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「戦う理由」 (Tatakau Riyuu)
“Reason to Fight”
If you didn’t know next week was actually Tate no Yuusha’s finale you could be forgiven for swearing this one was it. From putting Kyo into his place to getting Naofumi to do the thing and even bringing forth tearful goodbyes, everything associated with an ending was here – hell, we even had that ubiquitous no credits epilogue spiel for added reinforcement! Really makes you wonder what’s coming next week because after this I’m not sure what’s left to tell.
Given how much this season has suffered from the adaptation rushing curse, this episode really hit in the feels because it highlights just what could’ve been with a bit more effort and slower pace. As evidenced by that introductory duologue at the start Kyo wasn’t that bad a villain in hindsight: he had the history, the reasoning, and mentality needed to become properly sinister and worthy of Kimura Ryouhei’s VA work (admit it, the guy was pretty damn impressive). The breakneck pacing and slashing and burning of source material however effectively ruined that, leaving us with an otherwise half-baked antagonist with superficial (at best) developments and a lot of secondary characters whose only purpose was seemingly filling time. Chimeras, tangential vassal weapon plots, and tales of redemption? Hard to really care when mere minutes were spent on fleshing them out. Truly a tale of just what could have been.
Further highlighting these issues are what became of Naofumi and his (likely) final showdown with the dragon within. While I cannot deny this was a blast to watch play out, much like with Kyo a good deal of satisfaction was lost due to the rest. Hard caring a lot about Rishia and her natural rise into her own for example when she’s been next to nonexistent this season, or to chew on how Naofumi’s party no longer need to be physically bound to him to justify their presence with him when it falls in the midst of other rapid developments. In the end just too much happening in a condensed timeframe for any serious impact to be had, something I really hope the next season can correct if only to smoothen the many wrinkles introduced in this one.
One way or another, next week’s finale is going to be very interesting indeed.
I lost my mind.
Naofumi was charging up the Rage Shield, and I was getting excited because he hasn’t used it for *looks at watch* the past 12 episodes. More than that, since the Bishop fight. Years. We haven’t seen him use it in literal years. Just when he’s about to Mortal Kombat Kyo, he grabs Rishia, and Rishia has a monologue.
Everything comes to a complete stop for her to have a monologue.
So I had to pause the episode and walk around a little.
Ok so then Naofumi just brings out the turtle shield and shoots him and the end.
The episode shows that they return back right where they started at the beginning of the season, and I was asking myself “So what did we learn? What has changed? Why did this feel like a filler arc?” Listen I hope Season 3 is better, but good gravy, this season was…it exists. That’s the best thing I can say about it. It feels like nothing has really happened.
Something tells me you’re more right than you think regarding that opinion. If the third season somehow manages to match the first in quality this one will be conveniently forgotten. Probably for the better too, there’s not much which can salvage this.
Talk about blowing through the material. The manga has been on this arc for like two? years now and is just wrapping the arc up.
While I didn’t like how the arc was so different in the Anime compared to the Manga. I enjoyed Kyo as the villain. Kyo is a way better enemy than that greedy Bishop in Season 1.
Although someone said Anime follows the VN so I don’t know, which source is the real story?
As with most adaptations the show is adapting the LNs so they can be considered the ‘real’ story.
I understand, so the idea that a Mirror hero being mostly dead and basically a moving cadaver for Kyo is not how the story actually went down.
I must commend the VA of Kyo here.
It takes effort and skill to play villain everyone will love to hate.
Other than that, I was feeling the adaptation quality dropped heavily in this season, I might be wrong, having no access to source material, but pacing and character development were not that good…
From what I hear villains play an integral part in a story. They move the protagonists forward along with provide new dynamics that fundamentally change or add to the story.