Category: Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu

Recap. And not a good one either: most of it was told from the perspective of Ferris’ sister, so we had to endure a really annoying voice-over throughout this entire episode. Only the final part was amusing, when they tried to tally the amount of dango that Ferris has consumed throughout the series. At least that was creative.

Still, there are just nine episodes left. Withthat, I really am going to have to compare this to Koukaku no Regios: that too had a lot of potential for its storyline. It was built around a concept that was possibly even more interesting than Denyuuden’s, and yet for most of its airtime it just kept focusing on a bloody love triangle that went nowhere: out of everything that it could have chosen to focus on, it chose the most boring part, leaving the rest of the story as a giant rushed mess. That’s what I’m starting to fear that Denyuuden will turn into: I am really willing to believe that this series gets really awesome in its second half and all, but I’m not sure whether the anime creators also believe this. We’re talking about the same guy who wrote the adaptation of Kurogane no Linebarrels here… Will 9 episodes really be enough?
Rating: — (Lacking)

An intermezzo, and it doesn’t really help that Milk returned. I understand that it’s necessary to build up the upcoming arc with a solid introduction (which had better be awesome, by the way), but more than half of this episode consisted out of the same character antics that have gotten old by now.

Here’s the thing: Ryner developed more when he was in prison than afterwards. The entire purpose of the previous arc was building up, but in itself it did not evolve this series in any way, other than increase the intrigue between the different countries a bit. The humour really shows this, as it’s been the same for ages now: Ferris insults Ryner as much as she can, Ryner tries to retort, and now that Milk has come into the picture she has gotten even more annoying. I did like that Ryner and Shion got to meet each other again, though. This episode should have had more of that.

Also notable was that there was one particular un-ZECXS-like animator at work on this episode. I’m not sure who or what, but for once there were scenes in which the hair of the characters didn’t stay perfectly in model, like characters were using some really strong hair-spray or something.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

Well, I hope you like your morals, because this episode was full of them: “thou shalt not kill”, “killing is necessary”, “pointless murders are pointless”, “people I don’t like are better off dead”. What was supposed to have been a climactic battle ended up in all of the characters throwing these morals back and forth at each other.

While I do have my issues with this episode, it wasn’t bad by far. Instead, it was average for this series’ standards: nowhere near its best, but also far from the tedious watch that some of its other episodes were. Still, this episode did go on and on with these morals, but considering their use, they accomplished very little. This episode was meant to close off the kid arc, so you’d expect some sort of conclusion, or new twist or anything, but we already knew pretty much all of the moral slogans that the characters said here. In the end, it was mere build-up.

The biggest changes in this episode involved that boy. His parents have been slaughtered, he wakes up, cries for a minute, and after that he’s fine again. Perhaps a bit of a fast development, but it works. I liked how he actually partially took part in taking out the pink-haired couple. He progressed a lot through this arc, and even though I wonder what his point was in the overall story, this episode did give his character adequate closure, and the upcoming arcs should prove to be quite interesting after all that build-up. If it’s used well, of course.

On a side-note: this is a pretty minor issue, but it did bother me in this episode: I’m a bit confused about the concepts of space in this series: how big are these countries? How many people live in these countries? How big are their armies? How long does it take to travel from one place to the other? These were some questions that sparked my mind when suddenly Miran appeared from out of nowhere at exactly the right moment. In fact, the way that this guy keeps sticking his nose in just about every part of Shion’s plans may be a bit much.
Rating: * (Good)

Kiefer Knolles returns, resulting into the episode of Legendary Heroes that I enjoyed the most during the past two months. Nice.

The first half of this episode was background, which is great to see at this point, especially considering one of the characters I like the most about this series. Her absence really made me hungry for more from her, and I’m intrigued at how she allied herself with the country of the pink-haired people right now. Before this episode, I could never really take them seriously due to their looks and bland characterizations, but that king holds potential, especially in combination with her.

In the next episodes, I’m expecting more episodes like this for the other characters. The thing is that Ryner developed more in jail than during his quest so far, and I know that he spent two years in jail and all, but I still consider that he and Ferris are getting stagnant. They’re both so caught up in their act that only some over the top Alpha Stigmas can break the ice between them, and that has gotten old at this point.

What I want here is variety. Do something interesting with those characters. Evolve this series in the same way that the five episodes just kept changing and throwing us for loops. I know that this series has the potential, now don’t let this become another Koukaku no Regios!
Rating: * (Good)

Miran really likes killing people, but to learn that he already was plotting to take over the world at the age of five… That’s some hardcore bad guy.

In any case, I wonder what the creators intended to do by suddenly killing off a ton of different people who were conspiring against Shion: it’s either going to fuel the other anti-Shion people in the kingdom, or they intend to take care of them all at once. Either way, this episode was building up towards more international intrigue with those pink-haired people and all.

I’m still waiting for something to catch my interest, though. People keep saying that the second half of this series will be awesome, and I’m willing to wait for that. My main issue right now is that there are no characters that interest me left: there just are too many of them and they’re too similar. Even the humour between Ferris and Ryner is getting old. The best is probably Miran: I feel that if this guy develops, he can change into something great, as this episode hinted.

Perhaps I’m comparing this show too much to Guin Saga (which arguably did have a much better direction, and it did pull off a huge cast), but I’m not really feeling anything with this series at this point. At this point in the series, that’s nothing too disastrous, though, as there still is plenty of time for this series to redeem itself, though it is a bit of a chore to get through these episodes.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

To be honest, I’m beginning to get a bit bored with this series. You could see that this episode was really trying to be sad here, but to me it still felt like it was missing something. If you guys aren’t going to let me drop Katanagatari, then be prepared that I’m going to stop blogging this series after the start of the Autumn season in favour of a more interesting series.

