In today’s episode we finally learn a little bit more about Maribel and her family. I had my suspicions about her – being so powerful at such a young child – but she is indeed someone who has reincarnated from another world, just like Rimuru, Yuuki, Masayuuki, Shizu, Hinata and all the others we’ve encountered so far. I kind of like that so many people get transported or reincarnated here, it makes the fact that Rimuru is beyond overpowered a little less boring, because there are other forces at work in this world as well. I am going to call this super early, but Leon is also someone from the modern world and whatever it is he is trying to do has something to do with bringing someone else – perhaps a lover – into the world of Tensura. I’m probably very wrong about this, but sometimes it’s fun to throw out crackpot theories.
Interestingly enough, it doesn’t seem like Maribel has used her powers on her grandfather. Either that, or she has and he is unaware somehow, but I find that doubtful.
Either way, we learn that Maribel was a powerful noblewoman in Europe in her previous life who had it all and died of old age, happy and rich. Due to how she was in her previous life, she’s become the epitome of greed in her new life, quickly using her newfound powers to control people by making use of their inherent greed. She then teams up with her grandfather – who is apparently over a millennium old? – and they want to create a world where all humans are equal but under the rule of the Rozzo family. And it probably shouldn’t be lost on us that it said humans instead of people, and if my Japanese is right they also used the word for “humanity” here, which very clearly excludes a whole group of people that this story happens to be centered around. After this lengthy introduction, the opening theme plays.
We’re looking a lot more like a proper team of monsters here.
We return to the dungeon and the newly formed Avatar Team which is of course the avatars of Ramiris, Milim, Veldora and Rimuru. As we saw at the end of last week’s episode, they are not very good at working with their avatars yet. They need to learn to work as a team, but first they’re going to Kurobe to get some gear. They then go on a training arc on the first few floors of the dungeon and weak avatars or not, it feels a bit unfair to have three demon lords and the storm dragon gang up on a bunch of beginners in the dungeon that they themselves are charging money to enter. With team Green Fury about to enter the 50th floor, Rimuru and friends need to be ready at a moment’s notice. And by fully cheating, they manage to defeat team Green Fury. Are we the bad guys?
The schemer in chief hard at work.
So we move back to the Rozzo’s and it’s now Maribel and Yuuki – the sponsors of team Green Fury – talking about how to take out Rimuru. I suddenly feel a lot less bad about how team Green Fury was treated in Tempest, knowing who’s backing them. We talked about the opening already in the first post and how I thought Maribel might be possessing Yuuki, but at this point I’m not certain that’s true. There was a glow to his eyes though and although the wet nurse we saw with Maribel earlier this episode had that glow too, according to her grandfather both of Maribel’s parents were also taken by her power, but they didn’t have the glow in their eyes. Perhaps Yuuki is already under her control and working with her for that reason, but she hasn’t unleashed a more full control over him because there has been no need? I’m probably getting ahead of myself again.
I am not buying it one bit, Yuuki is still in control.
This is one of the big downsides – or upsides depending on how you look at it – of writing large parts of this post while watching the episode for the first time. Of course I will regularly go back and adjust things when I’m wrong or when there’s a change in how certain information is presented, but it also turns into me explaining a power right before the show explains it. Here we learn that Maribel’s power does indeed have two effects. She can basically charm a person into working with her, or force her will upon them. The reason she’s taking her time with Yuuki and hasn’t immediately cast her magic on Rimuru is because if someone strong catches on to the power, they can negate it. And of course she’s fully gotten Yuuki under her control. I somehow doubt it’s that easy, and I think this is just Yuuki playing pretend with a back-up plan so he can fight Rimuru and then claim he had no choice later on. Finally, before we end the episode, the nobleman at the end of season 3 – the one that tried to get Rimuru indebted – gets assassinated by Maribel’s agents before Souei can get to him. Not only that, Souei couldn’t spot the assassin which makes them quite the threat. With that we are now three episodes in and things are already speeding up. A friendly reminder that with 5 cours, we still have over 50 episodes to go before we’re at the end of what’s been promised, so lots of things could still happen. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all here again next week!
This has nothing to do with the episode, but I found this image apt to celebrate that I have the next two weeks off AND that my contract at work was renewed for another year. That second one was pretty certain already, but confirmation is nice.
Now that we’ve had two longer breaks from the One Piece anime, I’ve really started to appreciate how nice it was to have the same show airing almost every single week for about half my life. Let’s not think about that too much, I think I just took damage to my life points from realizing how old that makes me. With opening 29 we enter the Elbaph arc in all its glory and for those of us reading the manga, there are a ton of little easter eggs throughout this episode so please beware that you do not read this post if you aren’t up to date on the manga. You have been warned. Seriously, I’m talking about everything we see in the manga, so do not read this!
The harley still looks a little bit vague here, but if you zoom in and enhance you can see what it’s all about.
We open on Luffy’s Elbaph outfit and immediately jump into a lovely shot of the Harley at the bottom of Yggdrasil. The prophetic wall paintings were a huge deal in the manga and have resulted in tons of speculation about what the final arc of this show might look like. With Egghead being the way it is, we’re almost certainly going to learn that the void century was a time of technological prosperity the world hasn’t seen again since then. Speaking of the void century, the shot of the Harley is interrupted by a shot of Joyboy standing next to Emet before we’re shown the important people that traveled the world before Luffy donned the Straw Hat that has become a vital symbol of freedom throughout the world.
I love this shot in particular, having a voice to go with Emet’s huge robotic frame has really upped my love for the character.
With the weapons reflecting the sun and the sky we’re reminded that Dory and Broggy only returned to Elbaph to pick up some new weapons. These two – I love them to death – are about as stubborn and dumb as you can be. After a hundred years of fighting for a cause that they long forgot, they broke their weapons, the world is in turmoil and all they can think about is returning to Elbaph, grab some new weapons and get right back at it for another century. Men, am I right? While the Sunny is parked nice and safe on land, we see three tiny dolls in Rodo’s room where the clothes he’s made for Luffy, Nami and Usopp are sitting, ready to be put on his livedolls. We’re followed by a shot of the underworld that could almost be mistaken as a bunch of mountains, but instead shows us the chains that bind Loki, prince of Elbaph and the next member of the Straw Hat pirates. Maybe.
Rodo’s livedolls, what a creep.
Luffy marvels at the bar that Shanks frequents, where the giants often drink with any visitors they have, although I can’t imagine they have too many in this part of the world. We’re then shown a shot of the New Giant Pirates, who of course are part of the Straw Hat Grand Fleet, but first we see them as children, in a very pencil-drawn style. Of course this is to show off St. Killingham’s ability to turn nightmares into monsters, but here we see the young children looking happy, perhaps portraying a more kind dream than the ones we see throughout the arc. We’re then shown what they look like now, with their captain Hajrudin at the center.
Some serious cottagecore going here.
From here we go quickly so stay with me. Harjudin leaves our shot and is replaced by his brother, Loki, who looks away. We’re then shown the library and the children happily studying at it, as well as a quick shot of Chief Jarul with the weapon stuck in his helmet. Next up is the abandoned Elbaph Castle where disaster struck when Harald gave control over to Imu, not quite understanding what he was doing and dooming the nation of Elbaph to subservience. At least that would have happened if a certain someone didn’t prevent tragedy.
