Welcome all, to week 4 of Kemono no Souja Erin! This week sees our next paradigm shift for the series as Erin grows up and we shift to a new part of the country. What does this mean for Erin and the show? Well lets dive in and find out!
Getting right into it, first up is episode 13, “The Valley of the Beast Lord”. Initially this seemed like just another “Jone and Erin hanging out” episode. One where Erin learns a bit more from Jone, more setup and prep before the inevitable school arc, all that stuff. And because of that I, at least at first, wasn’t particularly interested in it. Not because it was bad per se, more because I wasn’t really looking for another “They get closer” thing. As the episode progressed though this started to change a bit. Rather then Jone learning to trust Erin as a capable individual because of some small “take care of the house” thing, it became a full on “Save his life” event, evening the scales for him saving her and allowing them continue as equals in the relationship. And that’s not even the half of it!
The big part of the episode, or at least the bit that mattered the most to me, was the Beast-Lord stuff. Not only because Erin gets to see the creature up close in all of its majesty and power, but also in how it becomes this physical manifestation of overcoming her trauma and taking that next step forward. I mean, it literally swooped down and ripped multiple Touda, the creatures that killed her mother, in half! You don’t get a much more obvious visual metaphor then that. Especially not when Erin starts overlaying flashbacks of Erin’s own mother on top of the scene, drawing clear parallels between the two and focusing the whole thing on how parents care for and defend their children.
Of course the less obvious, though still important, part is the whistle. Or the Beast-Lords cry in this case. Sounding exactly like the noise Soyon made to save Erin, it paralyzes the Touda even through their ear flaps. It’s as if the Beast-Lord is purpose built to prey upon them. The ability to replicate this cry, among many other secrets most likely, the forbidden art Soyon was talking about. The thing that the Mist People know but cannot share with the world. Those mysteries aside, and we will get to them later I assume, I really liked the kind of personal connection to the Beast-Lords this gives Erin. She doesn’t love them for any one thing, not for their beauty or their value, but rather because they embody everything her mother was to her. The way their cry reminds her of Soyon. It’s all kinda beautiful.
So yeah, overall I thought this episode was just a great way to progress Erin’s character. I complained a little bit last week about Erin feeling sluggish, about it dragging its feet with this Jone stuff and Erin not really having her own goal. But this feels like a turning point for that. As I said above, she hasn’t gotten over it but she has sort of… compartmentalized it. She’s accepted it and moved on, allowing both the story and Erin herself to grow up. And we see that in the time skip that occurs right after this episode. Erin skips forward 4 years, letting us assume all the things Jone taught her, making it clear that she’s progressing and this isn’t some ridiculously swift change. I think it makes for a rather satisfying end to this segment of the story personally.
What wasn’t satisfying was episode 14, “Mist People”. I’ll just come out and say it, this was a recap episode, and not a particularly effective one. It really only exists to allow us to easily skip 4 years of in-universe time. About the only “interesting” thing it did was give us a bit more information about Nason, telling us how he was Soyon’s original intended husband before she married Erin’s father. While it’s possible this could be used interestingly in the future, as it explains why he has such a vested interest in looking after Erin and I could see him showing up as an attempted father figure after Jone, as an actual viewing experience I found it rather disappointing. Maybe it was necessary at the time it was originally airing, as 3 months would have passed for 13 episodes, but watching it today it’s just filler.
Moving on to the good stuff we come to episode 15, “The Two’s Pasts”. This is the start of a new era, a new phase, for Erin. It also happens to be my favorite episode of the 4 we are looking at today. Part of that has to do with Erin, and how she’s finally growing up a bit. We’ve spent 13 episodes with her and this is the first time she’s really… Not necessarily matured, as that happened after her mother as well, but actively sought something out. She has more agency now, both with Jone trusting her to go to the mountain alone or raise a colt to being able to have mature conversations about their pasts. She feels more fully realized in this short episode basically, and it’s a welcome change. Not because the old Erin was bad but because progress is good.
We can see this in how confidently Erin states her goals to Jone. How she wants to become a Beast-Lord Beastinarian, even going so far as to tell him about her mother, which finally explains to him why she’s so smart and knows so much at such a young age. Personally I think it really important, and good, that Erin get that out of the way now. It’s not going to fester or be some “gotcha” that can slip out at the worst moment to cause drama. That Erin feels comfortable enough to share it with Jone actually says more about what their relationship has become then the show just calling him her foster-father. It lets us figure that out via actions, show don’t tell and all that. And naturally Jone reciprocates.
