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「連なる陰謀」 (Tsuranaru Inbou)
“A Conspiracy Linked”
The villains revealed themselves at last as the Shield Hero’s true enemies, and you get three guesses who they are.
Myne’s shown a willingness to threaten her sister’s life for the crown. That gives her a definite motive to target the Shield Hero since Melty would most likely die in the crossfire. Or maybe it’s Glass. We haven’t seen or heard much of her since she effortlessly defeated a Soul Eater then shrugged off Naofumi’s Iron Maiden. It’s about time she made another appearance. Or, perhaps… It’s that creepy Pope Naofumi bought holy water from way back when Raphtalia was inadvertently cursed by his Rage Series?
If you guessed Option #3, and I’m sure most of you did, then you’re correct. The Pope despises the Shield Hero, to be sure, but not only the Shield Hero. He also has it out for all the heroes thanks ostensibly to them making bigger messes than they solve, and for the Royal family, which he wishes to drive out of power and replace. The fact that the heroes have been enjoying the perks of their position without fulfilling the duties they were summoned for is something that Fitoria mentioned earlier on. She’s been picking up their slack while they relegate their protection to Melromarc, and with cooperation being nonexistent between them, their protection doesn’t count for much.
However, I wouldn’t give the Pope too much credit. Despite his lofty bearings, his actions stink of a power grab. One that’s probably been decades if not centuries in the making.
Naturally, all this falls into place when Naofumi is trying to defend his actions and reputation to Motoyasu, as he promised he would to Fitoria. Unfortunately, Motoyasu is the worst possible choice at this point. He’s been so blinded by his anger and stubbornness that nothing Naofumi says can get through to him. As it turns out, Naofumi was framed for Ren and Itsuki’s murders, if you can imagine that. And not even the Pope literally almost killing them with a magical nuke is enough to sway the Spear Hero from the belief that Naofumi is to blame for absolutely everything. A violent wake-up call though this may be, it’s been a long time coming.
All of Naofumi’s interactions with the Spear Hero up until this point have fallen into a familiar pattern. Naofumi runs into him, Motoyasu attacks while spouting accusations, Naofumi defends himself while denying these accusations, then Myne shows up to make a royal decree. It was stale long before this episode, so seeing so much time devoted to it was hardly a preference, but it did give Firo and Melty the chance to show off their magical prowess and teamwork. Plus, Firo sent Motoyasu flying Team Rocket-style again. That’s always a treat.
In addition, the use of excessive use of flashbacks, including one depicting a scene from not even five minutes earlier, felt like padding to fill the runtime so that the Pope’s shocking revelation could end the episode. More on that, the Church’s betrayal does bring the question of just how involved Myne was in their schemes. Without doubt they’ve been supporting her, and it seems as though they’ve been working together up until this point, but the plan was always for the Church to rule through her, not to usurp the throne. Though the fact that Myne has been betraying the heroes from day one shows that she’s nowhere near fit to rule, but the Church smearing Naofumi’s reputation through the mud, attempting to kill Ren and Itsuki (show me a body and I’ll admit they died) and even betraying her by ironically pulling the same move she did on Melty – i.e. trying to get her killed in the crossfire then pin the blame on the Shield Hero – shows that they shouldn’t be ruling, either.
Things look bad with God’s Judgement raining down on their heads, but Naofumi hasn’t made use of his Rage Series yet and Motoyasu hasn’t yet tried combining their powers, so their collective prognosis, while grim, definitely isn’t hopeless. And even if they can’t get their acts together in time to fend off the next blast, there’s always a chance for divine intervention.
Preview
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This is religious hypocrisy at its finest. We’ve seen plenty of evidence that the church has had a pretty good deal of influence over the king through Myne, and the king is the one that should be telling the Heroes stuff like that the Waves affect more than just one country. We’ve seen Myne manipulate and withhold information with blatantly unapologetic swagger, and like Melty pointed out, it’s looking more and more like she learned her ways from the church. This gives me the idea that not giving the Heroes the bigger picture was the church’s idea so that they wouldn’t try to leave the country or something and get out from under the church’s thumb, and yet now the Pope is criticizing them for making a mess and not doing their jobs right? The jobs that they should’ve know how to do perfectly immediately when they were summoned or they aren’t really Heroes, even though they never asked to be Heroes? And this is after the “Church of Three Heroes” and the king have been flattering them into having hero complexes so that they’d never think for themselves? Talk about passing the buck. These are the kinds of brain dead fools that would succeed in their plan, then blame it on God’s will when everyone’s getting slaughtered by the next Wave because they still have no plan to deal with them, instead of even think that maybe they were the ones that screwed up.
I won’t even get into how much they’ve scapegoated Naofumi for absolutely no friggen reason that we’ve seen! Let’s just hope we get a glorious scene of the Pope and everyone with him getting killed next time. It really is too bad that the fates of all four Heroes are linked, because if not then someone could do the world a favor and send Motoyasu to hell with them. Does that guy even have a brain?