I love them.
We see some shorts of the Straw hats in their Elbaph gear and yes that’s right, she’s there. Nico Robin with her old haircut. Ever since we left Punk Hazard behind, I don’t think the crew’s outfits have missed at all, but I really like their Elbaph garb. Franky’s long beard really suits him, Usopp and Luffy with viking helmets look great and as an official member of the Nico Robin fanclub, seeing her with her old bangs, showing them off to her old friend, is such a sight for sore eyes. Speaking of sights for sore eyes, here comes the sun and with that I mean Nika, the sun god. We see him in a book before the watchful eye of Imu, alongside the Holy Knights that appear during this arc, looks at us.
Our brave little warrior. Rayleigh was the only one of the big three on Roger’s crew to be smart enough to not have any kids. Then again, being the mountain eater probably isn’t a bad deal either.
Here we move into much darker shots although if you haven’t read the manga yet, their meaning might be lost. We see the children drawing their biggest fears, which of course get turned into reality by St. Killingham’s powers. We see the thorns that St. Sommers employs as well as the arrows that St. Gunko uses. All of these are combined to force the children to walk off the cliff and into the hands of the world government all while Collun puts on a brave face. Meanwhile Loki rages at the world for treating him unfairly and for what they did to his mother while Hajrudin – presumably – rages at the fate that put him against his brother for all these years. Hajrudin’s had a rough life, especially with being turned into a toy at Dressrosa, but with the big reveals throughout Elbaph it seems like he might finally get into a better place. I also don’t really think Loki will join Luffy’s crew directly, he’ll probably join up with Hajrudin’s crew.
Okay but can we just remember that he was supposed to marry Lola at one point? The woman that’s about as tall as I am? Yeah.
Finally, we end with a montage of shots that don’t hold a ton of meaning from what I can see but are mostly there to show us all of the fun characters we’ll get to meet throughout this arc. We see a quick shot of Gunko and fake shanks – I mean Shamrock – as they’re on their way to deal with Loki, before we’re shown all of the Straw Hats, the New Giant Pirates as well as the two captains of the old Giant Pirates. Finally, we’re ending on a shot of Luffy transforming into his form where he is the most free, while the sun shines brightly upon him. * symbolism *
Look at our boi!
With everything we’ve discussed so far, I think it’s safe to say that after the last few openings, Toei studio is continuing to cook with this one. It’s not going to be my all time favorite, nor will it be a top five entry, but having listened to the song a lot on repeat over the past week, I do think it’ll be one to remember. At least it’s a lot more memorable than a lot of the openings in the 10s which are all serviceable, but some of them I cannot tell apart. AiNA’s husky voice tickles my ears just right – you might recognize her from the latest Dandadan opening – and the song itself is a fun tune that builds up well then crashes into you with all the force of the pirate crew that will free the world from 800 years of oppression. Thanks for reading!
I really appreciate that Masayuki seems to be a decent guy and relatively appreciative of the fact that he did not earn any of his fame directly, because I feel like his character would be unbearable if he had even the slightest hint of arrogance to him. Either way, with the help of his special skill and dumb luck he manages to improve his reputation even more which in turn helps out the success of the dungeon greatly. Now that a second team is on its way to clearing the early floors of the dungeon rapidly and there is a hostel for people to relax at during their trip to the dungeon, it has become much more appealing and this in turn has resulted in more trust in the city as a whole.
The people have already starting hanging up fan art of their Oshi everywhere throughout town.
The bottom floor of the labyrinth is dedicated to Rimuru’s research facilities where Gabiru, Vesta, Ramiris and Rimuru himself are all working on different projects. The vessel that Rimuru is creating for Diablo’s assistant – surely that’ll not summon another insane demon – looks different from the more fleshy things we saw in these tubes during the intro song, so I’m curious what that is all about. We don’t get to find out yet though, as Rimuru’s hyperfixation is interrupted by the fact that team Green Fury is about to clear floor 30 of the dungeon. Still far away from the deeper levels, this team is employing every trick they can think of by abusing the different mechanics that Rimuru has put in place. Can’t help but respect the hustle.
Outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned.
There is a pretty big problem with their rapid success, and it’s not the fact that they are using cheap tricks. The problem is that the lower floors – past floor 50 – are currently not very usable. The reason for this? Well one of the crusaders said “bet you can’t beat them” to Hinata and that went over about as well as you’d expect. At least when she got down all the way to Veldora, she ended up losing to the Storm Dragon. And to add to the trolling, Rimuru is not going to give her any payment. Unfortunately it is up to Mjollmire to bring her the bad news. Best of luck to the poor guy. Now Rimuru has to go down and fix each boss floor. Adalmann’s faith in Rimuru is restored and he’s given a cool boss room to sit in and look menacing from.
My guy’s pogging.Now this is what a Dungeon Boss is supposed to look like.
In the meantime, both Gobta and Ranga have somehow survived Milim’s training. Besides serving as a fun bit of comedy relief it also shows just how much talent the duo has. We now see the fruits of Rimuru’s labor and they’re pretty damn crazy. He’s managed to create a set of magical items that allows you to create an avatar that is to your liking and then use the other half to possess it. Ramiris chooses the form of a golem, similar to the one that was just broken by Hinata, while Veldora chooses a simple skeleton. Finally, Milim chooses to be a pink slime, as she was told she could be whatever she wants to be, she didn’t go for something all powerful. I’m not going to lie, I thought she was going to imagine her lost baby dragon for a second, but I’m glad we didn’t get that sad, that quickly. Unfortunately nothing in life is easy, and the foursome of avatar fighters is totally not used to their new bodies yet, getting defeated by the first group of rookie adventurers that come across their path. Imagine finding out you just defeated three demon lords and the storm dragon all before second breakfast. Might be best not to tell them, to save some face.
It’s honestly surprising they’re still alive and conscious.
It looks like the series continues to casually stroll along without rushing into anything, and next week we’ll see more of these avatar fighting shenanigans. As you’re well aware if you’ve read my thoughts on previous seasons, I am all for this slow pace. Some of my all time favorite scenes in One Piece are when they are just exploring the different rooms on their new ship, or having fun in town without any real stakes. There’s something really soothing about watching the downtime that characters have with each other and it also builds much more of a bond between the viewer and the characters as they feel much more rounded when they suddenly do end up getting into high stakes situations. It makes for more immersive worldbuilding and as much as I love stories with deep meaning and complex moral conundrums, I do like a bit of good escapism too. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you all here again next week!
