Honzuki no Gekokujou – 16, 17

「青い衣と異なる常識」 (Aoi I to Kotonaru Joushiki)
“Blue Robes and Uncommon Sense”

I was originally going to be covering Oregairu as my only show this season – only it got cancelled amidst the COVID outbreak. Huh, I’ll have to go with Plan B then. Oh, Yesterday o Utatte looks pretty promising. I’d heard Enzo and Miss Simplice singing praises for this series – and I definitely trust the opinions of my two colleagues. Guess I’ll be giving that a shot.

*3 Episodes Later*

Yeah… I think I’m going to have to pass on this one. Hang on a minute, Takaii isn’t going to cover Ascendance of a Bookworm S2? And it’s going to be one of show’s safe from COVID this season? Plan C activate – sorry for the delays. Here we go then. Myne is inducted into the temple on an arrangement that suits herself and the Church. But if she thought she was going to have an easy time reading books in the library over there, it certainly wasn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows. For starters, her common sense entirely differs from the people in the Church, understandably due to her upbringing and the fact she originally came from Earth. Also, being a blue robed priestess comes with its fair share of responsibilities. She has three troublesome retainers to deal with – each unwilling to pledge their allegiance towards her. Fran is a simp to the high priest, Gil is an angry kid with his own set of issues, and Delia is just a straight up thot who’s a stooge of the archbishop. Yeah. That same, old archbishop who threatened Myne’s family and is on absolutely terrible terms with her.

It’s a good thing both the archbishop and Delia are incompetent, because they’re pretty much joke characters who don’t really endanger the progression of our fluffy isekai. And although he came to negotiating blows with Benno, we can see that the high priest acts in good faith regarding Myne’s wellbeing. I’m trusting him for now, and it’s another blessing that he’s . Teething pains being the norm when you’re new to something, Myne eventually brings Fran around to her cause by realising what makes him tick – explaining the high priest did not abandon him, and trusted him most to look after her. So that’s one down, two to go.

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「与えるべきもの」 (Ataerubeki Mono)
“Needs”

As it turns out, blue robe priests are meant to provide for their attendants. No wonder Gil was always in such a foul mood. While Fran and Delia were able to enjoy the comfortable quarters of the high priest and archbishop, Gil has been starving the entire time. Sure, Lutz remains angry and unsympathetic towards Gil because of the horrible way he treated Myne.

But I’m glad Myne was able to realise the situation was mostly her fault – which definitely comes from the maturity and experience she carried over from her previous life. And she masterfully turns the situation on its head with an inspirational approach. With tears from being acknowledged at last, Gil goes from rebellious to wholly subservient. All he needed was a bit of love and care – and that was really well written because I started getting rather emotional at this point.

Now for the other troublemaker – Delia. She gets booted out from the archbishop’s quarter for being a useless spy. She even has the gall to blame everything on Myne, rather than face the consequences for her own idiocy. It’s hard not to hate people like that. And when she realises that Myne has no use for her, she begins trembling in tears at the prospect of returning to the orphanage.

But like she did with Gil, instead of kicking Delia when she was down, Myne approaches her with empathy and understanding – and ultimately wins her over too. With the problem of her attendants resolved for now, Myne can now focus on other things – like bringing over the superior aspects of Earth culture, not to mention continuing her quest to create books. Or maybe turn her attention to the orphanage. After all, she did inherit the director’s office, and from what we’ve heard the orphanage sounds like a terrible place. Tune in next week to see how that goes!

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