Welcome all, to another week of Kemono no Souja Erin! This is a good week for me, I quite enjoyed it, it feels like things are finally coming to a head and it’s great. What do I mean by that? Well let’s jump right into the episodes and talk about it.
First up is episode 37, “Birth”. As per the title, this episode see’s the baby Beast-Lord be born! Surprisingly however, that isn’t actually the focus of the episode. Oh the baby being born was nice, it was a good scene. Lots of light rays and well framed shots, some good music, tastefully showing just enough that we have to recognize it’s significance without showing an actual live birth. As far as birth scenes in anime go, and god is that not a larger group then you’d think, I found it decently done. I was able to focus more on what it represented then all the gory details of the process. Like I said though, this was more the culmination of someone else’s arc rather then one of Erin’s It was only relevant in the finale. So the question becomes, who is it that’s so important for Erin to do this?
The answer of course is Shiron, one of Erin’s new students. Her story, her introduction, as well as Erin’s first steps on her journey as a teacher, is the main thrust of the episode. How this little girl is desperate to prove herself and overtake Erin, to become a Teacher so that her father and brothers will respect her. How Erin is imparting her philosophy and how she views the worlds to these kids, putting ideas into their heads at a young age about the importance of not only reading something but experiencing it. This is of course in direct contradiction to how these kids are normally taught. With stuff like the Touda and Beast-Lord imperatives, they are taught not to be creative and think for themselves but rather to follow a strict dogma. So in a way, Erin is already working to change her country.
Meanwhile on Shiron’s end, this is mostly just a statement about how their country treats women. It’s not particularly new nor exciting for the story, and I do find it a bit odd that it’s placed here rather then focusing on our upcoming finale. That said, for what it is I think Erin does it well, using it as Erin’s first sort of “Problem child”. It lets Erin connect back a bit to how she grew up, forcing her way into learning from her mother, as well as reflecting on how fortunate she was to find someone like Jone. Overall I found it a rather nice, if safe, episode for the birth. And when you look at it from the lens of being the start of a new season, which it probably was at the time, it does the job of introducing us back into the series well.
Next up we have episode 38, “The Queen Harumiya”. As the name suggests, this one sees the Queen visit Kazalm and see the baby herself, finally getting Erin directly involved in the political goings on. Overall I quite enjoyed this one, it was pretty good. Getting to know the Queen a bit more was nice, seeing that despite being kind of bad and disconnected from her people she does still legitimately care. Still, she does seem to be a bit of an airhead at times, such as casually disregarding her experts requests not to get near the giant monster and its child. I get it, Damiya was clearly plotting something and trying to get her killed multiple times. But surely a Queen of your age should realize that this is kind of stupid, no?
Sadly she doesn’t, and this ends up requiring Erin to get involved to save her, busting out the harp and everything. On Erin’s side, this speaks well of her. She cares more for the safety of others, as well as Lilan and Eku as she refuses to use the mute whistle on them, than she does her own personal safety. It’s a moment that allows her to put her money where her mouth is, as her mother did all those years ago. And unluckily for her, because of this Damiya seems to take a clear interest in her. For what reason we can’t exactly know yet, as we barely even know why he wants to kill the Queen. I suspect though that he sees Erin as a possible replacement Queen, one for he himself to marry and a route to the throne.
Speaking of the Queen, the one nice thing to come out of all of this is her vocal pushback against the mute whistle. This was unexpected, and honestly more then a little weird. Is this not the lady responsible for mute whistle? Or at least for it’s continued use? She’s the reason the Beast-Lord imperatives exist, she sets the rules. Does she not know of the history, of why they were created in the first place? Or does she not care? Whatever the reason, it seems like Erin has found an unexpected ally in the Queen, at least insofar as the Beast-Lords are concerned. It makes me wonder just how much she could reveal and get away with. Would the Queen be able to protect her? Or would she get outvoted by a council, or perhaps done away with in secret? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting wrinkle.