Remember how last week I said these were probably spirits working with Ramiris? Turns out I was completely wrong and they’re the four avatars of Rimuru and his friends
We open on a quick recap of the founding ceremony of the Jura Tempest federation which we watched in the second half of season 3. With the opening of a coliseum and several other fun events it was a great success, turning the once tiny goblin village into a proper hub of civilization. All of the important characters are shown doing their various jobs throughout this episode and both Masayuuki as well as Mjollmile are shown to be great assets. Can I take this moment to talk about Aoyama Yutaka’s fantastic performance in this role? Mjollmile is the type of character that would be grating and annoying when voiced by a less talented voice actor, but the personality that Yutaka brings to this wonderfully shady merchant really makes him stand out as a memorable character. I’m blown away by the performance every single time. Besides seeing that Rimuru and his friends are working hard on building the first trains in this world, we also get a quick look at the antagonists for this season. The Rozzo family seem to be the main focus for now, but we also see Yuuki, Kagari and the rest of the moderate harlequin alliance. As much as Yuuki is being made out to be a bad guy – and he definitely is an ‘ends justify the means’ type of character – his actions are ultimately headed towards the same goal as Rimuru has. The Rozzos, Rimuru and Yuuki all want dominion over the west. Maybe Rimuru is much less direct in his approach, but his economic dominance has already caused one kingdom to fall and many others to jump in line with him. I can’t help but like Yuuki and his team, but we’ll see how common of a threat he will end up being in this season.
A quick reminder to everyone out there that these are the good guys, not the scheming villains. I think.
And since we’re in the first episode of a new season where I doubt too much is going to happen, let’s mainly have a look at the opening today. And any theories I have based on the opening are purely from what I think and probably wrong, considering I haven’t actually read the novels yet.
They really put their all into the art for the opening, it looks so much more crisp than in previous seasons.
We open on a shot of Veldora, who is undoubtedly going to play a major role later on in the series, as he’s mostly been pushed aside for now due to being too powerful for the story to be any interesting with him around. Luckily he’s got his good looks to carry his popularity for a while. We see several of the cast going about their day including Shion, Shuna, Diablo, Milim and Ramiris, who are all close with Rimuru. Rimuru himself is enjoying the fruits of his labor, walking through a thriving city while eating all sorts of dishes from his home world. We transition from Ramiris flying to the camera to what looks to be a bunch of spirits in her labyrinth. Perhaps we’ll gain some new friends or there will be some issue in the labyrinth this season? From there, we get some looks into Rimuru’s research, and seeing him in a room full of bodies like he’s the lead scientist at Germa66 makes me wonder what he has planned. When I first saw this shot I thought this was going to be a peek into what Leon might be doing, as the synopsis for these seasons mentions that he’ll be doing something as well, but it does clearly show Rimuru himself, so who knows. We quickly move past this shot to the dream of every person on the autism spectrum, trains. With the railway to Eurazania being started, this should make travel and trade much quicker and safer. Speaking of safety, Rimuru has moved the kids to his own town now that he knows Yuuki can’t be trusted with their safety. While the lightspeed hero is busy promoting the dungeon, we get our first shot of Mariabell Rozzo. Although I don’t think any of her powers have been confirmed yet, we heavily lean into a vampire and mind control aesthetic with the light up eyes and the blood everywhere. Speaking of which, I’m not planning to cover the ending since it doesn’t seem like there’s much of value there, but the sand coming from Mariabell Rozzo there does make it look like she’s pissing herself something fierce. Really awkward choice in my opinion.
Surely this won’t result in heartbreak and tears.
We move on to a shot of a young girl walking with her baby dragon. I would assume this to be Milim as a child, as we know her backstory is a tragic one that involves the death of her dragon and the botched revival as the ascended to demon lord. It was the same ritual that Rimuru used to revive his friends after the attack by the Falmuth kingdom, although in Rimuru’s case it succeeded because the magical barrier kept everyone’s souls stuck in the city. We see the dragon a few more times in this opening and it makes me wonder if we’ll end up seeing someone manipulate this dragon into having to fight with Milim at some point. That would be quite sad. We then see Yuuki and Rimuru clash and I’m curious if Yuuki’s shining red eyes are just his normal eyes lit up by the moonlight or if there is some sort of control happening here. I don’t think Yuuki would benefit too much from a direct fight with Rimuru since it will just send a hoard of monsters into Engrassia to fight him, but who knows. We also saw Rimuru fight with Hinata in the openings long before she ever really fought him, so this could be a hint for an event in a couple of seasons from now. Your guess is as good as mine.
A quick montage of all of the big villains – minus the eastern merchants and their bosses, first the Moderate Harlequin Alliance.The creepy Mariabell RozzoAnd lastly, Yuuki as he faces off against Rimuru
Next we get a montage of monsters fighting against the aforementioned dragon as Yuuki and Rimuru duel on its back. Diablo, Benimaru, Shion, Shuna, Ranga and Gobta all get to show off their prowess, before Milim goes in and delivers the final blow. Or she would if she didn’t waver, and she sadly looks on at the dragon she once saw as a friend. If Yuuki is behind this I might have to take back my earlier comments about liking his character, cause that would be cruel beyond necessity. We’re then reminded that Hinata, Kagari and Luminous Valentine are part of the story and if my hunch that Rozzos are vampires is correct then I wonder if she has something to do with them. I should really look at a map of the Tensura world as the anime and Crunchyroll’s subs do a poor job with giving your a proper legend whenever it’s on screen. With that, the opening comes to an end and we have finished the first episode. Like I said at the start of the episode, very little happened that we couldn’t have derived from the final episodes of season 3, but it was a great way to ease back into the show. I’m excited for the series to properly start in the next couple of episodes and I hope you’ll be here every week alongside me.
The moderate Harlequin Alliance under the leadership of Yuuki. I hope you’ll enjoy these weekly recaps, thanks for reading 🙂
Alright, attempt number five of writing this post in under four pages. I wish I was kidding. If you’re up to date on the first three seasons of Tensura and want to dive straight into season 4, but it’s been a while and you’d like a refresher, this one is for you. I’ll go through each season and will remind you of all the important characters we meet along the way. Let’s not waste any time.
I’m not sure it’s a great idea to give someone who just talked about not wanting to die as a virgin the “predator” skill.
37 year old Satoru Mikami is stabbed to death and born again as a slime in a fantasy world. Stuck in a dark cave, he starts absorbing all sorts of plants and ores before coming upon the storm dragon Veldora. The two become friends and Veldora names him Rimuru, both of them taking the surname Tempest. Rimuru absorbs Veldora and his prison, vowing to free him from it. Rimuru has a voice speaking to him with the words of the world, something that several powerful figures in this world have access to. The great sage – this voice – gives him skills and helps him grow very quickly. Leaving the cave behind, he sets out into the Jura Forest where the balance just got upended by the disappearance of the storm dragon.
The Tsundere dragon himself, Veldora.
In the Jura Forest, Rimuru meets with feuding goblins and direwolves, bringing them all under his wing after settling their fight. He then names his new friends, which is a process that drains his magical energy but in return makes the monsters much more powerful. The goblins turn into hobgoblins and become his first people. Many characters continue to appear throughout the story, but the important ones here are Rigurd – who becomes the goblin lord – and his son Rigur, as well as Gobta, Gonzo and the direwolf Ranga. Having established the village, Rimuru heads to the neighboring dwarven kingdom to procure some craftsmen. Kaijin and his brothers join Rimuru in the village and not long afterwards they clash with the ogres that have been chased out of their homes. Rimur names the ogres, turning them into kijin. Benimaru ends up becoming strike commander while Shion and Shuna work closely with Rimuru. The old Hakuro trains the younger goblins and the dreamy Souei becomes a sort of spymaster. Lastly there’s Kurobe who becomes a master craftsman after already being talented before joining up with Rimuru.
