Kemono no Souja Erin – 1/2/3/4 – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to another season of Throwback Thursday! As I said before, this time we are covering Kemono no Souja Erin, also known simply as Erin, a 2009 fantasy drama from Production I.G. and the same creator who wrote Seirei no Moribito, a personal favorite of mine. Before we jump in, a quick word: This is a long series. 50 episodes! As such, I’m going to try to do 4 episodes a week. However I make no promises about being able to keep up that pace. As such, some weeks will be 4 episodes, some 3, some might even be 2 if I get particularly busy with Grad School. I apologize, I will try to get through this in a reasonable pace so we can get to The Big O, but it’s a long god damn series. So with that out of the way, on to the show!

So first up, let’s talk about Erin’s production. My initial impressions are that… It’s fine? There’s nothing particularly impressive about Erin’s visual style to me. The character designs especially feel a little off-putting, with faces leaning more towards an anime aesthetic then say Seirei no Moribito’s more realistic one. In fact there’s really only 2 things that stand out at all: The backgrounds and the stylized Touda sequences. The backgrounds are these nice, large watercolor-like spreads. They aren’t tremendously detailed but they are rather stylized, and I think they help cover up some of Erin’s compositing issues, both 2D and 3D. As for the stylized Touda sequences, these are rare but when they do happen they are quite striking. Bright colors, sharp lines, styled almost like ancient cave drawings of monsters. They really fit the beastial Touda. Overall while Erin isn’t to impressive visually, I wouldn’t say it’s bad either.

Before we get into the episodes I’d also like to take a moment to talk about how Erin approaches it’s narrative and world building. Namely that there’s a lot of it. In some shows, this would just suck. It would be boring and expository, “This is the queen and her nation, they are at war with <X> who are bad yadda yadda”. It would be like 5 minutes of dry world building before we got to anything interest. And to be fair, Erin does have a 30 seconds opening spiel in every episode. I should probably pay more attention to that then I do, however like I said, it’s kind of boring. But what I like about how Erin does it, similar to Twelve Kingdoms, is that it starts small before slowly building out. Like spokes on a wheel.

An example of this would be Touda. Touda are the first big thing we learn about. How central they are to the nations defense, how they are a closely guarded military secret. They are sort of the center of what our characters world revolves around, at least for now. So of course it makes sense that our story would start in a village that raises Touda. From there we learn a bit about their biology, how they work, how they live, how important they are, etc etc. Then we start to learn about our leads in episode 2, get some introductory political intrigue in 3, before looking beyond the town towards it’s neighbors, the Mist People. There’s a slow expansion of Erin’s scope here, only explaining things as they become important to our titular character. I think it works well, and is all rather engaging to be honest!

With that we move on to the individual episodes, starting with episode 1, “Erin of the Green Eyes”. As expected, this is our introductory episode. We meet our MC, her family, get acquainted with the world. It’s all rather straight forward. Really the only thing that surprised me about it was that our lead was a small child. In a way it makes sense, as she learns about the world so do we. What this means though is that, for now at least, she doesn’t have all that much agency. Instead it’s her mother, Soyon, who is kind of the leading figure in the story for the moment. She’s dealing with all the problems throughout town, helping people, and slowly educating Erin as a Touda Beastinarian. While a little slow at times, it’s not bad, and there’s enough excitement via the Touda to keep you engaged.

Plus while Soyon is sort of the leading mentor figure at the moment, it’s not like we don’t learn about Erin. We get plenty about who she is. How she’s gentle and headstrong, caring to a fault. She looks out for others before herself but also doesn’t necessarily think things through all the way, as we saw with the Touda pong and will see again in episode 4. We learn how adamant she is to become a doctor, yet doesn’t necessarily agree with a lot of their treatment such as the whistles or the ear clippings. While it’s nothing to grand yet, Erin is laying the groundwork for Erin to disagree and inevitably leave/push back against the teachings of her village. I like that, and I fully expect it to come back later down the line.

