“The Little Girl and the “Incident.”


「ちいさな娘、その『事件』。」 (Chiisana musume, sono “jiken”.)

Every week, I like to have a show that I can fall back onto for soul healing and relaxation. Uchimusume is meant to be that show. This week though, it took an extreme turn into darker territories. It was painful to see such a cute, happy and innocent child like Latina being reduced to a morose and suicidal state by the indescribable hatred and racism that was inflicted upon her. Talk about emotional agony! Of course, the teacher’s inappropriate reaction was explained by the fact her family were killed by devils. While I feel kinda bad for the teacher, and I can understand why there would be hatred in her heart, there’s absolutely no excuse on her part to take it all out on an innocent little kid. Worst of all, this could have been prevented if not for the corruption of the clergy. This wasn’t the first time, with the head priestess covering up for the previous incident and permitting this teacher to become a repeat offender in racially abusing and inflicting violence upon a student. There was an institutional failure and I think that while the teacher became the scapegoat, the school itself should have been held to a higher accountability for its own ethical transgressions.

People might find it difficult to reconcile Dale’s two sides of ruthlessness and doting, myself included. But they came together beautifully in this episode, where he showed absolutely no mercy in destroying the perpetrator’s life because he’s an overprotective and angry daddy bear. Do I feel slightly sorry for the punished teacher? Kinda. The Church was probably this teacher’s everything after she lost her family, and she got thrown out by them. While I think she deserved to be punished, this is a woman who clearly went through a PTSD saga not dissimilar to Goblin Slayer and carries a similar emotional wound to him. Some people cope better, and some people completely give way to their negative feelings, which is why I’d personally hoped that perhaps some degree of leniency could be exercised – e.g. some kind of punishment that wasn’t so extreme then hiring her to take part in devil slaying missions where she clearly has a lot of motivation to do the job.

Anyway, it’s a great thing that Latina recovered! I definitely think it’s the case that intelligent kids really overthink themselves into depression in this day and age. But with Dale’s support and love coming from the tavernfolks too, I was extremely happy to see her bounce back, though my heart will continue to ache for her permanently damaged horn and the pain it brought her. That said, I’m mainly relieved to know she’s in a better place emotionally. With great friends at school who are willing to stand up for her, and a highly powerful guardian who will pull out all the stops for her sake, I’m confident for now that she should be in safe hands for a long time to come. Anyways, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading my post and I guess this means I’ll stick with this show for the rest of the season.

10 Comments

  1. From when I’ve read the manga, I’ve treated Dale’s split as a type of disorder (I’m not qualified to say if it is PTSD or what it is that’s wrong). He’s split the attitude between his work self and his home self because he’s doesn’t want anything to bother his Latina. When he goes home to Latina, he doesn’t want any of the baggage of what he does for a living to interfere with his new found happiness.

    Latina’s probably the only thing stopping him from becoming a monster (for lack of a better term). And I think he wasn’t that far off from becoming one before she showed up. He’s a guy who’s honestly not suited for his line of work, but probably because he’s so good at it, he doesn’t know what else to do. Dale’s too much of a nice guy to be doing what he is. What he does for a living has eaten away at him and I shudder at the thought of what he’d become if Latina wasn’t there.

    Woe be unto whoever takes Latina away from Dale. Dude will become the Demon Lord himself afterwards.

    Dorian S.
  2. I couldn’t react to this teacher’s actions and outcome though out this episode as well as Latina’s schooling both scenes were so sudden they came and went. The teacher lacked a lot humanity and seemed really stiff to me. You can see it early on in the beginning of the episode where the teacher rushed the students into class. In this scene the teacher looked as if the students didn’t matter and in some ways I felt the lessons she needed to teach also didn’t matter. (might just be me…)

    Bi-polar attitudes due to traumatic past with no real lead up doesn’t work for me it’s not convincing. I don’t feel anything when I suddenly hear from another character that the teacher’s family died due to a conflict with another race as if it was a fun fact.

    https://randomc.net/image/Uchi%20no%20Ko%20no%20Tame%20naraba,%20Ore%20wa%20Moshikashitara%20Maou%20mo%20Taoseru%20kamo%20Shirenai/Uchimusume%20-%2004%20-%2017.jpg

    RenaSayers
  3. It’s such a pity that they did this arc in one episode – the comments for manga were glorious after each part, but the anime watchers have been presented with the outcome right from the start so there’s not enough rage, unfortunately.

    But regarding what you wrote Zaiden, there is no excuse for harassing children, no matter what her background is. The moment people act against children, they cross the point of no return.

    brajt
  4. Sooo, this made things more interesting. OK, so bad out the way first.

    I still found Dale’s screaming about Latina to be grating and skipped all of it best I could.

    The teacher was so one dimensional as a “character” that she bordered on comical. It was hard to take her scenes seriously when she was so poorly written, and no, no, her “past” does not count as an excuse, or at least not a well written one.

    Latina’s reaction, while tragic, was also a bit forced.

    Now, the good.

    I really liked how much more balanced this episode was, and how it expanded on the character list and developed those already present. Sylvia looks like she could be interesting going forward.

    Most of all, I absolutely loved all the subtle world building that came from Dale’s talk with the head teacher. There were so many little nuggets dropped there that I really hope to see expanded on in later episodes.

    All in all, this episode didn’t save the series for me, but it is getting me to watch episode 5.

    hjerry2000
  5. This went a lot better in the novel. Laina started with a male teacher that all the kids liked, then they changed during a break. By then they were all her friends, and knew she was a Devil. Now something I didn’t notice till I watched the last episode a second time. Show Spoiler ▼

    Tom
  6. “he should be in safe hands for a long time to come”

    Got some bad news for you bro. Show Spoiler ▼

    md
  7. I have some bad news for md. Show Spoiler ▼

    Tom

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