The fact that Shizue was summoned to this world in the middle of the WWII chaos, only to get stuck in a place that isn’t much better is so heartbreaking. Rimuru showing her what modern day Japan looks like through his through communication is still one of the most touching scenes in this show.
Now we need to deal with the orcs that chased the ogres out of their home. In the process of doing so they team up with the lizardmen, whose royal idiot Gabiru ends up making things more complicated. Gabiru was named by a majin named Gelmud, who also named Rigur’s older brother as well as the orc lord Geld. After stopping the orc lord’s rampage, Rimuru takes in the remaining orcs, naming their new leader Geld after the previous leader. With Gabiru and his sister as well as Geld and his people joining the city of Rimuru, it is truly starting to look impressive.
It’s still kind of crazy that Phobio gets away from this entire disaster as well as he does, but he is only punished a littlbe bit.
So now we start to be introduced to the demon lords. The first visitor is Milim Nava, the destroyer. She’s your classic 1000 year old that looks like a teenage girl. She loves fighting and is very childlike in her character. She becomes friends with Rimuru after he bribes her with honey. We also meet Phobio of the three beastketeers who work for demon lord Carrion. Phobio gets manipulated by Footman and Tear, members of the moderate harlequin alliance, into reviving an ancient evil, only to get defeated by Milim. We also meet Ramiris later on, who is both a demon lord and the queen of the spirits.
That is an incredibly powerful ancient artifact that surely isn’t going to be Chekov’s gun in a later season, right? Right? I’m putting my money on something happening with this later on in the story.
In the meantime, we’ve been introduced to a couple of otherworlders just like Rimuru. Shizue Izawa was a student of the hero who then became the new hero. She is burning up from the inside due to the spirit of Ifrit being inside of her. She was summoned by Leon Cromwell, another demon lord, and wishes for Rimuru to take care of her students when she dies. So Rimuru goes to the capital of Engrassia to meet with Yuuki Kagurazaka, the leader of the Free Guild and a fellow former inhabitant of earth. The two hit it off and share a love for manga and video games. Rimuru then meets with Shizu’s students. Kenta, Ryohta, Gale, Alice & Chloe, all children who have similar problems to Shizu. Without the help of a spirit to keep their power in check, they’ll burn up and die young. This is when we go and visit Ramiris in her labyrinth, and save the children from certain doom. After destroying her guardian, Ramiris makes Rimuru build her a new one in the form of Beretta, who is a demon inhabiting this doll. We finish the first season with the city of Rimuru thriving and the children being happy. Rimuru can return home after a season well spent.
You fought one of the Demon Lords, I think you’re good…
Take a deep breath, we’ve made it through the first season. There are many more minor characters like Youm the mercenary who becomes important later on as well as Fuse the guildmaster from Blumund. I reckon Fuse is a self-insert considering that’s also the author’s name, but instead of a powerful self-insert he’s just constantly stressed by being put in crazy situations. Poor author. We start season 2 off at full speed, so let’s dissect things.
Even after season 3 I’ve still not fully warmed up to Hinata. Her actions in this season are so zealous and thoughtless that she feels almost poorly written.
Rimuru is ambushed by Hinata Sakaguchi on his way home from Engrassia. With Rimuru being responsible for the death of Shizu – technically – Hinata is here to extract her revenge. But it does seem like there is more to it. Either way, the two fight and Rimuru manages to get away with his life, but only barely. This all due to some trickery with barriers from both Hinata and elsewhere. Because while Rimuru is dealing with this problem, his city is under attack. The nearby kingdom of Falmuth has sent three problematic otherworlders to provoke the monsters into attacking them. When the monsters initially don’t seem to bite, they just pull a nasty trick and start to fight them anyway. Right as they do so, the Falmuth army invades and Mjurran the majin erects an anti-magic barrier that severely weakens the monsters. They’re trapped on all sides and things go poorly.
I wish all of the Falmuth army an incredibly bad time.
When Rimuru returns, we learn that Mjurran has been working for the demon lord Clayman. Clayman is a member of the moderate harlequin alliance that we encountered earlier on in the story. One of four clowns once working under demon lord Kazareem before he perished. Now they work with Yuuki Kagurazaka. Surprise, the friendly guild leader is a bad dude. His goal is world domination. And in the process he’s revived demon lord Kazareem who now has the appearance of a woman and goes by Kagari. Clayman has it out for Rimuru and he’s planned things properly, mind controlling Milim and getting demon lord Frey on his side as well. They take out demon lord Carrion and his people take shelter in Rimuru’s town. During the raid on Rimuru, Shion, Gobzo and several others perished. Rimuru gets incredibly angry but a story by the adventurer Eren gives him hope. Milim once brought her companion dragon back to life, but due to the lack of a soul being near, the dragon didn’t have his personality when it was revived. In this situation however, the souls of the dead might very well still be trapped within the magic barrier. But to have the power to bring his friends back, Rimuru will have to awaken to becoming a true demon lord, and doing so requires him to kill ten thousand soldiers. This is where we get one of my favorite moments in the series so far, as the people of Rimuru fight back against the Falmuth Kingdom. The otherworlders are brutally disposed, Mjurran’s heart is destroyed but quickly replaced, freeing her from Clayman’s control, and Rimuru commits genocide on the army of Falmuth. He now awakens to a true demon lord. He summons demons to assist him, offering up two of them to complete the ritual of reviving his friends. The remaining demon is the primordial black, going by noir. Now named Diablo, this incredibly powerful demon is feverishly loyal to Rimuru and itching to show off just how much he’s willing to help. Rimuru’s friends are revived and now it’s time to get ready for Walpurgis.
Would you look at that, there’s all of Falmuth’s army incredibly bad time.
The meeting of the demon lords, Walpurgis, is scheduled soon and Rimuru is going to attend. With the demon lord Clayman planning Rimuru’s demise, Milim being under his control and several of the other demon lords still being a total mystery, it’s a dangerous endeavor, but one he must undertake. He can bring two attendants and brings Ranga and Shion, while Beretta and Treyni come along with Ramiris. Leon Cromwell visits Guy Crimson before the meeting starts and we learn that Guy is a bit of a freak. Guy also is friends with another one of the dragons, who is familiar with Veldora. Alongside Guy, Leon, Ramiris, Clayman, Milim and Rimuru, there are a couple of other demon lords present. We met Frey the sky queen for a few scenes and she’s working with Clayman. Carion is absent due to Milim killing him. There’s the sleepy Dino, the giant Dagrull and there’s Luminous Valentine, who pretends to be an attendant instead. With everyone present, Clayman makes his case against Rimuru. Things are said from one to another and the banquet ends with a fight between Clayman’s forces and Rimuru’s forces. Shion takes care of Clayman with ease, Beretta dismantles Clayman’s puppet and Ranga deals with the nine-tailed fox. The fight ends with a decisive victory for Rimuru’s camp and the death of Clayman after it is revealed that Frey was never loyal to him, Milim was never under his control and Rimuru was prepared to deal with every trick that Clayman had prepared. It’s a total defeat for the weakest member of the moderate harlequin alliance. With this, both Carrion and Frey step down as demon lords, now leaving only eight – Rimuru, Dino, Dagrull, Valentine, Guy Crimson, Leon, Ramiris & Milim – demon lords left. They found a new group called Octagram, after the fact that there are eight of them in total. With that, it’s time to move on to season 3. And there’s still a full page and a bit left to cover it. Surely I’ll get it done in under four pages, right?