Speaking of the whistle, this is another thing I think Erin is setting for later. While not terribly important at the moment, Erin made it clear in the opening credits scrawl that there is/was a war going on, and that the Touda are their primary form of defense. As such, I imagine the creation of this whistle used to petrify them is a closely guarded military secret, just like everything else involving Touda judging by how locked-down this village is. It makes me wonder what would happen if knowledge of that whistle got out, and it that might become a plot point further down the line. The same goes for any of the other Touda secrets, such as how to raise or control them. Sure, this probably won’t be important anytime soon, Erin is still growing up. But I kind of hope it comes up again later on.

With that we come to episode 2, “Soyon the Beastinarian”. Here our view starts to expand a bit, from Erin and the Touda to the village at large. We learn its layout, how secluded it is, and some of their rules. Most importantly though, we learn that Soyon, and by extension Erin, are not from here. Instead they are of the mysterious “Mist People”. And while we don’t learn much about them just yet, that’s saved for episode 4, we do learn of the distrust and discrimination they are shown. How while some of the village respects her, though it probably helps that she married the chiefs son, many others distrust her. For the former we have multiple characters, many of whom are Erin’s friends. Our primary view into the latter though is Wadan, and boy does he not paint a pleasant picture.

Wadan is so blatantly incompetent and discriminatory that I actually thought he was fucking things up on purpose. That he was actually a villain! In fact he still might be. But Erin is laying it on so thick that I can’t help but think he’s a red herring who will eventually side with Soyon/the village when push comes to shove, if only to “redeem” him a bit. But seriously this guy forgets to change the straw after being told to, doesn’t check his stream for poison, actively throws shade at Soyon and generally just seems really mediocre at his job. If Erin wants him to have a redeeming moment down the line, it needs to start building towards it now. Because if he got one say… next episode, I wouldn’t buy it.

Speaking of the weeds, this is “episodic problem” for Erin to solve. It exists so that she can learn and also show both the village and us, the audience, how skilled she is. At it’s core I don’t really mind this. They are small problems that are believable for children to be able to solve, especially ones raised to be observant like Erin. It’s not like she’s doing something only an expert Beastinarian could do, or soothing a Touda without a whistle or anything. She’s not good at connecting the dots and has a habit of watching people. Erin is showing us just how observant she is, so it makes sense when used later. No, my only issue is that some of these problems feel like very silly ones for such a professional village to have. Like… How did poison weeds get literally everywhere? Who knows, maybe time will tell.

Lastly for this episode I want to talk about Tairan, the soldier. This guy gives us a small glimpse of the outside world, as well as further showing us just how secretive and separate these villages are. Like how Touda aren’t even allowed to be cared for by other villages normally, destined to die either in battle or where they were born. More then that though, Tairan acts as this sort of… future connection for Erin. Someone who I think will return later down the line and help her out on whatever quest or journey she ends up on. After all, he owes her for helping save his Touda who he said was like family, and he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to forget that. I could definitely see some sort of “Tasked with hunting her down but lets her go” angle in the future.

Moving on, next up is episode 3, “The Fighting Beast”. Where the last one expanded us to the city, this one begins to introduce us to the wider politics of the series. Nothing to overt or heavy just yet, we are still constrained to the village after all. But we do meet Damiya, the nephew of the Queen, and get hints that he’s plotting something. Perhaps some kind of coup using the Touda? He does seem intent on buying the villages loyalty after all It’s funny because I actually expected the Grand Duke to be the evil one. That he would use his Touda to try and take complete control. But instead he seems rather loyal and composed, content to protect the realm. This causes Damiya to target his sons rather then him, and he seems to find some success there.

I am of course talking about Shunan and Ngan. Shunan seems pretty straight laced, your classic goody-two-shoes who will inevitably join Erin as a party member on her quest. I expect them to work together for whatever is to come. Ngan however seems to be being setup as the “villainous” one. I put that in quotes because Damiya seems to be clearly manipulating him into doing what he wants. Dangling the history of his family in front of him, tempting him. Most likely he will try to get him to usurp his father and brother in exchange for loyalty in whatever Damiya has planned, or at least that’s what I suspect will happen. Maybe some kind of Civil War that Erin will try to end peacefully. I don’t honestly think Ngan will go full evil, he just seems a bit less rigid and mature than his brother Shunan.

