Category: Kemono no Souja Erin

whoa. Just when I thought that this show couldn’t pull any more plot twists. This episode yet again pushes the story into a completely different direction. Obviously, if you haven’t seen this episode yet: beware for spoilers because this episode ties up a lot of the mysteries in this series.

Because holy crap, it was Damya all along. This guy really struck me as someone with ambitions, however also with loyalties to the Queen. Turns out, it was all an act: he was the one who ordered the collection of Touda eggs, the attack on the queen, and all of the other things that those masked guys did. On top of that: Kirik is one of them! He was the one who nearly escaped from Ialu a couple of times, and now he’s been sent to keep out an eye for Erin.

This episode also put in some major development for Kirik, and it really paid off. We finally get to fully see what that flashback of his meant: he and his sister were orphans, and were taken in by people who just wanted to kill the two, so he ended up poisoning them. The climax really worked, between him and Ialu.

But yeah, the worst part is going to be Erin: we now know that she’s really been tricked, and that Damya has no good intentions for her whatsoever. Throughout the entire episode, we could only see her sitting in a corner, thinking of the possibility of having the Beast King force disbanded. With only five episodes left, the end is finally getting in sight.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

This episode really shows the power of long and slow-paced series. While Erin indeed lacks the excitement of series with an erratic pacing like the Armed Librarians, at the same time it’s got a story that’s so well built up that it can really take an in-depth look at it. The power of the story of Erin lies in the fact that Erin sees things that everyone else sees, and just keeps taking daring conclusions and actions that nobody else in the setting sees. Thanks to the slow pacing, we’re really given an insight into how this happens.

This series is full of things that are bound to happen: in this episode, Damya finally threatens Erin with the safety of the students and teachers at the academy. It’s something that was bound to happen, the moment Erin started to take care of Lilan. And yet this episode showed her as she comes with a solution that I never even thought of: what if the Grand Duke became king? That would mean that the Beast Kings would lose their function as war machines. We’ve seen people claim before that the country would fall apart when its two half get unbalanced, but I realize that we’re also supposed to take that with a grain of salt: I mean, with Damya at the head, the country is bound for destruction anyways.

The only thing that I dislike about this series is the great amount of flashbacks in this series. This series just keeps recycling the same frames under these flashbacks, when a character is talking, and it’s about to get a bit overused. Ah well, at least it’s not the worst way to save budget. The drawings still look as solid as ever.

I think that at this point, I still consider Seirei no Moribito as superior to Kemono no Souja Erin. While Erin has better developed characters and a longer length, it still beats Erin for me in terms of the awesome production-values and its huge attention to detail in just about everything. Still, I do have to say that Erin is getting closer and closer to the height of SnM.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

For everyone who has yet to watch this episode: close this window, don’t look at spoilers, wait for the subs to release and watch this episode. It’s one of those episodes you don’t want to get spoiled about. This line of text is there to prevent these spoilers from showing up at the various blog aggregators.

I’m utterly astonished at this episode. It was such a powerful proverbial kick in the groin that it gives the entire story an entire new direction. Show for kids? Charming story about a young woman and her trusty Beast King? Hah! Think again! This episode more than anything showed the mature and downright brutal nature of this series. I’m completely amazed at how far this episode went, and it’s also the episode of this series that has made the most impact on me.

After the death of the queen, you’d expect a slow-paced battle between Erin, as she tries to keep Lilan out of Damya’s clutches. That was Erin’s plan too, but here Lilan comes, attacks the royal guard, kills one of these people AND BITES OFF THREE OF ERIN’S FINGERS! Holy crap. It’s this series’ way of saying: don’t mess with beasts. They’re dangerous. It completely nullifies Erin’s wishes to be a beast player without the use of a mute whistle: this episode was a really hard lesson for her to never underestimate the power of these things.

Also, what’s going to happen next? I originally thought that the final episodes of this series would focus on the upcoming war, but this episode really changes everything. Erin doesn’t run away like a coward, but she has to bear the responsibility for killing one soldier, and injuring another. Lilan… I have no idea what’s going to happen to her. Common sense dictates that she’s simply going to have to be executed, but is everything really going to end that simple? After all, Erin was the one who proved the theory wrong that only the queen could control the beast kings, he might have some plans for her.

Is there really not going to be some sort of second season?
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

An entire episode dedicated to the new queen, who just ascended the throne in one of the worst possible times, just when the stability between the two halves of the country is beginning to waver. And what an intense episode it was.

Of course, the sons of the grand duke aren’t stupid enough to give in to the false accusations that Damya throws at them. Not only that, but they also end up making the first move when Shunan even proposes to Seimiya, in an attempt to bring the country back to stability. The thing is, that Seimiya just has too little experience. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but she doesn’t seem educated at all in politics. She lived the good life, protected by everyone else including her mother. Her ideal wedding was one with Shunan, but now that he’s marrying her for country purposes, rather than because of her became a huge shock for her. Even if there wasn’t Damya who would try to take advantage of her, she’d probably end up destroying the country herself.

Damya meanwhile remains an interesting variation to the stereotypical evil right hand man. You can see that he’s already manipulating Seimiya: portraying himself as the kind uncle to her, so that she feels trusted with him. However, you can also see that he genuinely cares for the loss of his mother, and he feels sorry for his niece. Unlike her, however, he knows what his ideals are, and he’s well aware that he has a very good opportunity to realize them.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Yeah, this episode was meant as one big build-up for the thing that happened in its final 30 seconds. You definitely don’t want to read this entry if you have yet to see this episode.