Talk shit, get hit. You will not be missed, Clayman.
Season three can basically be split into two halves pretty easily. The first half sees the continuation of Rimuru’s clash with the holy church of Luminus. Rimuru and Hinata are both manipulated by the Seven Days clergy, a group of zealots within the church of Luminus that hold some pretty extreme ideas and want to get rid of Hinata. At the same time, Diablo and Youm are working hard to turn the kingdom of Falmuth into a new kingdom under Youm’s leadership. With the old nobility not quite ready to give up against Rimuru, they need some trickery to make the transfer of power feel more legitimate. Hidden behind all of the trickery here are several forces that have been manipulating things from behind the scene. The Rozzo crime family has been working with a merchant from the eastern nations – on the other side of the Jura Forest – who has been trying to destabilize things and get countries in his debt. On the other hand, Yuuki has been manipulating things at a bit more of a distance. Part of his actions during the last season got Hinata annoyed when Laplace infiltrated the holy temple and killed Roy Valentine, brother of the emperor. With help from the eastern merchant, the Falmuth forces set up to fight off Diablo and his people. They also plan to wipe out all the onlookers, which is exactly what Diablo wanted, as he now has proof that the Falmuth nobility started the fight. He disposes of their forces with ease and then the Seven Days clergy show their faces. Hinata and Rimuru clash near Tempest. The Seven Days clergy manipulated Hinata’s followers to go to Tempest as well, and this causes an all out brawl that both Hinata and Rimuru would have rather avoided. When Rimuru’s forces defeat Hinata’s forces and the latter admits defeat, they are ambushed by three members of the Seven Days clergy as well. Hinata is mortally wounded and her resistance to magicules doesn’t allow Rimuru to heal her. Now faced with the Seven Days clergy on several fronts, the true enemy is now in front of Rimuru and Diablo and they show no mercy. Towards the end of the fight, Luminus Valentine – the demon lord as well as the god of their religion – shows up to punish the remaining clergy and makes up with Rimuru by offering a non-aggression pact that lasts a century. Falmuth is now in the capable hands of Youm and Mjurran and Tempest is once again safe. Hinata and Rimuru become acquainted and she even leaves two of her people behind in Tempest. The Rozzo family and the eastern merchant are still lurking though. And Yuuki now has the full support of Kagari – formerly demon lord Kazareem – and her harlequin alliance behind him in his goal for world domination. But it’s time to take a bit of a respite from all of this and prepare for the Tempest Founder Festival!
Remember how Shion turned the hostages into goop? It’s kind of crazy Diablo ends up being the reasonable one who turns them back to somewhat normal.
The festival serves two functions at once. The first one is that it makes for a great way for Rimuru to meet the leaders of all factions within the Jura Forest as well as in the surrounding areas all at once, allowing for him to introduce himself to everyone in one go instead of one at a time. The second and arguably much bigger benefit is that they get to show off all the crazy ideas, food and technology they have been working on, instantly opening the door for much more commerce and travel than before. To do this all successfully, Rimuru hires Mjolmire. I didn’t mention him earlier because he does a lot of his more important stuff in this last bit of the anime, but when Rimuru and the children were in Ingrassia, Rimuru defeated a small dragon and in the process saved the somewhat shady merchant Mjolmire, who has been incredibly grateful ever since. The two have worked together on some smaller projects and now it’s finally time to bring the human merchant on board as a full member of the Tempest council. He quickly shows that he’s worth much more than Rimuru even expected and is an excellent salesman. The two plan out every detail of the Founder Festival including the big selling point; the coliseum. This structure serves three functions all at once. The first function is for holding fights for an audience to view and making room for people to train there as well under the guidance of the talented fighters already present here. The second and third function have to do with what is under the coliseum. Rimuru finally agreed to let Ramiris live in Tempest, if she builds him a 100 floor dungeon where they can send adventurers to go explore. Using a combination of Veldora’s excessive magicules, the potions they have from Gabiru and Vesta’s research and the abilities that Ramiris can grant to anyone who enters a contract with her, they can create a video game-esque system that allows adventurers to revive on death and get out of the dungeon safely. This place will also function as a bunker of sorts for the people of Tempest to hide in if another war breaks out.
Ranga, that high ranking priest is not a toy.
The festival itself is a massive success with people from all sorts of nations visiting. The king and queen of Blumund visit and reaffirm their commitment to working together. Gazel Dwargo as well as the empress of Thallion arrive and Milim, Freya, Carrion and Luminus Valentine are here to represent the demon lords. Yuuki and Hinata visit with the children and we even see Mariabell Rosso in the mix. I wonder what she’s scheming, considering she is on the front of the art for season 4. Last but not least, we finally get a proper introduction to the hero Masayuuki. It seems like his abilities just allow him to have crazy good luck and have everyone think highly of him. Besides this somewhat manipulative power, he seems like a good and humble dude underneath it all. We end the season with a tournament in which Gobta gets to show off just how much of a powerhouse he truly is.
Mariabell Rosso and the eastern merchant who have been messing things up behind the scene. Likely to be major villains in the next season.
There, just over four pages, but I’m not going to bother cutting anything out now. Just adding in pictures to this post is going to take a while, and I have other things to write this week. Either way, I think this has made it very clear how excited I am for the upcoming fourth season, especially considering they promised us so much anime it will almost double the existing episode count. I hope you enjoy the show as well and watch along with me every week. I’ll be here the day after the episode airs, recapping everything I found interesting. Thanks for reading.
Yuuki and Kagari, two of the biggest schemers in the series who appear to be so friendly and kind on the surface. I’m very curious as to where the story will end up taking these two.
I’ve talked about this series a few times before, and it even made my top 10 anime of all time list, so I’m not going to write another essay about it. But with a new season of Ace of Diamond on the horizon, I wanted to quickly go over the show again and explain why I think it’s one of the better sports anime out there. It’s a personal favorite of mine although I can just as easily see someone preferring Kuroko no Basket, Haikyu or Run with the Wind. I really should rewatch some of those as well, they were all so good. But Ace of Diamond has a layer to it that I feel the other shows miss.
Get used to seeing his cheeky face, cause he’s in this show a lot.
And that is continuity. Ace of Diamond follows Sawamura Eijun, a prodigy in baseball in some aspects, but utterly average in most. He can’t field, he can’t hit a baseball and he can’t really behave responsibly. But he loves standing on the mound and he knows what it feels like to throw some really good balls, although he does not realize why his throws are as effective as they are. And on top of that, once his opponents figure him out, he’s pretty useless. Playing baseball with his middle school friends has been a lot of fun, but yielded no results. Luckily for Sawamura, a scout from the prestigious Seido was at one of his matches and he promptly gets invited to try out for their team. After some hesitation he joins the juggernaut of a school and quickly learns that he is not that special after all. Interesting, sure, but there are tons of great players there who want it just as badly as Sawamura does. Not to mention they have also scouted a monster pitcher in Furuya Satoru. This sets the stage for a season of growth.