It’s not like this series is becoming unbearable to blog in the same way as Kimi ni Todoke, and this show is nowhere near bad, but I am getting rather tired of it. Last week I blamed the side characters for this, but I don’t think that that’s everything. The reason I’m a big fan of the fantasy adventure genre is because of the creativity and variety of the really good series. And that’s something I’m missing here, with this episode being a good example: in this episode we yet again see Shion strategize about some random problem, we yet again saw Miran scheming something, and most importantly: we yet again saw Ryner battle some random mages and angst over his past.

Especially that last part is something that has been getting on my nerves. Yes, we know that the guy had a sad past, can we move on now? That boy with Alpha stigma just felt too forced. It’s like the creators went: oh, look. We killed his parents in front of his own eyes. FEEL SORRY FOR HIM. It didn’t really work for me.

This show could still turn out much better in its second half, but I just don’t trust this enough to be honest. Still, the setting is still solid, albeit unimaginative. And I can very much see it as the director’s best TV-series so far.
Rating: * (Good)

Last episode was a bit disappointing considering its material, but this episode made up for it. Now that those two goons are gone, Ferris’ attempts to get Ryner out of his Alpha-Stigma mode were the best part of this series since episode three. It was very artistic, intense and furthered the relationship between the two of them.

I think my problem with this series is that I’m currently watching it, just for Ryner, Ferris and Shion. At this point, I can’t really find myself to care about the rest of the cast. It’s up to the rest of the series to make these guys interesting, because the series moves away from Ryner and Ferris too often for them to be able to save the series. Right now this show is really busy fleshing out its setting with all of the political intrigue, but at this point there are too many shallow characters.

I blame not the lack of development or background, but the lack of fleshing these guys out. Ferris and Ryner are great to watch because we see so many different sides of them in different situations. Most of the people on Shion’s court get too little airtime to show their characters off. Everything is always serious business, and this episode was probably the first that attempted to show a different side of Claugh now that he’s in love with that Blue haired girl. Having this cast come to live is going to be this series’ biggest challenge for me.
Rating: * (Good)

Okay, so this is the long awaited moment in which Ryner “snaps” again. Is it as good as the third episode? Nah.

The second half of this episode was very intense, yes. But to me, it felt like it was trying a tad too hard to make Ryner’s life as miserable as possible, using too many cliches in the process. “Oh god, I’m a kid with lots of powers. I used to live peacefully with everyone but now that I’ve shown my powers after evil people killed my friends everyone sees me as a monster!” Yeah; been there, done that.

It’s a stock fantasy cliche, with not enough to deviate it from the other stories that use it. The reason why the third episode was so awesome was because it really was about the relationship between Ryner and that girl who was in love with him. It developed both him and her; it was well directed and just kept throwing in more and more interesting stuff. This episode was just there to show how sad Ryner’s past was. The enemies were also rather generic as well.

As a build up, I guess it suffices and it’s not like this episode was annoying like the one with that female captain, but this show has now reached the point in which I’m starting to get bored. Apparently, especially the later volumes of the original light novels are going to be awesome, but I first want to see that before believing it.
Rating: (Enjoyable)

This episode was mostly centred around politics: the revolt of the nobles of Estabul. The revolt itself doesn’t seem to have that much of an impact on the story, and it seems more of an episode for the characters. we get a new character added to Shion’s group (whose character-designs unfortunately made that plot twist a bit too predictable), and Miran now is seen as someone who just disobeys Shion’s orders, causing Claugh to probably hate him for the rest of the series.

It was a pretty nice episode, though I do feel like it could have used a bit more build-up. It feels a bit… stereotypical right now, just meant to show how that new character is very righteous and gullible. I guess that with the rest of the cast, she is different from the rest of the characters, and I guess that the creators wanted a saint-like character like her, but I don’t like her yet.

In the meantime, the creators are continuing to build up Miran’s character, and they can’t just keep doing this for the entire rest of the series. I’m curious what the creators have in mind with him. Having said that, though, after five episodes I still have yet to see anything that matches up to episode 3. At this point, that’s the most dangerous for this series: what if it ends up never surpassing that particular episode? It’s an episode that created a lot of expectations, but will the future episodes be able to live up to them?
Rating: (Enjoyable)

It’s strange that the comedy in this series only works when either Ferris or Raina is directly involved. I mean, both their characters are pretty interesting and their wit is delightful to watch, but on the other side of the coin we have some of the other female characters here. When these people try to be funny they’re just yelling randomly and they’re more annoying than funny here.

The problem with this episode was obviously that female captain, whose story is just too typical: childhood friend, still in love, spunky personality, rather stupid. Yeah, the kind of character I was glad that this series avoided. And how did she make it to captain anyway? I mean, any of those four companions of her is far more suited to lead them around. When are we going to see Raina’s actual love interest again? I actually liked her a lot here. Unfortunately, the OP seems to be hinting at how she’s going to become a major character here. Ouch.

On the bright side, this banter between Raina and Ferris still isn’t getting tiring, which is a really good sign after seven episodes. This episode also was building up some pretty intriguing stuff, and I also really like Shion at this moment, and how Fior’s sister has decided to serve him. The drama overall in this episode wasn’t as good as usual, thanks to whatshername, but still, to have one of the vassal states of the kingdom start a rebellion, it’s yet another layer of problems that Shion needs to overcome.
Rating: (Enjoyable)