind at some point, seeing as this is her fourth and final attempt. Even her grandmother told her that she was free to choose another career path if she wished. So now Kaoru recognizes the legitimacy of Tsuji’s wavering and it makes her very anxious. So anxious that she would immediately push the boy away, out of fear for having to confront the option of giving up.
There’s no shame in wavering, or even giving up. But there can be a lot of anxiety when it comes to this. I remember when I had a time in my life where I stopped writing. Initially it wasn’t a big deal, it was just a break, but after a while I realized I wasn’t progressing my dream in any way and it caused me serious anxiety. I remember crying and telling myself that I might not have it in me after all. It devastated me. Seeing Kaoru burst into tears after having a similar realization hit me very deeply, and I couldn’t help but let out a few tears myself.
I am struggling to put into words how deeply I relate to this sentiment. I still have chills.
I was worried the show was going to leave us hanging and the ending to Kaoru’s backstory wasn’t going to be satisfying. She chose her dream over the wavering Tsuji, and although I do feel a bit bad for the guy, it ended up working out alright in the end. Not every relationship is meant to last, or even to start properly at all. Sometimes meeting someone and then parting ways after a little while will be enough for that someone to have a profound effect on your life. It’s those people that you meet and never forget that make you who you are, that drive you to strive to be the best you can be. And fortunately, Tsuji hasn’t forgotten about Kaoru and their arc gets resolved in an extremely satisfying manner.
A letter to a love lost but not forgotten.
If there is a particular note I want to end this on, it’s that we all have our anxieties. Some of us might be more anxious than others, or perhaps anxious more often. Other people’s anxieties might seem small and unimportant to us, but they mean the world to the people facing them. And every day we wake up, face our anxieties, and push on towards our dreams. It’s okay to struggle, it’s okay to waver and if something is too far out of reach, there is no shame in giving up. We can’t always reach our goals, but what we can do is face our anxieties head-on and give it our absolute all to show them what we’ve got. Your hopes and dreams and anxieties are your own experiences. And your experiences are an invaluable part of who you will one day become. Never forget that.
Maybe I’ll even tell you that I was in love with you.
It’s summer everyone! How are you celebrating this lovely time of year where the weather is great and everything is fine? At least that’s what I would be asking if the world wasn’t still on fire. The Delta variant is scary and the weather has been a weird disaster with flooding in the south of the country and humidity that makes me lose the will to do anything. Luckily the anime season is doing well, which somewhat makes up for it. Today I want to highlight five shows that I think everyone should be watching this season. I will not include sequels like Dragon Maid or Tensura, nor will I include left-over shows like Eden’s Zero and Shaman King. I’m also trying to keep the selection a little bit diverse, so I’m not recommending you four different Isekai shows. With that out of the way, let’s get right to entry number 1.
1: Seirei Gensouki
Although I said I wouldn’t include multiple Isekai shows, I am including this one. In an almost comedic twist, our protagonist, Haruto Amakawa, is riding a bus, so he won’t get Isekaied by it. Pretty clever right? Well, not really, since a train slams into the bus, presumably killing everyone in the vehicle. If it wasn’t so overdone it would have been a shocking scene. He now wakes up as Rio, a small boy in the slums of the capital city. What’s interesting is that although he gets the memories from his life on earth, he seems to feel a lot more strongly about his life in the new world, where he spent seven years as Rio. His main goal so far seems to be Rio’s goal in life, and not Haruto’s. If this was the only thing interesting about this show, I’d write it off as a generic isekai and call it a day, but there are already multiple cases of people who came from earth. The opening song gives it away as well, but there looks to be more afoot. Episode 5, which is the last one I’ve seen as of writing this, even introduced a plot point that could be very fun to explore. If you’re looking for a good Isekai to watch, I think this one is the better one airing this season.
