Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita – 08

「青猫族は仇敵でした」 (Aoneko-zoku wa Kyūteki Deshita)
“The Villainous Blue Cat”

I’ll admit it, last week Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita triggered me in more ways than one, however, let’s all collectively look past that blatant, poor, and crass miss-representation, and well, just an overall lousy use of stereotyping in the pursuit of creating a villain, and move on like nothing ever happened.

And here’s hoping we don’t ever get to see Mr. Royal Captain Drag Monster, ever again! I was seriously one step away from dropping this series from coverage just because of that guy, I am fed up with this trope or whatever, being used in a morally degrading way. It’s insensitive and ignorant. Comedy-wise, it’s dry as a desert, I am not laughing and do not find it funny. And if people don’t speak up about it, comedy will never evolve past childish games.  And the timing could not be worse, with Japan recognizing same-sex marriage, sure it’s only a certificate, but things are moving forward in the right direction!

That’s it! No more words are allowed on this topic.

Now, it’s time for wacky body horror/happy fun time with the sword guy and Neko girl, whose ambition is to evolve and go beyond others’ hatred towards her. But you know what we do with people who hate us? We slash them to pieces of course! Limb by limb until they are defeated and then we cut their head off.

Is Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita off the rails? One could assume so, lolicons jokes, and a new character that can only be described as mommy. Then you could say so, or you could say it’s exactly on the right track, but this series was never trying to be actually profound or anything like that, it’s just happy fun times with the cat and the master sword.

The episode itself was pretty tame, Fran defeating the Blue Cat pretty early on in just a couple of moves, even though the Blue Cat had a cocky attitude intimidating Fran in the process, it wasn’t all that bad because Shishou was there to support her and prove the Blue Cat wrong, I do wonder if this decision to kill him off so quickly is going to affect Fran in the future. Fran was about to go ham on Mr. Royal Crazy Guy, but a water spirit from the guild master shows up advising Fran against it, which was unfortunate, to say the least. (Why keep him if all his characterization is meant for us to hate him?) Anyway, back with the guild master Fran is offered a deal which she later barters for in order to go into a dungeon, as her skills are now highly requested.

It’s not until she’s about to leave that she meets Amanda (Koshimizu, Ami) who has obtained the title of official big tidy mommy – because she runs an orphanage and the gods gave her that, it’s important because no other human decided that. Yeah okay – we get it. It’s sort of the last way plea to make this character likable. By making her be in charge of an orphanage, and those children actually liking her, it’s a fast pass towards our hearts, and a very big cry to have her appear as non-threatening. Even though the rest of the episode is spent with Amanda following Fran around, “bumping into her” AKA Stalking her. This is funny in it itself because were the roles reversed, well things wouldn’t be as peachy let’s just say that.

Shishou gets an upgrade thanks to those crystals and some new skills appear in his repertoire, which is super cool because we are sure to get to see them in action later down the road. It’s all fun and games. Fran gets to eat some curry because remember how Sishou made a whole bunch, in probably the best part of last’s week’s episode, I would pay to see a cooking show just with these two, well they probably have curry for like a year or two. Also, where does the ice cream come from? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Even though this episode was more on the slower-paced side, with things being set up for a new little arc, I’m happy that Tensei Shitara Ken Deshita decide to come back to some sort of normalcy – thank god!

Hopefully, things get interesting with Fran and Amanda as they begin their dungeon delving!

(Shut up and be a good little boy!)

Full-length images: 36.

End Card