Does Alicia really stand a chance against Drel though?
To recap, one of the other dark beasts is aiding Drel via something called “dark ichor,” and this revelation highly displeases Clen (this moniker is easier to type out than “Clevatess” so I’ll stick with it). I’m afraid I don’t remember much about the dark beasts if we’ve talked about them previously in earlier episodes. I only slightly recall that one of them has historically co-existed with humans. Not surprisingly, it’s the female one. Men can be so unreasonable! Speaking of which, when was the last time we met a Drel-like character who was a woman? Y’know, just a bloodthirsty, honkin’ warrior who towers over other soldiers?
Anyway, Drel is trying to open the doors to some really important forge for some really important reason. Obviously, a forge is something that you use to make weapons, and we’ve seen how one of those weapons can hurt a dark beast — our dark beast, in fact. But it’s gotta be more than that, right? Rest assured, you’ll get your exposition dump on the true significance of the forge once this conflict is near its climax. So for now, just hold your horses. Despite all the powerful entities in this world, however, access to said forge is forbidden unless you have royal blood coursing in your veins. This is why Luna is so important: magic! No social commentary from me this week, however, so I’ll just get right to the stray thoughts and observations.
Stray thoughts & observations:
- This is Luna’s mother? She’s a demi-human? It’s funny, ’cause I just always assumed that Luna had a strange-looking nose on account of him being a baby. But no, it’s because he’s a demi-human as well.
- Princess T’ala says she can’t believe the dark lord could be defeated by a soldier and not a hero. It goes against history, apparently. I must have missed something. Damn, one of the exposition dumps didn’t sink in.
- I had to switch back to the Japanese audio track in order to see the subs, and I wanted to see the subs in order to see how Crunchyroll’s subbers handled these characters’ names. Normally, I would just look their names up on Wikipedia, but I forget that fans will often disagree with official subbers on how to localize a piece of media. Official in this case simply indicating whether or not you’re being paid. According to Crunchyroll, it’s Princess T’ala. On the wiki page for the show, however, it’s Toara. Also, Drel versus Dorel. Who’s right? Beats me.
- The Japanese voice acting is fine, but I actually prefer the dub for this show.
- Actually, this reminds of the semi-outrage over how a line was handled in Dandadan. When Momo greeted Okarun at the maid cafe, fans expected her to call him a piece of shit… lovingly, of course. The subs, however, went with her calling him a bastard instead. Despite watching anime since grade school, I still haven’t picked up much Japanese. Yeah, I’m that pathetic when it comes to learning new languages. But I digress. I’m pretty sure I heard Momo say “yaro,” so I think bastard would be closer. But in the end, does it really matter? Both “piece of shit” and “bastard” carry the same energy. People getting up in arms about something so insignificant seems so pointless to me.
- I suppose it’s commendable that the princess is willing to ride into battle along with her troops, but what can she really do if greater warriors, people who dedicated a career to fighting, have already fallen? Why fight a lost cause? Does she really think she has a decent chance at defending the forge against a man who has cut through everyone else (other than Clen) like paper?
- Oh wow, the villagers also have the same odd nose as Luna and the princess. I guess I’ve just not noticed. Whoops. It’s a bit confusing, because the princess has half-elf ears, but the villagers don’t share that feature. I suppose they must have intermixed with regular humans.
- Aw, the villagers are praising Alicia, so she’s happy. To be fair, who would react differently?
- Nell worries that the princess will frown upon the fact that a former slave is breastfeeding her child. Well, the princess should be grateful that her son is even alive at all, but you never know. Some people have no perspective whatsoever, so she might actually be a huge dick about it when she meets Nell. Since T’ala is willing to fight alongside her men, however, I’m betting she’ll be cool about it. It’s not that I want her to be a dick, but people often have conflicting aspects to their personalities. For the most part, the characters in this show have been pretty one note. Alicia is for the most part a very heroic hero. Clen has a dispassionate interest in humanity. Nell is kind and nurturing. So far, no one has a personality that requires dissection. What you see is pretty much what you get, and it’s kind of boring.