2: Uramichi Oniisan
Have you ever felt like life isn’t going quite right? Have you ever felt like your job is crushing your soul? Do you ever wonder how you got to this point in life? So has Uramichi, the host of the kids television show Together with Maman. This show follows the titular Uramichi, who’s character is massively improved by the amazing voice work of Hiroshi Kamiya (Trafalgar Law in One Piece, Yato in Noragami, Izaya in Durarara, Araragi in Monogatari and many more). Watch as he slowly loses his mind while trying to keep it together. Uramichi Oniisan is funny in how painfully relatable it is sometimes, and it shows characters that feel very real. It’s not a show I could binge watch for a very long time, but for a weekly dose of cynicism it is perfect.
3: Peach Boy Riverside
I won’t lie, this show confuses me a little bit. It seems to be making a point that I’m not getting. Sally, the princess of the Kingdom of Aldraic, follows a young man called Mikoto after he saves her kingdom. Mikoto is also known as Momotaro, a brutal ogre-slayer. After witnessing his violent displays, she still decides to travel. What confuses me about this show is how abrupt it seems to jump from one story element to the next. There’s a time jump here and there, and cities are casually wiped off of the map. Beyond all that seems to be a subplot with an immortal rabbit woman, an ogre turned human and Sally’s power, which seems to be similar to that of Mikoto. Confusing as it all is, I do find myself enjoying this show every week, and that’s why it’s on this list. It also wins the medal for the most awkwardly placed fanservice, which is not really a compliment, but not everything has to be.
4: Bokutachi no Remake
RE:Life is back and this time it isn’t sponsored by a social media platform. Well, that’s not quite what’s happening here, but the concept is similar. Our main character is not in the happiest place in life, and even though he’s definitely someone who puts in the effort, it has so far not paid off in life. After his recent job was cut he came back home to wallow in his sadness. There he suddenly reverts to 10 years back in time, and decides to go to art school after all. He then meets several of his favorite artists, before they even became famous artists, and together they live their life through school. The goal? To follow your dreams and be successful this time. He also meets his old boss, and I’m willing to bet good money that she’s also gone back in time with him. The characters are very likeable in this show, and if you need a reason to watch this show beyond that, Shinoaki, my favorite character, is voiced by the wonderful Aoi Koga (known for Kaguya in Kaguya-sama) and is an absolute joy to listen to.
5: Kageki Shoujo!!
Although I wrote this list in no particular order, I wanted to end with my absolute favorite show of this season so far, and a strong candidate for anime of the year. Early on people likened this show to Revue Starlight, a show in the same genre that aired a few years ago. I quite enjoyed that show, but it wasn’t nearly as well-written as Kageki Shoujo has been so far. This show is quite brutal in its depiction of an elitist drama school. This is a ruthless world these people are getting into and the teachers reflect that. And they do so in a realistic way, and not in a “look at how evil these teachers are.” You even get some insight into their reasoning and it makes sense. Sort of. I will give a fair content warning, this show handles some pretty touchy subjects like sexual assault, PTSD and eating disorders. And that’s only 5 episodes in, so this could definitely get worse. Sarasa is an absolute joy as a main character and if you’re not rooting for her success 2 minutes after introduction then I don’t think we can be friends. Definitely check this one out if you like drama as much as I do. And I think that’s all for this list. There are definitely a lot more shows I’m watching this season, and not everything can make the list. Is there any show you think is really good and should be on this list? Let me know which show and why. And as always, thank you so much for reading!
So as most of you will have noticed, I forgot to write a review next week. I even posted on twitter that it would be there a day later, and then I ended up completely forgetting about it. In my defense, I had a party and I had planned to play Dungeons & Dragons with some uni friends, so I hope you can forgive me. To make up for it, today’s review will cover a quick recap of what happened last week. I was also going to make this review longer, but after watching the episode I figured you guys aren’t looking for another wall of text about the same extended meeting.
Manga is still important. Can I just say that I love everyone’s outfit here.
Intrigue continued as Ramiris finally got to her warning. Clayman is trying to start a war by blaming Demon Lord Carrion and Demon Lord Rimuru for killing Myuran. Miuran? Mjurran? I’ve seen several translations in the subs, but I’ll be going with Myuran for the time being. Unbeknownst to him, Myuran is far from dead. Having said that, it’s just an excuse to slaughter the people in Eurazania, which Rimuru realizes too late, as they all assumed Tempest would be his target. Carrion is trying to ascend to True Demon Lord by doing something similar to what Rimuru did with the Falmuth people, if I understand correctly. This is the gist of what you missed last week, but I assume most of you reading this also watched the episode, and know this already. Moving on to this week’s episode:
You’re not wrong, but you’re also wrong.