Ball is love, Ball is life
As I’ve talked about before, one of the main draws of this series is how it takes its time with its cast. Players leave and join, more than a full year has even passed since the start of the anime and with over a hundred episodes there was more than enough time for the team to experience some serious losses, recover and come back stronger than ever. This allows for a fun show where the main team doesn’t always end up victorious. As much as I love some of the other sports shows, they are a bit predictable at times. Ace of Diamond has the luxury of a very long running series where all sorts of things are possible. At 47 volumes, there’s a lot of material, which explains why we’re getting another season in spring this year.
As is tradition with sports anime, this is Senpai’s last chance at nationals
Second, the story focuses not only on Seido itself, but spends a lot of time developing the other teams as well. I’m not saying that other shows don’t do this, as both Haikyu and Kuroko – as some of the more popular sports shows – spend time developing other teams. The main difference is that in some parts of Ace of Diamond, it’s almost easy to forget who the main team is as you start rooting for some of the other schools. And I don’t mean that as a bad thing, Seido is the most interesting team we visit, but some of the other schools have fantastic casts too and even the manager and coaches and the struggles that happen behind the scenes with replacements and other things add to the fun.
This show can get pretty intense at times.
To stop myself from ranting for another four paragraphs, I think I’ll mostly leave it at this. If you like sports anime, and are looking for a show that really keeps you occupied for a while, definitely check out Ace of Diamond. The cast is fun, the matches are great and always different due to different styles that teams can have and it got me interested in baseball as a sport. Then again, it doesn’t take much to convince me, I’m easily influenced. Thanks for reading!
With a rather large school arc now seemingly behind us, we returned home to the cottage at the end of the last volume, where it’s time to wind down and relax a little bit, having dealt with Philomela’s grandmother and the accompanying corruption. Yet trouble stirs almost immediately again as the actions that Chise took by turning into a red dragon and swimming underneath the land have alerted the church and its allies, who are now investigating the incident to figure out who or what is responsible.
We start off this volume with Torrey giving Chise a bit of a history lesson about Britain and the witch hunts, which of course immediately triggers Chise’s visions and she almost ends up adding another curse to her long list of problems. Her being a Sleigh Beggy will never stop putting her into serious trouble whenever she is near anything even remotely magical, but she has good friends and allies here as Ruth jumps in to protect her. Back at Elias home we meet Jasper, the owner of said home and a long time patron of Elias due to a peculiar curse that runs through his family. His sister in law’s baby is currently the latest victim of the curse and they’re here to ask Elias to fix it. We learn about their history in a fun little side story and I wonder if we’ll return to this at some point with Chise putting a permanent stop to the curse. Oh right, and Zoe grows wings.
Josef and Elias meet at the information market where rumors spread. The aforementioned red dragon has been seen swimming under the British Isles and this is not a good sign, with a red dragon having the power to tear the earth apart into little pieces. Not many people and neighbours would appreciate that, but what they don’t know is that Chise is the one responsible. Josef ponders why he’s been left to stay here despite the horrible things he does and Elias basically informs him that he’s so unimportant that it doesn’t matter to him, which pisses Josef right off. Returning to the home, we learn that the first visitor of the year is underway.
The head of the St. George house is here with the official request for Elias and Chise to investigate the dragon, with Simon present to mediate for the church. Elias considers his options for a bit, which is a clear sign of growth for the mage. What’s even more important is that not only does he consider Chise’s safety, he also considers that of some of the other friends he’s made in recent memory, which is a completely new feeling to him. The duo confer and decide to help out with the investigation as long as nothing unsafe happens to Chise. That’s when we learn that Violet and Jasmine are also present, and Chise quickly figures out that there’s something odd about the twins.
This is where the different storylines start to slowly diverge into a common thread. Chise is likely undergoing a form of atavism. It’s a change in mythical creatures which was demonstrated by the dragon that went berserk as well as Zoe earlier in this volume suddenly growing wings. It’s a rare thing that can happen and it might be what is happening to Chise, allowing her to turn into a red dragon. Alongside all of this chaos, the St. George twins reveal that they have their own weird creature to deal with. It seems to be a newborn creature of unknown origin that has grown fond of the twins. They hid it from their father who found out within seconds, then they all hid it from Elias who also found out within seconds. They’re not very good at hiding things, but they think they are.
Lastly we zoom over to Lindell and the dragons, where a stranger approaches and danger lurks. Fortunately, it does seem like this stranger has no ill intent and is instead coming with a request. Hilda St. George asks him to come with her to England.
It seems like we’re still going to learn more about the different alchemist families, focusing on St. George now. They seem like good people and their house being responsible for dealing with all sorts of dangerous creatures probably means they’re pretty capable too. If only this doesn’t end in a tragedy for the twins or another curse for Chise. We can only hope. It looks like we will not have to wait nearly as long for the next volume, as the breaks around the last few volumes were quite long, but it looks like Volume 22 should be out in February or March. Look forward to another run through that volume when I get my hands on it and as always, thanks for reading!
As third prince in a relatively small and young kingdom, Cobal Blueyerd never expected his life to get nearly as exciting as it got. He was supposed to marry a noblewoman from a strenuous ally at some point to strengthen the kingdom’s political power, and this might still very well be on the table, but in the meantime some very different priorities have taken over his life.
Performing an old and powerful ritual, the court mages of the kingdom summoned a person from a strange world. The woman – dubbed Mana – is supposed to become the next hero of the kingdom, just like the hero Might was over a century ago when his family performed the same ritual. To everyone’s surprise, Mana ended up being a former teacher with absolutely no strength or seemingly aptitude to being a hero, not to mention that her anxiety kept getting in the way of doing anything heroic. With this woman at his side, Cobal was sent on an adventure to figure out how to awaken her dormant power – if she had any.
Mana and Cobal first landed in the Ravadier Peninsula. A piece of indigenous land that has been taken over by the Blueyerd Kingdom but still maintains some sovereignty in the form of the Lord of Ravadier. Most of his tasks have been taken over by his daughter as he is in poor health, making lady Diana Vadier the local leader. Cobal and Mana dive into the ocean nearby to find an underwater civilization with a temple to Aquana, one of the five members of the Arpentara, the main pantheon of this world. There they meet Miyara the seer, who tells them that Mana needs to find three important people. The first one is Dionil the woodland sage who Miyara knows of. The other two are unfamiliar names to her. One person named Abu and another named Sorda’Thun the wanderer. With this information, and a new companion in the form of Cassandra, a local tinkerer and busybody, the group travels north towards the Liriath Forest, and the elven city of Milinia. On the way they meet Kimi’Thania, a spirit of music, who they save from a magical prison and who then joins them as well. The party finds Milinia after some struggling and there Cobal’s patience with this seemingly pointless mission reaches a boiling point. He lashes out at Dionil, who puts him in his place pretty effectively. It is then revealed by Mana and Dionil that the reason for all this tension is something that Cobal’s family did. To be specific, they had the previous hero executed due to being too powerful and dangerous. Dionil has been around since the time of Might and remembers this betrayal, while Mana learned of it after arriving in this world, not quite sharing exactly how she came across this knowledge. Cobal and Mana talk things out and start growing closer during their stay in Milinia. The first volume is capped off with a harvest festival in the elven town, where a strange magic user interrupts things and is confronted by the party. Unsure what is going on with these strange fiery beasts that keep appearing on their path, the party continues their studies until they’re interrupted by a letter from the Blueyerd capital city of Saphestan. Cobal’s eldest brother and crown prince Sapher Blueyerd has disappeared and the northern neighbour of Rilodar is blamed for his disappearance, sparking a war.
