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「開戦と合同訓練」 (Kaisen to goudou kunren)
“Outbreak of War and a Joint Training Exercise”
We came, we saw, and we…conquered? Apparently, because at least by KnM standards we just got war and aftermath combined in the same episode. Admittedly maybe it was my expectations of a new multi-episode arc starting (not the first time they’ve failed me mind you), but damn did things kind of run all over this week. From empires to demonoids and even one hell of a random Chika-esque ED: we got it all, and if anything it’s only the start of the chaos.
Considering KnM’s focus on the fluffier side of isekai so far it’s not too surprising how the war treatment went this week, but it’s still strange just how quick we got the shift. Barely moments into the episode and we go from invasion to stab in the back and sudden emergence of the real threat—talk about magical whiplash. As promised at the start of this show though such rushing was likely at some point considering KnM’s origins and the usual light novel adaptation strategy. With these series there’s always a targeted point to reach at the end, and come hell or high water that point will be reached. At least to KnM’s credit we arguably got the best situation with the most appropriate material cut out; after all the real threat is the demonoids and whatever they’re specifically after (rather than nameless sacrifice of the moment), and by the looks of things we won’t have long to wait before seeing the fruits of Schtrom’s recent labour.
In preparation for that labour we also got the necessary good guy training with a little cross discipline exercise and bonding. No real deviance here of course—I mean who didn’t see the ubiquitous arrogance to humility and respect development coming from a mile away?—but KnM at least kept the usual above average by having Shin more or less restrained and spicing it with some choice downtime banter. Gary Stu tropes? Oh most definitely, but fun Gary Stu tropes. Don’t deny, you know you love pure combustion with a taste of anger fueled flair too. Plus we got to see the first bit of hilarious jealousy on the part of our one man murder machine, so it can never be all that bad. KnM functions best when it plays to the lighthearted humour baked into its character relationships, and so long as we can keep getting stuff like this (move over Sicily, Maria is now best girl) I have few problems with where this show may be heading. It may never be top shelf isekai, but that’s no reason it cannot keep being a guilty pleasure.
All we have to see is how well cutesy relationship in all but name shenanigans holds up against the likes of evil peeps doing evil things.
ED2 Sequence
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The show gets it’s priorities.
Who cares about edgy war when we could have silly faces, and zany side characters? The people adapting this show clearly understand how on-the-nose the source material is so they’re just having fun with it.
Certainly a breath of fresh air compared to how the usual isekai adaptations wind up going 😛
Random ED is random.
I assume that’s supposed to be one of the VAs for the girls, but why, why the empire’s throne room, and who let them spend extra money on this? Unimportant questions everywhere…
Extra money? It just looks like they gave someone an hour with MMD to make it, so I doubt it cost a lot.
This one is worse than ep 2, that one was a bit rushed, as this one was really rushed o.O
The whole kingdom being conquered bit was quite fast in the manga too, but it had a lot more meat too it, Zest and his crew did way more too… and the whole training with the knights thing is filler.
Don’t really get why they didn’t just use the rest of the episode to properly do the kingdom part instead of wasting it on those bad characters that probably won’t appear ever again.
The anime’s still a fun ride though, just hope they can keep the rushing to a minimum. We don’t need another Slime disaster so soon! v.v
Not sure what you mean by filler since the training arc is in the manga, but even that got shortened. Shame, Sicily snapping at the stupid boys when the tiger showed up was the best part.
This whole show has been a rush job since Ep.1, though. Not an absolutely horrible one, but lots of stuff gets cut.
Says something about that training arc that I don’t remember it, even though I only read the manga like a month ago (or that dumb Mangareader website had missing pages again… that is a thing lately with that site having incomplete chapters). Still feels like a waste of time to me though.
I’ll give it a another episode to see if it improves before dropping it.
@NinjaSyao The “training arc” is there to demonstrate how OP Shin is, and how his training helps his classmates. I dunno about the manga but it is pretty significant in the novel and while i doubt we will see it happens several times.
@NinjaSyao I remember the manga and WN also fleshed out Schrom’s tragic past and how the arrogant Blusphere elites caused it. Namely his efforts amounted to revenge against all of Bluesphere.
The manga gets to that a bit later than this.
I kinda get, even w/reading the manga, that the author sees the main
feature of the story as a school-life romance adventure, IMHO.
Seems that even in the manga, more love/attention is applied to the “fun”
parts of the story, and (I think) the author includes the political drama
sub-plot as a necessary evil for the cutsey romance story he really wants
to tell.
But, it’s good writing and I really like it so far (unlike Tate no Yuusha
no Nariagari which is watchable for the train-wreck dialog inserted into
the battles to give the enemy time to recharge and attack again!!!!!)
I agree, and I always felt that they should’ve used a much less “we will destroy your life and eat your heart” sub-plot to avoid the frequent whiplash I got when the mood turned serious.
It was definitely rushed, but IMO it rushed the most appropriate part. The strength of this series is its slice of life side, giving more time towards that helps keep things consistent—i.e. avoiding thematic whiplash from sudden switch to serious—while playing to what works. The real test however will be what happens with the demonoid plot, if that’s rushed as bad as this week there may be problems.
I dunno if i would call the war rushed. It was done about as well in the LN. It got maybe a chapter and we basically saw or heard exactly what happened from the novel. The villains part is rushed but considering the pace of the story that didn’t surprise me.
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2020.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2025.jpg
This scene seems kind of cliche where the students who melee think they can handle the demons better than Magician cause people with magic are week.
Good episode but… WTF was that ED? And why the PS2 graphics full of jaggies?
It’s the mystery of the season haha, I don’t think anyone has figured it out yet.
I didn’t pay attention to the graphics, too absorbed with the dancing from this mystery 2D maiden.
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%20ED2%20-%20Large%2001.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2005.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2011.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2023.jpg
Uh, that ED was looking pretty bad.
And who was that even supposed to be? An upcoming character? Didn’t look like Maria.
Really thought the first part was rather long, glad things picked up when the main cast showed up. Found it amusing that only the girls were pissed off from the thought of teaming up with the knight’s school. Thor must be pretty chill.
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%2015.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%2016.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Kenja%20no%20Mago/Kenja%20no%20Mago%20-%2006%20-%2017.jpg
Found them in shojou manga style to be rather amusing. I think they’re doing a good job in keeping this show “stress-free”.
Was really fun seeing someone else getting fan boys. Including the implications. XD