We get a lot of dialogue from Raphael this episode and we’re once again reminded how terrifyingly powerful she is. WIthout her, Rimuru would just be a slime with some powerful friends, but her knowledge and ingenuity is ridiculous, it completely elevates Rimuru’s capabilities. This time around she teaches him a method to teleport entire armies across the world. I went through the reddit thread earlier to see what people were saying about Raphael, and one commenter said that Rimuru acknowledged in the light novel that Megiddo, his amazing but overpowered attack from last season, was probably easy enough to counter once his enemies learned about it. I’m hoping there’s restrictions in place for this mass teleport as well. I like my overpowered main characters, but there needs to be balance.
Oh dear.
Let’s move on to Walpurgis, shall we? This meeting between demon lords that is about to take place should be very interesting to watch. We’ve learned about several demon lords at this point, and Rimuru remarks that Leon Cromwell should be present. We could also learn more about Milim’s situation, and as a matter of fact, we get a little bit of insight into that later in this episode. The ones to look out for are Demon Lords Frey and Clayman, who seem to be on the same side with Milim, although why they are working together is unclear still. There’s also the vampire from a few episodes ago as well as the newly awakened blond lady working with Yuuki, who’s name I forget. We talk for a while as Rimuru decides on who goes where during this operation. Eventually they decide on him bringing Shion and Ranga, while sending Diablo off to Falmuth and leaving Veldora to guard town. I get the feeling that the author is planning to use Veldora as comic relief for a while, since he’s so powerful he would probably ruin the balance of the story if he showed up continuously. But I could be wrong on that.
Future Target, Leon CromwellWe meet these two forces of personality, working for Milim.
Yamza, one of Clayman’s strongest underlings is here with his army and they’ve been forced to take care of them. We learn thatt Hermes and Middray are not happy with this, and don’t believe Milim is doing this of her own free will. Yamza cuts off Hermes arm which gets quickly healed by Middray after Yamza is out of sight. I’m curious to see how strong these two are when they’re actually trying. They seem to be stronger than they’re letting on. Also, one of them is a melon, which is fun.
Same, where is she at?
After we finish at Milim’s camp Rimuru and Raphael get the idea to transport all the people in Eurazania to safety. The army isn’t the only thing they can transport, after all. They quickly go around and bring everyone to safety in Tempest, which is a smart idea. We are then introduced to the army, of which I will post several images below. Seeing scenes like these are always interesting to me, because I find that shonen anime struggle to kill off named characters, but don’t mind killing heaps of fodder. It always feels a bit dishonest to me when one named character dies and the entire army is in shock, but when Billy from Platoon 69 dies off screen no one bats an eyelid (looking at you, Naruto). We’ll see where this is headed. As much as Tensura is shaping to be one of my favorite shows in a long time, it’s not without its imperfections. Next week should be the confrontation that we’ve been preparing for for 5 episodes now, so that’s very exciting.
Eurazania’s forcesThe Goblin Riders, led by GobtaBenimaru and the ogres.The 4000 CGI Hobgoblins, who are probably going to end up as fodder.Geld and his high orcsGabiru’s squad tops it off, bringing the tolal army size to 20.000 soldiers.I actually like this, making the revived people like their own venegeful squad. I’m happy to see Gobzo alive and well!
And with that we have an overview of the entire army. I can’t wait for next week. Tensura has some very likeable characters, which I think is one of the points it really shines in. Ignoring the CGI troops which definitely look out of place, this episode got me excited as hell! I can’t wait, and I hope to see you all here next week!