Now a lot of this is as I expected. Jone, also known as Tousana Jone, was a scholar in a capital, and a rather respected on at that having been named the Reverend of all teachers at the most elite school in the country, Tamuyuan. And from the looks of it, he was a genuine teacher to! Not someone who hated it or who only did it for clout. Jone taught because he loved teaching, going so far as to bend rules to help students out or giving them free tuition if they scored well. He valued knowledge for knowledges sake. On top of that he even had a family, a wife and a son at least, both of whom have been waiting for him to return to the capital. I suppose they probably refused to move out here with him. As for why he moved? Well that’s the tragedy.
Because you see while Jone was a great teacher and loved the job, he also apparently hated the politics of it. What I really liked about this bit though wasn’t that Jone forced a kid not to cheat, Erin didn’t use this as a fluff piece for his character. Rather it became a condemnation of the capital and the culture that drives these kids to cheat in the first place. Yeah the kid was an arrogant brat. But he was also driven forward by the expectations of his family and position, so much so that when he failed to achieve it, legitimately or otherwise, he took his own life. That’s how important this was for him. And while you might argue that isn’t Jone’s fault, and I would agree, it was clearly enough to ruin what joy he had for the job. No one here was learning for the sake of knowledge.
And of course then in comes Erin into his life. A young girl who is everything he wanted, who devours knowledge like a starving man given food for the first time in his life. It makes sense why he would latch onto her so strongly. For Jone, this probably isn’t a father/daughter sort of relationship. At least not in full. It’s more of a mentor/mentee one. And yeah, Erin makes jokes about him being an overprotective father and shit. But he really strikes me more as someone trying to nurture a rare talent then a child. Beyond that, I also really liked the way Erin revealed the Beast-Lord at the end as a sort of sign for Erin to go to the capital. The one day she’s thinking about a major life decision it appears, for the first time in years. Just good stuff all around.
Finally this brings us to episode 16, “Ial the Sezan”. As the name implies, this one sees the return of the Sezan from a few episodes ago, Ial. While it doesn’t spend much time with Erin, nor do we get to explore the capital much, I do like what we get here. Erin is really driving it home how corrupt and dangerous the Queen’s side of the kingdom is. How Erin is no safer here then she was back on the General’s side. In fact it’s almost like a sort of police-state, at least that’s how it feels after watching an episode from Ial’s perspective. After all kids are being bought for secret government agencies that even hunt down their own, they aren’t responsible for regular crime, etc etc. It’s not a condemnation yet, but that’s what it feels like.
As for Ial himself, this episode continues his decline. Not in how much I like him, he’s actually improving there. I more mean his descent as a character, losing more and more of what makes him human. I mean, just look at this episode. Lost his father in a fire, bought from his mother, forced to kill his mentor who saved his family. All on the orders of a secret organization that would kill him if he ever said no. It’s clearly slowly breaking him, something even his companion comments on when Ial refuses to rescue the Egg Thieves as they get mugged. I’m not sure yet if he’s going to be saved by Erin or become a threat to her, I could see Erin going either way. But whatever they do I’m looking forward to it.
Speaking of Erin, as I said above she really didn’t get to do all that much this episode. A bit of wondering around the capital, some jokes about Jone being an overprotective father, that sort of stuff. The main thing she did was enable Ial’s story via the harp and show us this last shred of humanity still in him as he carries on his father’s career, though only as a “hobby”. As for what’s to come, I think that’s pretty obvious. She’s going to go to the university, sake the special trial, pass/impress the examiner, get into the school, and then have some culture clash. After all, I highly doubt she’s going to willingly become some demure maiden waiting to be married off, taught only a wife’s skills. It’s possible she even becomes the Princess’s friend! Though that’s much further down the line I feel.
All in all I think this was a decent week for Erin. Some good episodes, a total miss on the recap, but still an overall good experience. I will say that one thing I’ve noticed, and that I hope isn’t the case, is that it seems like Erin is reusing the same songs a lot. And while they are good songs, when reused across 50 episodes I think they will get old eventually. Hopefully they are just the themes of the first half and will change and evolve as the show progresses, much like the story and characters, but only time will tell there. Either way though, I am enjoying the show. It’s very much a slow burn sort of series. One that doesn’t wow every week, every episode, but instead builds up to, what I hope will be, a deeply satisfying conclusion.
And if it misses that? Well… Let’s not talk about that. See you next week! Also P.S. While going through for photos I realized that Erin may have originally run seasonally, meaning that episode 13 was legitimately the final episode of a season and 14 the catchup after a few months of break. I’ll look into this a bit more for next time/before the final review.