*phew* Okay, sorry, rant over. Religious hypocrisy brings out my inner rage-monster a little too much…
The pope’s definitely just taking the opportunity to use them as an excuse to perform a coup, plain and simple. I don’t think he actually cares whether or not they do their job right as long as he’s not in any danger himself.
you know the saying goes God is good, it’s the people worshiping him are not always so.
If it weren’t for that stupid rule that all 4 heroes are needed for the waves, I would be glad for Motoyasu to freaking die already for being brain dead all the time. But no, the story needs all 4 heroes regardless of their hero complexes. I don’t get why the author needs them in the first place if the other heroes can’t pick up the slack much less the those characters still living in their own fantasy world that can’t do their jobs properly.
Aside from them being another obstacle for Naofumi to overcome(because he isn’t going through hell already), they’re probably meant to be a different take/commentary on the classic hero tropes, and showing how with the wrong people being the hero, having a hero at all can be really dangerous/dumb. Too much of that crammed into the show already, though, with Naofumi being the hero framed as a villain and the royal family being jackasses(although that’s getting downright common), so it doesn’t add anything good. Just more stupid people.
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2030.jpg
So, aside from princess evil, who are the other two girls? Hope they are smart enough to abandon the spear idiot soon.
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2032.jpg
Oh look, the pope is evil. Not surprising since anime often show that religious leaders are often evil. I have never seen a “good” religious leader in anime.
IIRC the evil religious leader is a cliche from JRPG games, which may have started with games like Breath of Fire 2, which has a church gradually revealed as evil.
One of them is Elena, a person who Naofumi gets along with. The other one’s future is undetermined.
Evil “totally not a christian” religious leader.]
Yeah, kind of sick of that too. Japan could at least make try for a Shintoist, Buddhist, or Taoist modeled villain.
Or for God’s sake make it nuanced instead of cartoonish.
Japan is pretty much an atheist country and pretty stubborn about it. Sure, they identify as Buddhist the same way functionally atheist Frenchmen still identify as “Catholic”, but Buddhism has never exactly been incompatible with atheism to begin with.
Shintoism is basically a collection of national traditions more than a religion.
When Catholicism was making headway in Japan under the Feudal era, it got brutally stamped out by the Shogunate. I spent five years in Japan living only a 20 minute drive from Shimabara, the site where the Shogunate crucified hundreds of Christian men and women. Ever since then, Catholicism has been a target of bigoted prejudice in Japan – viewed as un-Japanese.
For atheist Japanese male light novelists, the Catholic Church is always an easy one-dimensional scapegoat that allows close minded rising Japanese to blame evil on outside foreign institutions and completely ignore the MASSIVELY worse atrocities Japan committed in the name of it’s own brand of nationalism during WWII – something the Japanese government still has never really apologized for and rising generations of Japanese nationalists are busy denying ever happened.
You forget that a large part of Oda Nobunagas story is his feud with Ikkō-ikki. They are no strangers to corrupt militant abbots and they are actually a dime a dozen in historic settings. Its just that Fantasy somehow requires religion to be “not-christian”.
My understanding of Myne is that her evil is instinctual; not really one of ambition or tactics. She was born a bad seed and it’s in her genetic nature to betray and trick others, like a carnivorous predator hunting meaty herbivores.
Perhaps this Pope here granted her to become the next Queen
That’s her excuse, but she really does come across as just wanting to watch the world burn…
I hope that isn’t the case. No problems with the trickster part, but would like a better reason for the rest. Worst case that is acceptable to me would be being spoiled by upbringing. That would mean learning the lesson and bringing up Melty a little better.
But being inherently evil would lower her character and the series for me. Since I find her one the more intriguing characters in the series. Love to hate, but also love to find out about her motivations.
Of course, religion in JRPG story is always evil.
mostly western style religion.. or did you ever saw Buddhism as bad and evil ones?
All religions whether Eastern or Western have dark facets and/or blood history.
For example, yes, Christianity and Islam have had their messy share of blood history and war conflicts.
However, Eastern religions as well have had their share in the past.
For example, take WWII…
What religion do you think the people who bombed Pearl Harbor subscribed to?
What about in Air?
I’d point more to the Bataan Death March and the Rape of Nanking and Korean “Comfort Women” as an example of Japanese atrocities rather than Pearl Harbor. These are evils Japanese often like to pretend never happened. Bitching about evil Catholics makes a nice scapegoat for modern Japanese nationalists and their functionally atheist worldview.
Ever studied religion and history? It ain’t pretty.
but is boring to see it so often without any deep to it
I have, and it’s not half as bad as modern secularists make out.
Most of the atrocities Catholicism historically gets stuck with – witch burning, the Spanish Inquisition, religious themed wars – are actually the inventions of secular European monarchies and come from the period where the influence of the Roman Catholic Church was waning and powerful monarchies were on the rise and willing to pay lip-service to Rome while independently conducting their atrocities.