It’s that time of the week again, and by that time of the week I mean I’m one day late please don’t fire me, I have children to feed. (I don’t). Moving on, we continue more or less where we left off last week. Ramiris showed up to tell them they were in trouble, and pretty much no one took her particularly seriously. Fuze points out that after seeing the return of Veldora, not much can shock him anymore. Ramiris brags about how strong she is and how she could probably take out Veldora in one punch. Rookie mistake, Ramiris.
And she’s out, cue opening theme.
There’s going to be a lot of lore-dumping and talking in this episode that isn’t particularly interesting to read about on a blog, so I’m going to keep this week’s post a bit shorter if I can. The episode is called Ramiris’ warning, but we start off by talking about the different countries and their alliances. To sum up what happens, they blame everything on Falmuth accidentally waking up Veldora, and Youm and Rimuru making a deal with Veldora to keep him from going on a rampage. Veldora is just vibing in the background, I love this dragon.
Manga are more fun than meetings.
This is where the alliance against Clayman really starts. With Rimuru and Tempest at its head, they hatch the plan to make Youm the new king of Falmuth. They’ll release the old king and basically extort him for so much money that he’ll refuse to pay. They’ll then start a propaganda campaign to get Youm’s popularity on the rise. Gazel tests Youm’s mettle and finds him good enough. In his own way.
Tsundere Youm. It’s not like I want to be king or anything, baka!
To make a long story short. Rimuru allies himself and Tempest with Dwargon, Eurazania and the beastfolk, the new kingdom of Falmuth under Youm’s reign. Fuze quickly signs Blumund up to join the party. After the amount of shock he recieved today it’s good of him that he’s still managing to do his job. Gobta falls asleep, should have borrowed some of Veldora’s manga. The last one to join the club is the Sorcerous Empire of Thallion. Elalude seems to be the more sane one here. But he seems like a good guy. He questions the other leaders but ends up joining as well. This is a big alliance we have going here.
It’s a valid question, he doesn’t know Rimuru’s a good guy.Thallion has joined the party!
Finally, we get a look behind the curtains at Clayman’s vacation home. I know he’s supposed to be an edgy villain, but man he really looks the part. The wine, the total disdain for other people, not to mention the mountaintop home that looks like an evil castle. Could this guy be any more clear about his alignment in life? I personally prepare villains who are more morally grey, or the kind that just vibes instead of being angsty all the time. But that isn’t Clayman. Milim is still on his payroll, but I wonder where her loyalties lie once Rimuru gets involved. The other clowns seem to look down upon him. It’s good to know that Miuran’s surviving went unnoticed. And Clayman is trying to use her death as an excuse to start a fight. Little does he know.
This is interesting, it insinuates that he’s being manipulated.
Clayman tells Laplace that that is ridiculous and that he only listens to Kazaream and the one he’s indebted to. I assume the latter is Yuuki? Laplace warns him to not take Milim lightly, and these two statements don’t sit well with Clayman. He’s quite arrogant and it shows. We roll credits and that’s the end of this week’s episode. We’re still building up towards the next arc, but that was to be expected with how action heavy the first cour was. There’s still a bunch of questions I hope to get answered this season. What is Diablo’s plan. Is he really just all aboard the Rimuru train, or is he looking for an opportunity? Why is Milim working with Clayman? They’ve been on good terms for a while, but why? There must be a reason. And lastly, what is the church going to do. They have the demon lord who’s like a vampire, and Hinata Sakaguchi, so they have some strong people on their side. I wonder if they’re the ones manipulating Clayman? I hope we learn more next week.
Physically present, mentally absent. Just like me most days.
Last week was a little bit of a slow week when it came to things happening. A part of it was just remembering what happened in the previous cour, and the introduction of Veldora to the main cast. Nearing the end the politics started with Gazel and Elalude showing up to talk to Rimuru about the current status quo. This week we jump straight into unfamiliar territory and are shown a building called The Inner Sanctum of the Holy Empire of Lubelius. Almost immediately the clown known as Laplace is thrown out of the building by who he claims to be a vampire. He then gets turned into more pieces than buggy the clown on a bad day. I have to admit I don’t remember much about the clown troupe and their motives except that it’s nothing good. If Tokyo Ghoul and Hunter X Hunter have taught me anything it’s that clowns are not to be trusted under any circumstance.After last week I looked up the opening Like Flames by MindaRyn on Spotify. It only got about 100.000 plays and is one of her more popular songs. From what I can find she’s originally a cover artist on Youtube? If I have that right then it’s cool that the anime employed someone like that for the theme song. It’s always great when newer artists get some recognition. And the song is great, so give it a listen on Spotify or Youtube as well!
