Wait… what the hell? How did this series suddenly become so awesome? I mean… just… wow. This episode was unbelievable. It was so completely different from the previous two episodes, it stopped with playing these silly games and actually put forth a genuinely good and emotional episode. I don’t get it! The staff for this series is crap; how… why… when?
I don’t know what’s going on anymore. This… just is one of those episode you have to see to believe. The previous two episodes were all pretty light-hearted in their build-up. This episode promised to be exactly the same as the previous one: we go on some small adventure along with the lead character and his side character friends, while we get to know the setting a bit more. Seriously, I really believed that those guys would be major unimportant side characters throughout this series.
But what took the cake was how the creators portrayed Raina, unleashing his inner powers. I mean… wow. They did just about everything right there. The budget here may not be the best of the season, but damn, was it well used! It really was an excellent portrayal of his inner struggles of keeping such a power locked inside of him, and yet it didn’t drag on like you see with most other people who unleash their hidden powers.
And holy crap, this episode also turned the romance into something good. In the previous episode it was a bit forced, but damn, that romantic tension here really added even more to this episode. With a series that started off so silly, the creators surely squeezed a heap of drama out of its premise in this episode.
When I started blogging this show, I wasn’t expecting anything. You know, perhaps in its second half it could turn into a nice action series of some sort. This episode however… that was about the last thing I could have expected. And it’s not like this can just be attributed to the fact that the creators finally have some good source material: it really was the direction here that gave the scenario its extra edge. This really came from people who spent a lot of time thinking of making this episode as awesome as possible.
I’m definitely extremely interested in this series right now. This could just have been a one-shot episode of awesomeness. It could still derail in the rest of its airtime, but damn, this was just unbelievable. I’m seriously interested about the rest of this series now. But still, it’s episodes like these why I love anime: those series that you have no expectations of that suddenly turn out to deliver so well.
Rating: *** (Awesome)
“it’s episodes like these why I love anime: those series that you have no expectations of that suddenly turn out to deliver so well.”
I totally agree, 100%! Some anime I watched totally proved me wrong on a lot of things (most notable for me being the second half of Shounen Onmyouji and Heartcatch Precure’s characters). Don’t you just love it when something looks so-so at first, then suddenly defies all of your expectations and brings out a woo-loo of surprises?
If this can actually combine slayers-esque settings and humor with an actually solid plot it is bound to become my favorite show of the season. With the quality that this genre of fantasy anime has displayed the last couple of seasons I’m not getting my hopes up too high though.
At the very least it has non hyper/ wimpy/ loser/ emo male leads for once though which is in itself refreshing. Besides, blonde blademaster babes always make for good pulp.
You have no idea how glad I am to hear this. You see, I’m a long standing fantasy enthusiast – long before I ever stumbled onto a bleach episode on youtube I loved fantasy, and I still crave it.But really good fantasy anime, with good character work and so on, are actually pretty hard to find. Medieval style is easier, and helps, but still I keep looking for things to scratch my itch. I had a feeling there might be something bigger hiding in this one. I’m very glad to hear it’s true.
Yeah, this is FINALLY a fantasy epic series that I can satisfy my fantasy-obsessed withdrawal symptoms with…..
The light novels have won awards in Japan and sold millions of copies. So I think if they do this well, it will become EPIC.
By the way, psgels did you watch the trailer 2 (PV2)? It shows pretty much the direction this series is going….
nice. finally getting good. i checked out the wiki page for this series, it is very spoilerish.
Did you not see the second trailer? You could tell it was going to be an awesome series just from that. And from what the second trailer hinted there is much more drama to come. I am loving it!
…curse you psgels. I had convinced myself this would be yet another ZEXCS ball of averageness after 2 episodes. But I have to pick it up now. *sigh*
What the hell…. sigh, now I have to watch something else.
Watching the first 2 episodes made me think that the author of the novel is a big fanboy of Berserk.
yeah this episode is certainly interesting but for me, it is great because the plot is following the path that Berserk created
Oooohh. Your enthusiastic review bubbling with praises made me try this anime out. 😀
Even though I watched this episode raw it was still pretty epic, especially like the gruesome parts. 😀
Hehe same here. This is why I totally love this blog and voted it. Convinces me to watch good anime x3
Right after the OP I realized I actually do have a dirty mind when I found a normal conversation about “pitching tents” made me laugh so hard that my side hurt.
Then I looked up and was like “wait a sec, what is Alto from macross doing here?”.
Then I was like “wow, the spy loves you, whats wrong with you dude?”.
Then I was like “holy crap! I thought this was a happy go lucky campy anime! WTF!!!!”
Then I was all like “wow Alto survived first round?”.
Then im all like “why are they running in the wrong direction from just 2 of them?”.
Then dude crushed 3 of them with ease. I’m like “wtf? why didn’t you do that before?!”.
Then dude gets devastated by a surprise attack! Im like “wow…just…omai…wow…”.
I guess the sharingan is weak against that…
“Huh? Alto died off screen during the break? Nooooooooooo!!!1”!
“Why is there a rape scene in like every other piece of japanese media?” “Oh my bad, not rape, just the tearing of cloths…”…
Sharingan level 2? huh?
Then I was like “oh.. my … omai… omg”
I totally thought this was going to be a “happy go lucky series”, like Druaga. Oh well I have been wrong before.
I saw the rescue 3 min after the “issue” was solved. No comment. But that’s a whole lot like my real life.
Oh! The guy who didn’t do anything got a hero’s welcome!
Oh! The guy who saved everyone’s ass is getting a prison beatdown!
Oh! He gets to share a prison cell with the girl who digs him! “excellent! (in a creepy voice)”.
Oh… He traded himself for her and only got a kiss. Weak. This really is like my life…
Wow! Prison break? Wait a sec… Isn’t this guy so Gundam that he could blow away the wall and fly away?
Wow prison break denied! And a confirmation that he is just taking it just to take it (and out of laziness).
Best action hero ever.
Some industrious soul needs to take Alt’s transcript and add temporal and spatial components. Then you can just tag it CoalGuys and put up at one of the usual places.
lol
This was a mediocre happy-go-lucky fantasy series until the beginning of this episode when… suddenly headless. Then more heads exploded. Torsos, arms, legs, FACES. Shit went ballistic! More gore in this episode than the first two episodes of HotD combined. Oh snap. I hope this balls-to-the-wall brutal portrayal of combat continues!
“Some industrious soul needs to take Alt’s transcript and add temporal and spatial components. Then you can just tag it CoalGuys and put up at one of the usual places.”
LOL, I’m totally for it. XD Kudos to epik ausimness!
If this were any other anime, Ryner would go into a Secret Magical Training montage or a Dramatic Meditation Montage. But somehow, I don’t think he will. 🙂
I knew it .. there were hints all over the first two episodes that something bad will happen …. in one quick glimpse at the end of Ep1 we saw a battlefield scene with screams and dead bodies scattered all around .. not to mention the fact the whole battle operation was a setup (as mentioned in the final scene of ep2) told me something horrible is going to happen … it’s really good to see a solid fantasy anime these days not filled with cliches.
I did not expect the series to turn out this awesome after seeing all the forced gag comedy in the first episode. Impressive.
This also surprised me. When you started gushing about this episode I had to check the series out and the first 2 episodes weren’t anything special. But this 3rd one was pretty awesome…have to wait and see now.
WAAAAAAAA! I want to say my THANKS to this blog!!! I was looking for a new anime to watch and when I read the review here and tried this anime, it was just as it says! LOVE this anime hehe!