That brings me to episode 39, “Attack of the Touda”. Like most of these titles, this one is pretty self explanatory. With Damiya’s attempt at Kazalm having failed, this episode sees his next one, namely having a group of Touda attack the ships in the water. Now this wasn’t unexpected, we all knew Damiya was planning something. But I’ll admit to having forgotten that he had been collecting Touda eggs via the Saigamul. I was just expecting a large group of bandits, or perhaps sabotage to the ships themselves. A group of Touda attacking though not only makes sense from an effectiveness point of view, it also implicates the Duke is favored on the river. All in all, not a bad little plan from him, though I do have to wonder how he planned to survive it al.
Seeing this, naturally Erin isn’t going to sit around and do nothing. She goes and saddles up Lilan, heading out to save the Queen and revealing herself once again despite the risks, ignoring Nasan’s warning. And wouldn’t you know it? Lilan goes a bit stir crazy from her natural enemy, butchering each and every Touda there. I like this, now Erin has proof of his words and blood on her hands. She can see the consequences of her actions, they aren’t just “What if’s” anymore. Which means that, for her at least, the rest of his words might come true as well. How Beast-Lords were used as weapons of war, how her knowledge might doom the country and lead to great conflict. Whether or not it happens is irrelevant, in Erin’s head that’s the next step.
And from the looks of things, Damiya is already plotting it. I talked about it a bit in the previous episode, but he clearly has a thing for her and I think this rescue only made it worse. Before he was interested because of her skills and knowledge. Now he might very well see her as the 2nd coming of their original Queen, the one who can control the Beast-Lords and will lead their nation to greater glory. I wouldn’t be surprised if he now plans to either put her on the throne or take her for himself. Either way though, Erin now has Damiya’s eyes on her and considering he’s the closest thing we have to an antagonist at this point, that’s not a good thing.
Finally we come to episode 40, “Falling into Shadow”. This one is all about the aftermath of the previous episode. For Erin that’s nothing big just yet, people are to preoccupied with figuring out what happened and caring for the Queen. But I suspect that sort of paralyzation won’t last forever, that this is just the calm before the inevitable storm. And what’s a calm without a few sweet lovey dovey moments to really give us that gut punch when they all fall apart? I’m of course talking about Ial and Erin, sorry Tomura I think you’re losing out. This episode had a lot of these two just interacting and hanging out. Whether it be Erin caring for Ial’s soldiers or playing his harp, it was probably the most interaction we’ve gotten between them since they first met.
Now weird age differences aside, I found it really cute and liked it and think they work well together. Both of them feel a bit out of place, and they both clearly trust each other a lot if Erin is opening up about her mother and everything. What makes it work the most for me though is this idea that Ial is just like the Touda/Beast-Lords, someone bred/trained from a young age for a very specific job with no real life outside of that. The Sezan might as well be another animal for how the country treats them, and I think Erin’s compassion and desire to see things be free is applying to Ial a bit. It’s cute, and I fully expect it to end in tragedy. For now though, this is probably my OTP.
As for the actual plot, the only major progression there is Erin’s knowledge that these Touda didn’t have crests, meaning they weren’t raised in any of the Duke’s official Touda villages. I really like this, on a number of levels. I like how the first few episodes where Erin grew up are continuing to be relevant, especially in an area where no one else really know how Touda are raised. And I also like that this knowledge is coming back and being plot relevant for preventing a war and exonerating the Duke in a crime he probably had no hand in. I suspect not even Damiya knew about the crests, or if he did he wasn’t planning on anyone else here knowing. I’m curious how he’s going to deal with this wrench in his plans.
So yeah, all in all this was a good week for Erin. It was a lot more exciting and engaging then the previous 4 episodes, which I’m happy about. I continue to be concerned about just how much ground Erin has to cover in these last 10 episodes, I’m not convinced it will be able to do so satisfactorily. Still I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt that it knows what it’s doing, as I’ve enjoyed it well enough thus far.