Good Question Laplace. Is this the first time we hear about vampires existing in this universe?
After the opening ends we immediately hear a familiar voice. It’s the guild master right, that was in the big city? I can’t think of his name right now. He’s talking very casually to Laplace, I wonder what their relationship is. Yuuki Kagurazaka. So he’s working with the clowns? Or, as we’re about to find out, the clowns are more or less working for him. The Clowns’ boss’ soul was inside the Grandmaster (not Guild Master like I thought) and has now been transferred to a Homunculus created in Thalion. We’ve heard this name last week, it’s where Eren and her father are from. The former Demon Lord Kazaream is now Kagali, the office worker? Either way, it looks like the people in this room are going to pose a problem to Rimuru soon enough from the way the conversation is flowing. More and more demon lords are entering the fray.
Kagali, leader of the Moderate Harlequin Alliance
So to put all of this into perspective, Laplace, as well as Tear, Footman and Clayman are all part of this alliance and look to be it’s top gunners. Not to forget about Yuuki, who seems to be either on the same level as Kagali or even higher up. We also find out who slighted them. Leon Cromwell. He’s the one that summoned Shizu and the children, is he not? I really should rewatch the first season one of these days, it’s been a while. Or, I could wait for the first volume of the light novel to arrive. It was very hard to get a hold of one here in the Netherlands. It was sold out often on the websites I tend to use, but the other day I found one available so I ordered it immediately, ignoring the fact that I’m very, very broke right now. Back to the story at hand, I think this also explains why Clayman was wearing a mask in the opening theme. I always though he employed the clowns, but it seems like they might be more on the same level than it initially seemed. I wonder how strong that makes these clowns. Laplace could have their body sliced into pieces and return as if nothing was wrong, so they have at least some power. It looks like for the time being they want to find dirt on the Holy Western Church. That’s the organization that Sakaguchi Hinata works for, the powerful lady who almost killed Rimuru last season.
This doesn’t sound good. But this guy also looks very familiar.
It turns out both this guy and Kagali are involved in creating the majority vote. It’s thanks to them that big actions require a vote amongst demon lords. But it only requires three votes, which dates back to the time of when there were only seven demon lords. There are a lot more now, as far as we’re aware. It looks like the clowns and Yuuki are allied to Demon Lord Milim and Demon Lord Frey, as well as the aforementioned Clayman. This conversation, and the fact that Milim attacked the beast nation last season makes me wonder if this conversation we’re seeing here actually happened a little while back and is the reason Milim attacked them. If not then I’m curious if Milim did something like that of her own accord instead, since although it’s been made very clear how dangerous she is, she also still seems like a lovely person at her core. We’ll see as the season progresses I suppose.
not the socially awkward Diablo from Isekai Maou
Shuna introduces everyone at the meeting of the important people and monsters. Veldora casually walks up and things are about to get wild. “Is this another one of your subordinates?”
Oh how wrong you are Gazel. The name Veldora terrifies everyone at the meeting, and rightfully so. He’s too handsome to be left alive! Lucky for all the rulers, Veldora is more interested in his manga than in harming anyone in the vicinity. I know many anime and manga try to have attractive characters, but I always find that Tensura absolutely nails this. Everyone looks interesting and attractive. Rimuru shares his backstory with the rest of his adventuring party and tells the two rulers how Veldora was revived. They are, understandably, not happy about the evil dragon being reborn. Luckily they end up choosing friendship, and Rimuru now has two great allies. To be fair, Gazel was already on friendly terms, but this could have gone south.
Rimuru, buddy, I don’t think it’s praise.