- In response to Nell’s concerns, Clen tries to… well, I wouldn’t say he is trying to cheer Nell up, because I doubt this was his intention. Rather, he tries to reason that he’s made her strong, so her social status should also have gone up as well. See, it’s not that hierarchies and social stratification is bad. You just need to get those rookie numbers up, girl! But I suppose this isn’t out of character, since dark lords like himself can only command respect via their inordinate strength. This is slightly better than having your social status determined from birth, but barely.
- You gotta thank Drel for dumping exposition on us in the middle of choking out the princess. Now that’s multi-tasking.
- Ah yes, you cannot be ruler, because only those with royal blood can be ruler. It’s the law! The word “ruler” insists upon itself! He even continues to hold her in the air long enough so that she can voice her thoughts to us. Look, I’m just saying, why would anyone stop to do this? He’s clearly leagues ahead of her in strength and combat experience. This is one of my biggest pet peeves about anime. I love turn-based RPGs, but that doesn’t mean I want my anime to be turn-based as well.
- “Well, if you don’t like it, then you just don’t like anime!” Nah, that’s bullshit. You’re right in that a lot of shows do this, and it’s probably a direct adaptation of the manga. Pages after pages will be filled with characters consumed by their own thoughts while they’re supposed to be fighting, choked out, or what have you. Maybe it’s bad to have empty panels or something. Maybe the mangaka isn’t confident in their ability to convey the the characters’ emotions without them directly telling you what they’re feeling. But at the same time, there are plenty of shows that don’t rely on these weird narrative quirks, and they are so much more dynamic and action-packed. I can’t take my eyes off of the screen for one second or else I’ll miss something. Here, I know I can quickly glance and read the subs in a second, then go back to whatever I’m doing on the side. I know I won’t miss anything. That’s kind of bad.
- Granted, I did completely fail to notice that Luna and the villagers have odd noses, so that’s my bad.
- Aw, Drel still recognizes Alicia. For some reason, I half expected him not to. I mean, who can honestly remember everyone they’ve killed? For you, it was a tragedy! But for me, it was Tuesday. Probably the only good thing out of that lousy movie. I didn’t understand live action adaptations then, and I still don’t understand them now. It’s like people think a piece of media only gains legitimacy if it gets a live action from Hollywood or Netflix. Like it’s somehow a badge of honor to be butchered by people who don’t even appreciate the original work. Sadly, some creators share this pathetic mindset. Some of them make video games when they honestly wish they could be making movies instead.
- Now, to be fair, I’ve heard that the live action One Piece is actually decent. It also doesn’t have a thousand episodes, which is a huge plus. Buuuuuuut it’s on Netflix. Look, if there’s a Netflix Anime package, I would be down to subscribe to the streaming service. I refuse, however, to pay extra for shows I won’t watch, and I know I won’t watch Netflix’s other offerings.
- Nell worries about Alicia, but Clen has bigger priorities. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that he still thinks of Alicia as merely a tool. If she dies, it’ll suck but it’ll suck like how losing a good hammer sucks. Normally, when a story pairs someone “inhuman” like Clen up with a bunch of actual humans, the former will eventually grow to appreciate their new “family.” But for Clen, the first domino to fall has to be Luna; he needs to see the child as more than a mere experiment, i.e. “Gee willikers, humans are such a mystery, so lemme observe them through you!” I think until that happens, he won’t gain any more respect for Alicia than what little he’s already shown.
- Naming ritual? What’s that now?
- Speaking of genuinely caring about others, Clen has Nell push through a massive stone wall in order to test her newfound abilities. I wonder if he wanted to convince her that she’s not as weak as she thinks she is. Or is he simply trying to confirm the results of yet another experiment, i.e. reviving her with troll strength.
- For some reason, the soldiers defending the forge suddenly sink into the ground to… what? Their deaths? Magical space that can safely harbor a bunch of living people? Did Clen just murder all of them? I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he did, but I’m not entirely sure what happened.
- Naturally, the episode ends as soon as we reach the doors of the forge. Not the worst cliffhanger of the season by any means. But imagine if we could live in a world full of hour-long anime episodes. That’s probably hell for our underpaid and overworked animators, but it’s nice to dream every now and then.
- Like every previous episode, this week’s offering of Clevatess is mostly plot driven and little else. I wish the characters had a little more depth to them.