Volume 2 sees our party figuring out politics and mystery as they travel back to the capital before soon deciding to head north to the libraries of Marsolin where they hope to learn more about the strange magic circles that appeared around them during their journey as well as the one that appeared in Sapher’s room. Joined by Mirgia, who came from the elven city to deliver some news, the party seeks out a ship to travel to Jasodar, the trade capital of Rilodar. The border is closed so the seas are their only option. Their ship is soon attacked by the ruthless captain Tidescreecher, who turns out to be a lot more sociable than they expected, with Mana even referring to her as a theater kid. With Eliana Tidesinger on their side, they continue their journey towards Marsolin, but on their way they stop at an island that has been pestering Eliana and her crew lately, resulting in a stand-off with a strange cult that is related to the things that have been happening to Cobal’s family. They manage to fend off most of the cultists’ leadership but during this process several of their allies – including Mirgia and Kimi’Thania – disappear. Heading onward to Marsolin, the party meets an Irkan named Grac who was being forced to work while his wife was captured by cultists. They team up and reach their destination at the end of the volume.
Volume 3 sees the party research several different topics with the help of some new and old friends. Kayzel is a former associate of Eliana who is a scribe at the Sapphire Respite and the party’s way into some of the upper floors of the esteemed library. Having fun isn’t hard when you’ve got a library card, after all. There they meet Senior Librarian Lysa Drant, who is quickly intrigued by their quest and offers her help. Cobal spends time with another scribe by the name of Salandra Fevezar. A young woman who has been studying here for a while and is interested in flora and culture of the Feral Wildlands, the central region of the continent that has yet to be conquered. They learn about the name of this cult – the Jasmine Order – and their presumed goal of awakening their god, Shifeth the undying king. The magic circles are an ancient form of magic that use the power of storing energy and releasing it at a later date. When used by the wrong people, it can force others to part with some of their energy to strengthen this magic. They learn another important bit of information. The abandoned Solin Manor is where they’re likely to find the cultists, as it seems like there is something they need to do there. The party gears up to raid the manor, where they find two very surprising people among their enemies. The first one is Selvia, Cobal’s childhood friend and very talented jeweler, who is being held against her will. The second one is Sapher, Cobal’s missing brother. Contrary to Selvia, Sapher is very much here of his own accord, proclaiming that the summoning of strange people into this world will cause the end of the entire continent. With the revival of Shifeth, they should be able to rid the place of these unnatural otherworlders and that is their goal. Achieving whatever it is they wanted to achieve in Marsolin, the cultists escape, leaving Cobal and Mana to have to deliver the bad news back home in an attempt to prevent the looming war from getting worse. Cobal and Salandra hook up before the party returns home.
Returning to the capital in volume 4 and the hostile political climate that comes with it, leaves Mana to sink deeper into her anxiety. She gets sick and starts holing up in her room until Cassandra shows up with some bad news. The Ravadier Peninsula is in danger, with villagers walking into the sea, never to be seen again. Mana quickly decides that she wants to help Cassandra figure out whatever it is that is happening. Cobal needs a little bit more convincing, but after stumbling across Layla and Thimar. The latter is a friend of Cobal’s younger sister Cyanna, who Cobal doesn’t like very much. Talking to the two helped him make up his mind, and the duo travels with Cassandra to the peninsula, where they ask Diana Vadier, the people of Arana and Eliana for help. With their combined efforts, they find out about a story of ghosts originating on Shark Tooth island, a dangerous place once inhabited by a powerful wizard who has long since left. They make their way to the island and find out that the stories were real, encountering a crew of ghost pirates. These pirates have been stuck here for a very long time, cursed by the aforementioned wizard to stay bound to this place until they find the key to his tower and unlock it. With ghostly bodies that have their limits, they have not yet been successful in finding the key. Cobal, Mana and Eliana use everything they have access to in an attempt to figure out the location of this key. It ends up being a gift from Dionil – a quill that can manipulate words into doing magical things – that is the key to finding the actual key. Traveling through the strange tower, they quickly figure out – at least Mana does – that the place belongs to someone who came from Mana’s world. It seems like this person has been here for quite a long time, despite also making references to things that happened around the time Mana was alive in our world, which makes things very confusing. The climb up the tower ends with them finding the artifact that allows the pirates to finally find rest as well as a conversation with Abu, the wizard in question. He invites them to his place in Severanti. Off screen we hear another person mention to Abu that “Sorda’Thun the wanderer is there to see him.” This cuts the conversation short, but the invasion stands. Now having some lead on the remaining two people in Miyara’s prophecy, the party needs to head to Severanti. But there is still the political mess they abandoned in the capital. Unless they’re ready to take some desperate measures, they probably can’t get out of this mess unscathed. Luckily, Diana Vadier has a plan. If Cobal marries her, the bond between Blueyerd and the Peninsula will tighten significantly, causing the remaining noble to have no choice but to accept Cobal and Mana’s path. With the duo having ties to two major allies, even lord Darsivan Meduer can’t touch them. Having set on this plan, and scheduling the wedding for a few months into the future, Cobal and Mana head to Severanti.
While all of this was going on, Mirgia (which I pronounce as meer-jah, but you do whatever you want) found himself setting off a teleportation trap, arriving in a far off region of Severanti where he quickly gets caught up in some of the local drama. Before meeting up with the rest of the party in a future volume, Mirgia first has to deal with this strange structure that has popped up, and he feels a duty to protect the people that treated him so kindly when he suddenly appeared in their fields unconscious. We join Mirgia at the very start in this little side quest in next week’s chapter. I hope this post helps you remember how we got to this point, since it has been a few years for some of these important moments. Thanks for reading.
It’s been a little while since we last covered a One Piece volume, but the latest one landed on my doormat the other day and I am excited to dive into it. Reading the chapters every week has been a ton of fun, but so much has been happening in the last few arcs that it’s hard to keep track of all of it, so with the anime and the physical volumes it’s nice to repeat things and get a reminder of all the things that were going on. I’m also still far from bored with this series and am currently considering either rereading or rewatching it, but when am I not considering that. Anyway, let’s dive into this volume which should be the tailend of the Egghead arc.
We continue our adventure in the land of the future as the five elders in their demonic forms are trying desperately to keep Vegapunk from broadcasting his posthumous message to the world. With the help of York they think they have found the source, but it turns out rather quickly that they were wrong. The Straw Hats on the other hand – now aided by the giants from Elbaf – are trying to get off the island alive. A buster call has been attacking in full force and with Vegapunk’s main body already dead, there isn’t any good reason for them to stay here, they only need to get out with as many people alive and well as possible. This is posing to be a difficult task as the five elders turn out to be very capable fighters. When we were first introduced to these ancient bozos, I never expected them to be a fighting force and although I doubt their brawn is going to be a big problem in the future, they are definitely strong enough to give an emperor a run for his money which kind of makes sense considering they run the world so they need at least something to back up their authority.