The meeting continues and Rimuru recounts his runin with Sakaguchi Hinata, who is one scary holy lady. It’s too bad that their fight is mostly based around a misunderstanding. And it makes sense that the other people at the meeting know her as someone kind who helps other people. So her attacking Rimuru like that is purely based on some false information she was fed by a certain someone. Rimuru figures it out almost immediately, but without the scene earlier in the episode I would not have realized that Yuuki was behind it. It’s interesting to try and figure out what his motives are, since he seems so casual about everything. The scariest villains are the ones that seem unassuming, aren’t they? It’s a good thing we have a whole haul of villains here, and they’re all jumping the line to try and get a chance at fighting Hinata. They don’t know what they’d be in for, but I like their guts.
A trio of over confident monsters right here.Sure buddy, we believe you. Go back to your manga.
As Rimuru announces, this concludes the debate on Hinata and the church. This is where he mentions the anonymous tip from earlier. Yuuki is the only one who knows he killed Shizu that has a chance of betraying him. Both Rimuru and Raphael seemed to have gotten to the same conclusion. I still wonder if he ends up being a villain or an ally in a sense. These kinds of people are dangerous regardless.
Bonk!
Ramiris shows up near the end to predict Tempest’s doom. Didn’t we just get through this last season? I’m sure Rimuru will figure out a way to deal with this, he’s calm and collected like that.
Maybe not that calm and collected
Another great episode, adding a lot of mystery to the entire situation. It’s still a bit strange to switch from last season’s Tensura Nikki back to the more storydriven main storyline. It’s great though, because I do like that things seem to be moving ahead fast. I’m curious what Yuuki’s motives are, which side Hinata will eventually end up on, although I think she’ll be defeated by Rimuru and then join him after he manages to explain himself. Next episode is called Ramiris’ warning, which admittedly tells us very little about what will actually happen, but I can’t wait. Let me know in the comments what you thought of this week’s episode, and if you think you know what Yuuki’s motivations are. (Obviously no spoilers if you know from the source material)
Last season I considered covering the anime Tensura Nikki on a weekly basis. I ended up deciding against it, since it’s a slice of life anime and I figured there wouldn’t be a ton to talk about. In hindsight I think there was more content than I expected, but there’s no use wondering what could have been. Now that Tensura Nikki has ended, and the second cour of the main Tensura series has started up I want to visit this show weekly. You can expect a review of Tensura Nikki tomorrow*, and if you want to hear some of my opinions about the first cour of Tensura please have a look at my review of one of the episodes, which is when my opinion of the show went from really good to top tier. Are you excited to watch this episode? Because I sure am! Let’s get to it!
Look at this happy ball of energy
We start off right where the previous cour ended off, with the revival of Veldora in humanoid form. In case we forgot, Rimuru ascended to the demon lord last cour and found out how to remove the barrier that was keeping the dragon locked up. I was thinking what would happen when he returned, but it’s good to see that the nerdy awkward dragon is just as wild a personality in this form. I can’t wait to see what is going to happen with them. Also, Rimuru has gotten a new ultimate skill called Veldora, as well as Uriel. Four ultimate skills has to be cheating, doesn’t it? But enough about that, we get to the opening.
Women in a suit look so good ❤
I find that walking animations are often hit or miss in opening sequences like these. I can’t say the ones in this opening look particularly good. Having said that, the crew in their new drip look absolutely fire. It’s followed by some characters that I don’t recognize, which is very exciting. We see Souei fighting what looks to be an undead dragon, and Shion is fighting with someone we only see in a reflection of her eye. The creepy clown trio is still there and even Hinata Sakaguchi is showing up in this opening. Finally, Rimuru is walking towards glowing red magic. That can’t be good, can it? The song itself sounds fine, I think I’ll have to hear it a couple more times to see if it really gets me excited to watch the show, but so far it didn’t impress too much.
