First Impressions / Tears to Tiara

Summary:

Since they need war funds, Arawn comes up with the idea to raid his own tomb for treasure. There, they have to defeat the mechanical guards and then an ogre, but they’re finally able to reach the treasure. With it is an empty coffin and a mural that has a face scratched out, and Arawn reveals that the damage is from long ago. While the others gather the treasure, Riannon gets a vision of the past when Pwyll and a girl came to visit an already entombed Arawn. Pwyll had told the girl that the other coffin in the room was for Myrddin, and he had gone on to report to the sleeping Arawn that things were fine after the war. After the vision ends, Riannon asks Ogam about it, so Ogam confirms that this place used to be a monument for Myrddin, and Arawn wanted to be close to Myrddin’s coffin. He does not, however, reveal the relationship between Myrddin and Arawn.

Octavia meanwhile is intrigued by the mural, so Arawn reveals that the sun in it is the absolute god Watos and that the twelve figures are the twelve angels. When Riannon counts that there are actually thirteen, Arawn explains that one of them was a failure. Arthur is bothered by the fact that the figures look like the ones who killed his father and that Arawn looks like the figures. At around this time, over in the Empire, Gaius is pleading to the senate for reinforcements, but they laugh at him after hearing from their spy that Arawn isn’t a threat. This leaves Gaius no choice but to assemble his own army with mercenaries in order to attack. Back at Avalon, Arawn has trouble sleeping, and Riannon comes to raise his spirits with hand puppets. He starts to say something to her about her father, but he changes his mind and claims that it’s nothing.

Preview

I found this episode much more interesting than the last. The first half had plenty of action that turned out to be more exciting than a simple sword fight, even if facing off against robots and an ogre boss did seem very RPG-esque, and what was discussed in the latter half seemed much more relevant and important to the overall story than all the Brigantes stuff. I’m not sure I understand yet though the connection between Myrddin and the twelve angels. Was Myrddin the one whose face was scratched out because he gave fire to mankind? And is/was Arawn one of the angels? He didn’t exactly refute Arthur’s observation that he resembled them. Either way, it looks like the greater story will stretch to the level of gods and angels, much like Utawarerumono did.

The latter parts of this episode and the preview give off every indication that Gaius’s big attack is coming, and I wonder if this’ll be the end of him or if he’ll somehow end up joining Arawn like Octavia did. Those troops in the preview look sort of like zombie undead though, so either he’s really desperate, or it’s something else.

14 Comments

  3. I think it’s great that the series is keeping up the action. Going beyond the call of duty and acquiring reinforcements seems like a Gaius-will-die-eventually-if-not-soon setup.

    Meery
    Reply

  5. the ogre fight in this episode was one of the most stunning battles I’ve seen for a while. extremely well animated. I wonder what made them raise the budget for this episode to that extent.

    Levy
    Reply

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