The creators kept hinting, though I failed to notice that entirely. Erin basically gets summoned to the queen as a token of gratitude for using Lilan to save the royal family. Of course, Damya immediately proposes her to start working as the Queen’s bodyguard. They act really surprised when Erin declines, and so Erin tells the Queen (without Damya, and with Ialu) about the tragedy that happened when the queen was only one year old. Like expected, she didn’t know a thing about it, and everyone from her time has taken great care in order to never mention it again. I’m surprised if there are still people alive who remember it, aside from the Wind Tribe.

But yeah, that came as an utter shock to the queen. I’m not sure what exactly did it: that shock at such an old age, or whether the Psi Gamuls finally succeeded in poisoning her, but whatever it is her death came as an utter surprise to me. This of course has huge implications. I already thought that Damya would cause trouble eventually, but what kept him back was his genuine loyalty to the queen. Now that that’s gone, he’s probably going to pick a fight with the Grand Duke, using that attack as an excuse, and in order to win he’s probably going to do whatever it takes in order to get Erin to cooperate.

If there are indeed only 2 novels, then this marks the beginning of the end. There are nine episodes left, and in those, the story is going to have to come to an end, and I’m very curious to how the creators are going to do it.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

So in the end I’m not going to blog Winter Sonata, for the following reasons:
– The release schedule that’s even more uncertain than Aoi Bungaku. Besides, I don’t know a word of Korean.
– The producer: only three episodes are finished at the moment because the lead actor was changed at the last moment. It’s the task of a producer to prevent these kinds of screw-ups!
– I’m already blogging enough angst this season (glares at White Album, and based on the rumours Winter Sonata seems to be even more annoying, if that’s possible).

I also decided not to blog 11Eyes: it really only has those tense moments that are good. The chemistry between the lead couple is just… generic to say the least (in the kind of “I’ll protect you and your bosom!”). And since the rest of this season didn’t have anything else that was promising, I figured that I might as well blog the final 11 episodes of Kemono no Souja, to make up for how I ignored it when it first aired.

Overall, this really is a lesser season. I wouldn’t say that it’s the worst Autumn Season ever, that award goes to Autumn 2007, in which there only were like, 6 shows that left a good impression on me, while this season does have more interesting series. The problem with this season also isn’t the moe overload. Previous summer had that too, and that turned out to be a really enjoyable season. It’s also no problem that this is the first season since ages that doesn’t have any mecha in it. In fact, it’s actually quite refreshing.

I think the problem with this season is quantity: when you look at the amount of series that aren’t sequels, we’re back to the amount of 2005 or perhaps even worse. To add to that, while Autumn 2005 did feature a lot of 26-episode series, right now we have like, what? only four series that are going to be more than 13 episodes (Kobato, Armed Librarians, Kiruminzoo and probably Kimi ni Todoke as well, but even that isn’t certain). It’s really such a shame. Let me tell you, if the Sacred Blacksmith would have had 26 episodes instead of 13, I probably would have blogged that one instead. But what can it really do in just 13 episodes?

And that is what I think is the biggest problem with anime: a majority of the series are just too short. And don’t give me that talk of “yeah, but second seasons can be announced”. That’s what I thought with Amatsuki as well and I’m still waiting for that much, much needed sequel. That’s why the past spring was so good: finally we had a good amount of series that even went beyond 26 episodes: these series really took a risk and gave their series the time needed.

And the same Kemono no Souja: I actually remember that a lot of people were scared away by the scheduled 50 episodes, but thinking back, those were pretty crappy reasons to drop this show. I think that Naruto and Bleach really made this long length infamous, and the currently airing Inu Yasha also prevents people like me, who don’t like the genre it’s in to give it a chance out of the fear of committing time to something that was ultimately not worth it, however I’m now starting to see that at least these series give their franchises enough time to play out. Kemono no Souja Erin has 50 episodes, and it still doesn’t look like enough.

Anyway, I’m not going to talk about this episode because it was a recap, but I do want to use these posts as a means of making up to this great series. I originally dropped it for a very clear reasons: the creators. At the time this series aired I really wasn’t happy with Trans Arts: they had this very nasty trend of picking out very interesting premises, only to screw them up:
– Sisters of Wellber? Great premise for a fantasy-series, but THE CHEESE.
– Library Wars? Sounded very nice, but it lacked complete direction and wanted to do way too much in too little time.
– And Chocolate Underground was entirely crap.

So yeah, as interesting as Erin sounded, I believed that they would screw this one up as well, and so when I detected a bit of cheese I dropped it. That was a bit of a stupid decision. This series built itself up very slowly, but in the end it was definitely worth it. This series reminds me of other lengthy shoujo-series as Glass Mask and Kaleido Star, which just focus on one aspect, but really take their time in exploring their subject matter to the fullest.

Edit: oh, silly me. I never noticed that I downloaded the wrong episode.

The “real” episode 40 was indeed much more like it, and did such an excellent job portraying the aftermath of last episode’s shocking climax. The start of this episode was really hectic, in which many things happened at the same time: Erin’s shock at what happened, taking care of the wounded, the queen who collapsed, the fact that Erin pretty much worked herself into trouble by commanding a Beast King right in front of a small army, including Damya.

And yeah, we now know where the Touda eggs which were previously stolen went to. I don’t think that that organization whose name I forgot has that many Touda, but you can clearly see that they’re trying to spark a war between the Queen and the Grand Duke. During these tense times, all Damya has to do is to bite back, and the country is pretty much doomed.

I also must praise how well the relationship between Erin and Ialu has been built up throughout the series. Now this is romance that really takes its time, instead of going down the cheesy part. Very nice.
Rating: ** (Excellent)