Quick note: The opening is already growing on me as I’m finishing up this post the next day
This is Episode 37: The Visitors. Pretty standard title, but has it been 36 episodes already? I guess that adds up, I should go back and watch the earlier episodes again, for science. Would be fun to do a review about them as well, leave a comment down below if that’s something you’d be interested in. Veldora is so extra and I love it. Is he going Super Saiyan? Can they do that without breaking copyright laws? Maybe he read one too many manga volumes in Rimuru’s memory. Either way, back to town we go and to introduce Veldora to the gang. I can’t imagine them being too surprised to see the ancient dragon of the forest in the flesh. Treyni is the first one to recognize him and welcome him back. Man, I can’t get over what a character he is, it’s amazing. This show just gets better and better.
He’s such a kind Tsundere Dragon overlord
Now then, it’s time for a toast. We did finish a pretty harrowing arc right before the end of the first cour, after all. With everyone being safe and alive again, it does feel nice to be back here. I’m not a huge fan of characters dying only to be revived again. Here’s a little spoiler for my own stories that I’m writing, I will only use this very, very sparsely, and generally in such a way that there’s either a heavy cost involved, or strong hints ahead of time. I digress. I think the way Tensura handled reviving people was fine. Rimuru quite literally and metaphorically had to sacrifice his humanity. Slimanity? Sliminess? You know what I mean right? He killed an entire army of humans on his own to ascend to something greater. I hope there are big repercussions for doing so, and it’s not just a powerboost. If it is a powerboost, he’s going to need it to survive Shion’s cooking. I can’t believe she got a master chef skill. Gordon Ramsay is shedding a tear of pride right now.
A little infidelity is fine, apparently.
I don’t trust Diablo. I think most people would agree with me that he’s shady. I really hope he’s just a power hungry demon working for someone he considers to be powerful enough to work under. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he backstabs the gang at some point. Also, Gabiru got a promotion. No one is impressed by the fact that Rimuru is a Demon Lord now, to Rimuru’s own surprise. And here we get the first mention of, what I assume to be, the main villain of this part of the story: Clayman. He’s been a thorn in their side for a little while now, so it’s about time they go on the offense. I like that there’s a very clear map hanging around in the meeting room as well. I don’t remember who lives where in this continent though, so I should brush up on my knowledge. Fuze shows up a little bit late to the party. At least he’s very committed to going down to the ship. You’ve got to respect that. Poor Fuze, ready to die for the cause only to find out that Rimuru singlehandedly wiped out an entire kingdom’s army. And then Dwargon even shows up!
It’s Thorin Oakenshield! I mean Gazel Dwargo.
I like that the saint, now turned in to Raphael, seems to have more of a personality than before. I hope this ends up turning into something important later on in the story. She’s got sass for sure, which I like. And who are these new people showing up? Apparently a homunculus from the Sorcerous Dynasty of Thalion. Is this the first time we’re hearing about this place? I certainly don’t remember hearing of it before today. They seem shady. And about a second later the guy snaps at Rimuru. Makes me wonder who his daughter is. I bet it’s Eren, but I could be wrong.
Nice landing 10/10
There we go, I couldn’t think of another blonde girl that would really fit in this place. Luckily it was just a misunderstanding. It’s good to see that Elalude, Eren’s father, is very powerful. It makes me wonder about Eren’s potential. He’s the Archduke of Thalion, so he’s definitely important. Is this where Rimuru is about to forge some big alliances? Next episode we get to see a big meeting with all these people who just showed up as well as Rimuru’s cast. Is it me or was Veldora strangely absent for the second half of this episode? I wonder if that was a coincidence, since meetings don’t seem to be his speed, or if he was already doing something.
Look at our ominous little slime, red eyes have never not been cool.
The ending sounds great immediately. It’s nostalgic with a hint of foreshadowing. Rimuru looks intimidating with those red eyes. With the first episode now behind us, I’m ever more excited for the rest of the season than I already was. How about you, what did you think about the start of this season? Please leave a comment and a like and I hope to see you here again next week for the next episode!
*As usual I spoke too soon, I need more time to go indepth on my review of Tensura Nikki. It’ll be there in the near future though!
This volume’s cover art, are they looking at the train coming up?