This then brings me to Erin’s side of the episode, where Erin teaches us a bit more about Touda, their weakness to sound, their ear flaps and some of the cruel things humans must do to keep them domesticated. Honestly I was wondering about this. There’s no way a creature would evolve to be that weak to sound without some kind of defense for it. So Erin acknowledging that and using it as a tool for both world building and narrative conflict was quite nice. As it’s not that they haven no defense, but rather that humans specifically take that defense away to tame them, cutting their ear flaps off as babies. Of course this is rather cruel, and mimics what we do to many farm animals in our world. But a bleeding heart like Erin doesn’t care for that, she just doesn’t want to hurt the Touda.

I think this, among many things, could be one of Erin’s prime conflicts. Sure it could be a Civil War like I mentioned before, but it could also be Erin rebelling against the cruel practices of her village. Or maybe something in between, like helping the Touda by preventing war/making it undesirable to domesticate them like this. I honestly don’t really care what direction Erin takes with this, I just want Erin’s bleeding heart to stay a central plot point and character flaw moving forward. I want to see how she navigates this world balancing her desire to help everything with simply staying alive. That alone could make for a good show!

Finally we come to episode 4, “Secret Within the Mist”. This is the one where we start to learn about the Mist People. Not much yet, really just bits and pieces of their culture, hints towards what they are like. How they are nomadic, never leaving the mist-covered forest and refusing all contact with outsiders. How even their “trading point” is less an established structure and more just a hole in a tree that they check for notes and payment before dropping off what was requested. It’s all very isolationist, really doubling down on that secretive nature we’ve been told about. I look forward to Erin inevitably going to them for help/safety, only being let in because she shares their hair and eyes. I wager they have some awesome traditions and technology/styles. Really looking forward to that!

Supporting all of this Mist People info-dumping, we also learned a bit more about Soyon’s past. How she met Erin’s father, what her old position with them was, and why she moved to the village at all. I will admit, this wasn’t totally clear. I’m not sure if Soyon got kicked out for marrying Erin’s father or if she left willingly, or if she left at all and could still go back. We know she used to be an Overseer, meaning she was given some amount of freedom to interact with outsiders. But I doubt that extended as far as marrying one. I’m mostly curious what kind of relationship she has with the Mist People and, if they can be so helpful, why everyone distrusts them so much. Hopefully Erin will show us more as we go.

As for the rest of the episode, this was taken up with a small plot about a local village girl marrying a boy from another village and getting sent away. Some bits about family and caring for them while they are here, not spending to much time away and enjoying what you have together. It’s all rather sweet, but if I’m being honest I think this was the weakest episode out of the bunch. Neither Erin nor Soyon were really pivotal to what was happening, as most of it was centered on the bride. Plus, and I promise I mean those mostly as a joke, these people need to stop fucking up with the weeds. Seriously, how many weed-based problems is this village going to have in the span of like a month? Check your plants people!

Anyways jokes aside, I think that all in all I enjoyed these episodes. Erin is very calm and lowkey after Wolf’s Rain, but seems to be building up to something just as large in scale. For now I don’t mind though, as it’s making these childhood years with Erin engaging enough as it slowly builds out the world. I understand if not everyone enjoys it, this is a rather slow opening all things considered. But I think there’s enough going on, and the world is detailed and intricate enough that the people simply living in it are enough to hold my attention for a few episodes. That said, I hope the status quo starts to shift a bit with the next 4 episodes. while 2 weeks may not sound like a lot, I feel like 8 episodes is plenty of time to get into the meat of a show.

So yeah, hope your looking forward to what is to come as much as I am. I’ve been looking forward to Erin for a while, and while the pace may be a bit variable I’m excited. See you next week!