Kemono no Souja Erin – 9/10/11/12 – Throwback Thursday

Welcome all, to week 3 of Kemono no Souja Erin! This week continues our time with Jone, teaches us a bit more about honey bees, and drops some politics on us before tossing our next big plot-hook at us. We have a fair bit to talk about this week, so lets dive into it!

First we have episode 9, “Honey and Erin”. This one was a whole lot of Erin learning about her new home, about bees, and what Jone does. Getting to know him, getting acquainted with the house, learning about his way of life. Basically last episode she was still reeling from losing her mother, this episode she starts adapting to her new circumstances. That doesn’t mean that Soyon is in the past, Erin still spends a decent amount of time reflecting on her. Whether it be a comment from Jone that makes Erin think of her or something else that triggers a memory, Soyon is still going to be important for a while moving forward it seems. And that’s good! Losing a parent like this should be a pivotal moment in a kids life. It’s only a problem if the show wallows in it, which Erin doesn’t appear to be doing.

Getting into specifics of what actually happens… It’s honestly not a lot. What does happen is nice, and I think it’s good for Erin’s character. But there isn’t a lot of it. For instance, Erin spends a lot of this episode learning. And that’s nice! Erin puts a metric shit ton of detail into it’s depiction of the ecology of its world and those that live in it. This is really, really interesting, and we get to learn a lot about how bees work, how to take care of them, what all Jone does, all cool stuff. And the best part is watching Erin figure a lot of it out for herself, continuing the idea that she’s a really smart and inquisitive kid. Erin really reinforces just how smart and focused on caring for animals she is. That’s good!

However as far as furthering or setting up any sort of main plot… That doesn’t really happen. We’re 9 episodes in here, almost a 5th of the way through the should. I feel like it’s reasonable to expect some kind of… driving goal from Erin. Whether it be some grand goal like resolving to return home and free the Touda from their domestication, or some small thing like simply living a peaceful life like her mother wanted. I’m not saying this is bad, it’s entirely possible Erin is setting something up here that will payoff later. We will talk about this a bit more in future episodes on this very post in fact, this idea that Erin is slow-rolling her progression. But as far as how I felt in the moment, as I watched the episode? I was hoping for something a bit more… actionable.

Giving Erin the benefit of the doubt though, lets talk about some things Erin can do to make this work. Erin spends a lot of the episode learning about bees, true. But she also learns more then just that. Jone tells her about Tabchim, a numbing agent, and how it can be used to create queens. We get a bit more about the nebulizer and how it is used for more then just caring for Touda but is actually a rather common tool. We get hints that Jone is a much more learned man then he lets on. And she even barters (Against Jone’s will since he would let her stay for free) into living and working at the place. It’s entirely possible Erin is prepping her to become some kind of… scholar or government official. Lot’s of things could work, as we will see in the next episode!

Speaking of next episode, we now have episode 10 “Bird of Dawn”. You know how I just mentioned government officials and such? Well that’s because of this episode. It’s all about secret police, espionage and political intrigue. We learn about the Sezan, the Queen’s personal agents and how they are effectively secret police. How they get taken from their families and completely separated, ensuring their loyalty and anonymity, all sorts of stuff. There’s even a return of the Egg Thief’s side plot and how apparently a foreign agent, or perhaps a rebellious one, is trying to gather Touda eggs, most likely to raise them. Simply put, Erin is introducing a lot of stuff happening in the background, further building us up to some kind of civil war plot it feels like. Only time will tell, but if so then I’ll probably look back on these setups fondly.

As for Erin specifically, this was a rather poignant episode for her. We get to see her sticking up for other people, further cementing who she is and her refusal to sit back while others suffer, animals or people. That she does it for a kid forced into military service, who ran away only to try and take care of his sick mother and who was being sent to penal mines for doing so, only makes this country look even more suspicious on top of it. Add on to that how the Sezan we meet is clearly the kids older brother and you have an episode about another family that has been torn apart by this country and its policies. It’s not a good look, especially when the leading character is the one being set against you.

Going back to the Egg Thieves before we move on, this is the only weird part of the episode to me. Last week a number of you explained to me that these guys are anime original, a consequence of the show airing on daytime TV in a kids slot. As such, I was prepared to not pay them much heed, as they didn’t seem very relevant to the plot. Yet here we are this week with their entire “Egg Thief” thing being pivotal setup to the political situation of the entire country. Was there a subplot like this in the original series and the Thieves were just inserted into it? Or is this just an anime original way of setting up a plot we aren’t really supposed to know about until later? I’m very curious to know, because either way I think this subplot is rather interesting.

This brings us to episode 11,” Behind the Door”. This is, I would say, the most interesting episode of the batch this week. That’s because this is the one where we really start to learn about who Jone is, as well as how he got here. You see, Erin is giving us a lot of hints spread throughout the episode. The room of books, meticulously kept and cleaned that he didn’t want Erin to see. His knowledge of poisons and medicines, as well as a master who taught him all about bee keeping. This mention of being a “Tousana”, whatever that is? If Erin is trying to keep his past as a scholar, some kind of learned man who attended a school or whatever, a secret? Then it isn’t doing a very good job. However I choose to believe this is all intentional, and something that will come up soon.