I know that it’s been a little while since we last did one of these, but I finally got the chance to sit down and read volume 7 of The Ancient Magus Bride. In the meantime I did manage to catch up on some other series I was a little bit behind on, namely Made in Abyss and Eden’s Zero, so I didn’t spend the past few weeks without any reading, but this was put to the side for a little while. Now then, let’s get to it.
Let’s start with the cover. I believe I’ve talked about every cover so far, so let’s keep that consistency going shall we? We see the gang at a train station. Is this hinting at them leaving for somewhere? There’s also a rabbit with goggles, so that’s neat. On the back we see Renfred, Alice and Cartaphilus. I guess they’ll be relevant again this volume. Elias is still having a tantrum and hurting Chise while doing so. Luckily for Chise, the spirit of winter helps her out a little bit and together with her and Ruth they manage to calm down Elias. I love how a lot of the spirits have a selfish side to them. I wonder if the spirit would have helped if not for the gifts given. The chapter then ends with Cartaphilus stealing two dragons. This can’t be good.
After Chise brings a tired Elias home she sings him a lullaby before he goes to sleep. Unfortunately, Chise, as she should realize by now, is magic. So she accidentally laces the lullaby with magic, putting Elias to sleep for a long time. She’s now going to talk to Angie to see if she can help her fix this. Luckily Angie has some ideas and goes to work while Chise catches up with Angie’s husband, David. He gives us the perspective from a mortal, who will die long before his wife and daughter. He tells us he thinks it’ll be lonely, and I agree. If you want to date someone who will die long before you, that’s something you’d have to seriously consider and steel yourself for. David tells Chise that they both should avoid dying early, and I agree with the sentiment. Chise then hurries back to wake up Elias.
The next scene has Renfred and some of his alchemist friends having some drinks when they’re informed by Merituuli, Lindel’s familiar, that there is trouble. We then jump back to Cartaphilus being in pain. We then jump back to Chise waking up inside a dream and meeting Cartaphilus. There’s a lot happening here, but Cartaphilus insinuates that Chise has died. They talk for a little bit and he gets continuously more and more confused by his lack of memory. He then reveals his name is Josef and asks Chise to save him, before shunting her out of his dream. When she wakes up she learns that it’s been two days and trouble is afoot. All of the alchemists from before, Renfred, Alice, Adolf and Torrey are all at their house. This can’t be good. When they ask for help, Elias initially refuses, and he’s right. Chise’s condition isn’t good and it’s not their responsibility. But Chise stands up for herself, showing even more character growth and tells him that he didn’t worry about that before, and now he suddenly does. Thus Elias capitulates and they help the alchemists.
Chise makes a quick phone call and finds out that one of the dragons is sold at the auction soon. They all gather up and go to the auction, where Chise catches up with the man who helped sell her. That’s a weird sentence to write. Regardless, Cartaphilus or Josef used a proxy, so they have no eyes on him, but there is one dragon here, so that’s good news. Renfred and Elias talk about Chise, and how Elias is dealing with the invites to the college. It’s been hinted at for a while that that is where the story might go, Chise visiting the college, but Elias is not a fan. We’ll see what comes from it in the long haul thought. Then the main narrative arc of the volume goes into full drive with the auction. Chise is approached by a mysterious woman who wants to help her if she provides a liter of dragon blood. That doesn’t seem like a terrible deal to me, but what do I know. As the auction goes on, the dragon ends up going berserk, getting out of it’s bind. In a desperate attempt to fix the situation, Elias and Chise get on the back of the poor dragon, who is confused and in pain. Elias gets thrown off violently and Chise decides to use her full power to calm the dragon down. The last panel shows her in dire straits.
All in all this was once again a very good volume, although it felt almost like a novel at times. There was a lot of exposition, and one of the beauties of manga is how it can sometimes convey a lot of information without using a lot of words. I’m curious to see how Chise will get out of this predicament as her arm seemed to have grown into something weird at the end. Seeing as there’s at least 8 more volumes to go I doubt it’ll be too life threatening. But what did you all think of this volume? Are you still reading along, or have you read way ahead because of my slow pace? Let me know in the comments down below, and leave a like if you want to see more of this kind of content!