And the worst brutality and mass slaughter actually kicked off with the Enlightenment. Under the period when the Roman Catholic Church ruled the continent, warfare oppression and violence was actually relatively limited and paled into comparison to what the newly rising secular states were about to unleash upon the planet.
The Soviet Union alone murdered more heretics and witches than all the religious wars in the planet’s history combined. The secular state has been a far worse monster than religion for the last 500 years – 9-11 notwithstanding.
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2030.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2024.jpg
Dancer feet
Those girl will have their misfortune in the spin off series if we have spin off series and who’s that magic girl, she cute?
He is just standing there like a boss while his minions fight for him 😛
“See how well my minions fight, just those 2 are more then enough for weaklings like you all.”
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2021.jpg
In before comments about that spear hero side story. Not like I’d want to ever read it.
Anyways, this latest episode did a good job of making sure that the rage shiel…fire is burning.
Can’t wait for the spin off series, I wonder the spear hero counter this event from his time loop trip? Will he be in that event with RACCOON girl and the little princess?
Once again will Raphtalia be the Spear Hero spin off and “reunited” with her Shield Hero god damnit!?!
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%2036.jpg
I knew the Church had a factor in all of this – they summoned all four Heroes at once, but immediately shamed the Shield Hero, stood by silently as Naofumi was shamed again and again, tried to cheat Naofumi out of high-quality holy water by giving him low-quality holy water first and now the Pope says he didn’t show enough respect for getting the high-quality holy water? Plus the Church is of the Three Heroes, not Four, that’s a hint Naofumi. And when Naofumi tries to escape the kingdom the Pope decides to just write off all Four Heroes and try with another summoning.
Talk about arrogant. Of course, the Church members did say the “Shield Devil” was undermining their authority because Naofumi saved the common people rather than focus on the King and aristocrats. Aristocrats tend to give more money to the Church and the King does what the Church wants, so losing power would be felt keenly by the more faithful. Talk about a Spanish Inquisition…
Still, the Three Weapon Heroes have been turned into video game players and the Shield Hero has been shunned since Day One, yet the King/Church expects them to be these great & mighty Heroes? Where’s the training, not level grinding willy-nilly? Naofumi & companions were denied getting past their Level 40 cap, while it’s obvious Motoyasu, Ren and Itsuki have had their levels raised past Level 40, with Motoyasu furious that lower-level Naofumi can still dodge his attacks. This is not how you turn people into Heroes.
So the plan is to kill all Four Heroes and summon some more? Does the kingdom have the time for that? And how is Naofumi going to deflect the Church’s weapons? And if these weapons could do “Judgement” damage like this, why not use them during the Waves?
The church either thinks that Heroes should know how to be heroes without any training or they aren’t real heroes in the first place(typical religious hypocrisy), or there was always a plan for a coup so they wanted the Heroes to be a mess and now are just pulling excuses out of their collective ass.
Honestly, it was the ‘didn’t show enough gratitude for the holy water’ bit that threw me the most
What was even the point of mentioning it? It doesn’t make Naofumi look bad, it makes the Pope sound petty
After reading the manga I am starting to see the Anime Tate no Yusha as a separate story from the Manga. The general outline is the same but the energy is different, take this scene, in the manga, this was an intense moment, very life and death but in the Anime it felt kind of lifeless.
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%20Large%2025.jpg
There’s something about manga that often allows for more intensity and detail when it comes to action scenes, though I’ve seen this mostly in the shonen genre and with large scale action scenes like this one
Somebody needs separating church from state… Cersei L. style.
If both Melromarc sisters actually work together , with their respective heroes in tow, all the better.
Also, I would not discard the possibility that other 2 heroes might show up yet.
As Naofumi pointed out, being trope-aware:
Have you seen the bodies?
BTW I wonder what isthe Church plan to dela with waves if heroes are gone – summon another team? Or try to handle the waves themselves?
With the way Pope-y was was preaching his followers probably expect him to handle all the Waves personally, but that sounds like too much work, plus he’d need another Shield Hero to blame stuff on, so he’d probably summon more.
Failure is evil = Shield Hero
Success is Good = Faith?
So they use the Shield Hero for all the failures and black stuff
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%2030.jpg
Really like seeing Mein/Myne get played for a change.
https://randomc.net/image/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari/Tate%20no%20Yuusha%20no%20Nariagari%20-%2018%20-%2011.jpg
Also don’t believe these two are dead. Though it would be a welcome surprise if true, since it would mean the rest of the episodes would be about Fitoria killing off the other two just to summon a bunch of new heroes. Can’t say it’d be a good ending though.
It was pretty satisfying to see the backstabber get backstabbed for a change.
I don’t believe those two are dead for a second. If that were the case, Fitoria would have to kill Naofumi and Motoyasu and start over
Wife the Dancer and her dancing feet