Whatever the case, the more interesting question to me is the “Why”. “Why” has he moved out here to become a honeyman? “Why” did he abandon his learning and whatever government position he was probably setup to receive? Is it because he was some kind of insurrectionist? That he didn’t believe in the government, possibly similar to Soyon? I don’t know, but I’m really interested to learn. Because as we see in episode 12, he doesn’t seem to have that great a relationship with the place he learned. At least that’s what I got from the fact that no one knew where he went or had been able to get in contact with him for a while. Suffice to say, Jone has suddenly become a lot more interesting to me with all of this and I’m looking forward to what Erin does with him moving forward.

Speaking of moving forward, one thing Erin is doing is having him officially become Erin’s teacher! Good for her, she’s a smart kid and this will be even more justification for her to become one of the smartest kids in the entire country. As Jone points out, she’s already doing and reading shit that 16 year olds are taught. Not perfectly of course, she doesn’t know all of the words. But she’s figuring things out well above her age. And that’s good! I like that Erin is simultaneously acknowledging her ability while limiting her in a believable way. She has a very inquisitive mind, she can figure things out when given the pieces. The issue is that she has yet to be taught all the pieces, all the words. It’s a believable way to present, what I consider at least, a child genius like character.

Lastly for this episode I want to talk about the Egg Thieves again. I mentioned them a bit before but they appear again in this episode and their place is starting to get… really weird. Not in a “They are complex” kind of way, they really aren’t. They exist as a comedic slapstick duo in the background. No, what makes them weird is the fact that they are supposedly anime original characters yet they are constantly being inserted into what seem to be very important, pivotal moments in the story. Erin figuring out how to cure a stomach ache, the egg theft espionage, etc. Yet at the same time they also seem in the background, like when they try to interrupt Erin reading and she doesn’t react at all. It’s like the show can’t decide which they are, and makes for a really weird experience.

Finally we come to episode 12, “The Platinum White Feather”. This one moves us to a new location and expands the world a bit more with it. Erin also spends some time further setting up what feels like an impending coup with the reintroduction of the Queen’s nephew, Damiya. All in all… It was a nice episode. Not my favorite, 11 still takes that. But like usual I love learning about Erin’s world and this has a lot of that. The big thing of course being the introduction of the Beast-Lords, these giant seemingly magical creatures that are worshiped almost religiously. And you know what? That seems deserved if they are the size of houses and fly through the air on rainbow wings! Are they actually magic? Don’t know. I kind of hope so, that could be fun. At the very least it would explain why they are so important.

For now at least, why they are important matters less then the simple fact that they are important. And much like how the Touda are important, that means that humans are taking it upon themselves to make sure they are “cared for”. Just like the Touda are “cared for”. Does that sound bad? Good, because that was the implication. At the very least Erin seems to think it’s bad. Going out, stealing their eggs, ensuring their numbers are high through kidnapping and domestication. It makes you wonder if, like the Touda, the Beast-Lords raised in captivity are any different from their wild counter parts. Going back to what I said all the way at the top of this post, I really hope as Erin learns she dives more and more into this kind stuff. It seems like that’s what Erin is setting her up for at least.

Beyond that this episode also introduced us to Kalon, Jone’s friend, and another piece of evidence about his past. By his own words he’s a “Warder”, a sort of… private agent of the Queen tasked with investigating/taking care of Beast-Lords. That sounds like a pretty important position if you ask me. And it looks like he isn’t the only old friend of Jone to get a government position either. Apparently multiple of their friends have. Which makes it all the weirder that apparently none of them have been able to get in contact with Jone since their school days. Tamuiwan? What even is that? Every new thing we learn about Jone points towards him being someone important, or at least having been in a position of importance. Hopefully we get more about that soon.

As for why this is so important and I talk about it so much? Well because this could be an in for Erin. An in to some kind of super smart school that she otherwise wouldn’t be able to go to. A place for her to learn even more about the world and to get into some kind of position of power before the inevitable war. Whether or not Erin could make a school arc work is another matter, I’m not convinced personally. But It’s one of many routes we could go down. We could also do a “Forbidden teachings” route where they get into trouble for teaching Erin things she shouldn’t know, resulting in another dead parental figure. I’m not sure if further tragedy like that would be good, but it’s an option. Suffice to say, Erin has a lot of those.

All in all I would call this a… decent week for Erin. Not nearly as exciting or engaging as last weeks set, but last week contained the biggest most important climax of the show yet, so that makes sense. As it is it feels like Erin is setting us up to, hopefully, move out to the wider world. We’ve spent a lot of time with Erin learning more and more, of expanding her view outside her tiny village. And while that wasn’t bad I think we’re at the point in the show where I’d like that to start to pay off. To start progressing some kind of main plot in the foreground rather then just the background. Will it do that? I don’t know. It’s what I’m hoping for though, and I don’t think 12 episodes is to early to ask for that.