Welcome all, to another week of Kemono no Souja Erin! Apologies for the lateness on this. Like I said in the Zom 100 post, I actually caught Covid this past week and its kind of fucking me up a bit. Expect things to be delayed. I’ll get them out, but man is it tiring. Anyways, on with the episodes!
First up is episode 33, “Fly”. This one is all about Erin completely ignoring Nasan’s warning deciding to train Lilan to fly on command. And you know what? I’m here for it. Not only for Erin to start proactively forging her own path but also for what it does to Erin and Lilan’s relationship. This idea that Erin lost sight of Lilan a bit, started to view her more as a pet/work animal than a partner, was intriguing. She was more focused on getting her to fly, on getting what she wanted, that she didn’t really consider what Lilan wanted. Not until the end at least, where she noticed and started to play with her again rather then force her out into the fields to work. Erin figured out Lilan needed to want to fly, she couldn’t be made to. And that was sweet.
The progression on the whole “Flying” thing was pretty nice too. Stuff like first trying a horse saddle, Lilan not liking it because it doesn’t properly fit her/bit into her back, switching to a futon style saddle, etc. These sorts of “figure it out” scenes are some of my favorite moments in Erin. Not just because it’s satisfying watching them piece stuff together, like the murder mysteries of this seasons Undead Murder Farce, though that is no small part of it. I also just love learning about Erin’s world. Every time something like this comes up we generally get plenty of new information, such as the differences between captive and wild beast-lords or a characters backstory that is relevant to what’s going on. Personally, I think it always makes for a grand time.
As far as the repercussions of all of this, as per Nasan’s warning, it looks like everyone is trying to be super careful that the capital won’t find out. Of course they probably will, and there will probably be consequences for it, but I like this sort of “In for a penny” mentality they have. I’ve said it before but most everyone at Kazalm is like Erin, they love these animals and truly do want what is best for them. These are people that chose this profession because they had a passion for it. So it makes sense they wouldn’t want to do things like chain Lilan down or would want to train her to fly, etc etc. But they are also all old enough to know what they are doing is illegal, so there’s this balance between how to hide it and still do it anyways.
Finally we have the creepy teacher, Kiriku. This guy hasn’t done much but he’s perpetually lurking around in the background. Always watching, always there with some kind of comment. I honestly don’t know what this guy wants. He seems invested in this idea that Erin will fail, that anything different from the norm can’t survive. Part of that is no doubt him investing his own identity into it, with him/his sister being “different”. But I’m curious if Erin’s inevitable success will sort of… Turn him? Make him an ally in whatever conflict is probably coming as the coup slowly escalates? At the very least while he wants Erin to fail he doesn’t seem to have it out for her personally. More like he just doubts that anything she does will really matter.
With that we come to episode 34, “Ial and Erin”. As the name implies, this episode sees the return of Ial! Of course he brings along some baggage, finally dragging Erin into the greater politics of the kingdom, but hey at least he’s back. Long and short of it is that someone has poisoned not only a Beast-Lord but an attendant of the Princess, though their aim was probably the Princess herself. And they did it using a rare herb found only in the Duke’s quarter: Chichi Mimic. Now both Ial and Erin are looking for the same antidote, and of course those who did the poisoning don’t want them to find it. Queue some running, some fighting, a reunion, and an ultimately happy ending.
Now personally, I really liked this. I liked how Erin brought back something from the first few episodes, something only Erin would really know about on this half of the country. It not only makes us think back to and remember those opening episodes but it reminds us that Erin is kind of an outsider, even here at Kazalm. It also puts a target on her back for the Saigamul, who no doubt weren’t expecting a Duke’s Quarter Beastinarian to be there to figure it out. After all, if not for Erin then no one at Kazalm would have even known what it was. I mean, Kiriku would have, but he’s the one who poisoned it so he wasn’t exactly going to tell them. Basically Erin is drawing attention from a lot of different people at the moment, few of which are good, and that’s cool!
Speaking of Kiriku, this guy is still fucking creepy and I still have no idea what he wants. He was clearly given orders from someone to poison the Beast-Lord, but we don’t really know who. Could it have been the Saigamul? But I thought he hung up the mask and the sword when he came to Kazalm, “Looking for a place to die” as he said? Maybe he hasn’t really put it all behind him, or he’s here on something more nefarious? I really don’t know. I also don’t know why they would want to poison the Beast-Lord. Ial mentions that one dying under their care would show weakness from the Queen, as the Beast-Lord is her symbol. But surely coming out and saying it was poisoned would alleviate that? Granted it would probably fan the flames of war, which they also want, but I feel like it wouldn’t be that big a deal.