Far and by large the most important thing that happens in this volume is Vegapunk’s message to the world, which he manages to get through despite the attempts at interference. What he tells us about is how the world used to be made up of several continents that now lie 200 meters below sea level. This is due to someone using the ancient weapons in a way that caused the water to rise to the level it is at now. The small earthquake and rise in sea level confirmed his theory and he is now predicting that this will happen again in the near future. The motherflame that he developed allows the people in charge to do some pretty nasty stuff – as we saw with Lulusia – that they can still repeat. What we also learn is that during the void century, the precursor to today’s world government was at war with Joyboy’s section (more on what that likely entails in a future volume), and it ended with Joyboy’s defeat. The last thing Vegapunk tries to reveal is what the middle letter of “D” actually means, but the elders manage to stop the broadcast at this point by attacking Emet, the iron giant who was just looking to meet up with Joyboy again. It is clear at this point that Joyboy also possessed the same devil fruit that Luffy has now and it makes me wonder if any other people had the fruit between these two people, but were snuffed out before they could make anything out of it.
With the message over, the five elders now fully focus on taking down Emet and the escaping Straw Hat crew. Atlas sacrifices herself to silence Lilith’s connection so that York thinks there are no remaining Vegapunk satellites left after Atlas blows herself up to propel the Thousand Sunny. On the water below, Luffy and Bonney both transform into a Nika form and pummel Saint Saturn into the afterlife as we get a quick moment between Emet and Luffy, who Emet sees as Joyboy or at least a successor of Joyboy. We end the volume with Vegapunk’s message being over and the crew leaving Elbaf behind.
A few small things of note, before I leave you all again. We learn that professor Clover had the letter “D” in his name and they sacrificed themselves to the knowledge they gained could live on. We learn that Saul survived the ordeal on Ohara and even Vegapunk was mingling heavily in their research after the scholars passed away. We also learn that Gaimon – the man stuck in the chest all the way back in Romance Dawn – got himself a girlfriend and her name is Sarfunkel and the existence of this miniscule subplot is very funny. We also learn that Sword is looking for answers, not all of the Celestial Dragons are very tuned in to their own history and that many people now feel a renewed enthusiasm in trying to find the One Piece. What better vibe to have heading into the upcoming adventure in the land of the giants – assuming nothing goes haywire on the way out of Egghead, as things are still happening at the end of this volume. I hope you enjoyed this little recap and as always, thanks for reading!
You might be coming into this post wondering why it’s called 3.5 and not 4. Well, the honest truth is that there’s not nearly as much to update you on as I would have liked. In the past month I’ve been incredibly busy with work and my studies and although I did spend some time writing during my May Break, it wasn’t nearly as productive as I would have liked. As a matter of fact, I’m going through a bit of a writer’s block right now and although I’m hesitant (haha) to put this on paper, I think I might need a bit of a break from writing. Not completely, of course, but I’ve been trying to write at an honestly ungodly pace while combining it with the rest of my life. I think I’ve been a little bit burned out. As of this post, I have about 2 months of work to go before the year ends and I get a bit of respite. Part of July and the entirety of the month of August will be my summer break and that tends to reinvigorate me quite a bit. But we’re not there yet and the exhaustion is definitely weighing on me. But it’s not all negativity, let me update you on what I have been able to do in these past few weeks.
When it comes to volume 4, I’ve been trying to navigate the early chapters of the Shark Tooth Island arc. It’s a story beat I came up with pretty quickly before struggling to properly make it work. There’s some great moments in what I wrote for it last year, but there’s really no glue holding it together. Not to mention I never got to properly write an ending to it, as I’d reached the 50.000 words for November and then kind of put it aside since I’d run out of ideas by that point. I was pretty far ahead at some point earlier this year, but as of this post I’m only one chapter ahead of schedule. That’s still better than the amount of wiggle room I had during the first three volumes, but since there is more I can get stuck on for this volume, it worries me that it’s not enough. So keep in mind that a hiatus might happen in the near future, although I’ll try my best to avoid it. I am excited for you all to meet a pretty important figure in the lore of this world soon.
Meanwhile I’ve been focusing a lot of energy on volume 1 as well, but I’ve been struggling on that front too. The gang is still in the Milinia forest, making their way towards the elven stronghold. I want to flesh out the forest itself and make it clear what sort of place it is before they actually stumble into the city proper. One thing I found lacking in Milinia was building a proper population. The council felt like it was introduced and then forgotten (and I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot about it for a big part of writing the subsequent volumes). There were gifts and bonds that were completely dropped by the time we were back in Saphestan and although the blog version of this story was always going to be incomplete and rough around the edges, I want to make very sure that the final version I’m writing right now is much more complete and waterproof. I’m not perfect and I’ll probably miss some stuff, but I want it to feel like a satisfying story. I’ll be working hard on the next couple of chapters in May and although my initial hope of finishing the draft by late June is probably a lost cause, I still want to have it all finalized by August. I’ll just have to print it out at home on a small printer. I shudder at the thought.
Now allow me to change the subject a little bit before I end this post although it’s probably not exciting news for readers of this story. I’ve been feeling that itch to continue on The Necromancer’s Daughter. It’s changed a ton in its form and although I haven’t put much time into actually writing the story itself, I have been collecting notes and ideas in a document that’s becoming larger and larger. I was hoping to keep this story on the backburner for a while longer as I put all my time and effort into The Hesitant Hero, but with how much this story is still nagging me I might have to start giving it some attention. Part of me wonders if the writer’s block I’m feeling will be fixed by a change of pace. This doesn’t mean that new chapters or new editions of The Necromancer’s Daughter will be posted anytime soon. I’ve learned my lesson, I’m not doing so until I have at least two dozen chapters I’m satisfied with and I highly doubt that will happen before late next year. I might also post something soon that’s been in my folders for a long time now. I had an evening where I suddenly wrote a couple thousand words of a completely new story out of nowhere and I quite like the setting, but there’s not enough of it to be all that interesting. Perhaps just posting a chapter of it online will help get me some feedback. But that’s another case of not wanting to put too much effort into too many different projects. As of right now, my main focus should be on The Hesitant Hero until I have a satisfying draft done of the first five volumes or so, before continuing the story from incomplete drafts becomes too chaotic. Some consistency would be nice for online readers, after all. Luckily volume 5 should enter us into a completely new arc which allows me some time to fix some old mistakes before we continue existing storylines. But let’s not get too much into spoilers.
To make a long story short, I’m still working on The Hesitant Hero. I want to branch out to different stories a bit, and I need to get through these next two months before I can get some more peace of mind. My body is also constantly in pain due to the effects of stress and exhaustion, but it’s not as bad as it’s been in the past, so I’m pushing through most of it. Expect some delays and breaks here and there in the next two months but I promise you that things will be back to normal once we’re well into summer and I have some room to breathe. Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 