As for Ial himself, he seems to be doing… well? We really don’t get much from him, only that he does indeed remember Erin and that he lied about it to try and protect her/not get her involved. He certainly seems to have moved up the ranks a bit, what with his different colored uniform and being able to order people around now. I’m actually curious just how much he’s bought in to the Sezan lifestyle. How much of the original Ial we first met like… 6 years ago is still there? Has he had any doubts, like his master? I’m really hoping he gets an episode or 2 to explore where his headspace is at because aside from that first meeting he really hasn’t been much of a character, and that’s a damn shame for someone so cool.
Next up is episode 35, “New Life”. This was an absolutely wild episode, going down a route I never expected. Simply put, Lilan is pregnant. A wild Beast-Lord, Eku, was brought in to be cared for after a hunt went poorly. Not to surprisingly, they fell for each other almost immediately as this is the first “real” male Lilan has met. All the other Beast-Lords at Kazalm have been raised in captivity after all, they are… meek. This is reflected in both their attitudes and their color pallets, being all dark and grey and unappealing. Naturally, Eku also see Lilan as the only decent option in the entire town and so they hit it off. While this was a bit of a… weird direction for Erin to take, I think it feeds well into Erin’s personal journey throughout the show.
What do I mean by that? Basically, I’m really curious how Erin is going to take all of this. Where the show will end up going with it? Will Lilan and Eku stay after the child is born? They can both fly, so it wouldn’t be that hard for them to just up and leave, and there’s not like there’s anything anyone here can do to stop them short of using the Mute Whistle, which we know Erin will never allow. As for Erin herself, she’s obviously on Lilan’s side on everything. She wants what’s best for them. So if they decide to leave will she let them? Or will she try and go with them? And how will she feel about the child probably becoming property of the Queen? This introduces a lot of issues for Erin, challenges for her career and character, all of which I’m looking forward to.
As a side note, it also makes me curious just how many, if any, Beast-Lords are born in captivity. I’m leaning towards none, to be frank. Not only do we already know Touda can’t be bred in captivity, it also seemed like no one at Kazalm really understood what was happening, like they had never seen it before. The act also seems to require them to be able to fly, which we know none of the captive Beast-Lords are capable of doing. So does that mean this is possibly the first Beast-Lord mating ritual, and thus pregnancy, ever witnessed by human beings? I suspect so, making this a… pretty big freaking deal. I can’t imagine them being able to keep quiet about this, even assuming they wanted to.
Finally we have episode 36, “Graduation Trial”. As the name implies, this is the graduation exam for all of our Kazalm students. And if I’m being honest? It was kind of a weak episode. That’s mostly due to the fact that, outside of Erin and Tomura, none of these students are really… characters. They have moments, as a collective, such as helping Erin out with her exams and shit. But the entirety of our time here has been spent with Erin and Lilan really, not with them. So there’s really no emotional reaction to any of them leaving. Not even Yuuyan was able to get a reaction! To me, that speaks of a failure on Erin’s part. It wasn’t able to properly use them in the time it had, to involve them in what was going on. And that’s a shame.
As for what did matter there are 2 main plots. The first is Erin learning how to properly care for Lilan via Eku. This is nice! I like her learning from an actual live Beast-Lord, seeing how they prune and care for each other, the proper way to do everything. I imagine this alone will greatly increase their knowledge of how to care for the animals. What’s also nice to see is that Eku appears to have accepted Erin as well. Remember, he’s a wild Beast-Lord, Erin didn’t raise him from a child like she did Lilan. So for her to feel safe getting into the same cage as him, and for him to accept her so close to his mate, is probably really freaking important. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this come back in the future.
The other main plot is Kiriku heading to the capital to report on it all. Naturally they couldn’t keep it a secret, though for funding reasons rather then intellectual ones. This is fine, makes sense, totally get it. What interests me though is Kiriku being selected to go, and his claim of having someone “on the inside” to help him out. Naturally this is Damiya, who we know to probably be involved with the Saigamul and the upcoming coup. Meaning that Kiriku, as we already knew, is working for him. The more important question though is what Damiya is going to what Kiriku to do once he returns to Kazalm. Will he want Eku and Lilan poisoned? Or Erin? Will Kiriku refuse? I don’t know, but the ball is in his court and I’m kinda interested to see where he sends it.
So yeah, all in all this was a nice week for Erin. Nothing to amazing, outside the last 3 minutes of episode 35 at least. Aside from that 36 was a bit slow and the other 2 were nice enough. My biggest issue at this point is that I’m still not sure what Erin’s endgame is. We have about a cour left, 5 more weeks of posts, before the show is over. Yet I can’t help but think we aren’t anywhere near any sort of… resolution. No revolution has started, Erin is sort of just off in her own little world, and the previews of the up coming episode don’t seem like they intend to change that. Maybe I’m just misreading Erin and that’s not the shows intent at all, the coup is just a background piece. But for now? For now I’m enjoying it, but concerned about the ending.
