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「愚者ベル・クラネル」 (Beru Kuraneru (Gusha))
“Bell Cranel (The Fool)”
My one qualm was that Bell never had the opportunity to take out Dix with his own two hands. And gratify my need to see him enact revenge. But that was one way to announce a new Minotaur in town – smashing Dix into human flesh paste, before storming out to singlehandedly take on the Loki Familia.
Return of the Minotaur
If the Minotaur defeated by Bell seemed formidable, Asterius was easily the Mike Tyson of Minotaurs – easily able to keep up with 3-4 members of the Loki familia at a time. At first, I reckoned he would be fodder for the Familia to buy time for Wiene and Bell. But he immediately exceeded my expectation by easily matching Tione, Tiona and Bete, exchanging blow for blow before summoning down lightning from the skies to incapacitate all three. That was when I knew Asterius was in a whole other ballpark.
When Aiz sliced off his arm, I thought the fight was over. The Sword Princess had finally thrown in her lot, and as one of the most formidable adventurers in the city, I expected Minotaur sashimi to be on the menu. However, Asterius continued fighting. Completely unbothered by the loss of a whole fucking arm.
Seeing him match Aiz blow for blow stole away my breath. He rolls on like a tank and proceeds to trade back – smashing Aiz’s left shoulder with a brutal strike and putting her arm out of commission, the moment which Gareth deemed his intervention to be mandatory. Sure, he had to flee. But taking on five members of the Loki familia alone – including the Sword Princess – is no mean feat. But this was merely the entrée for a soul shaking emotional rollercoaster.
Dia Orpheus
Fuck me. That might just win Death of the Year in the upcoming Best of Anime 2020. It’s between that or Show Spoiler ▼
. Wiene’s death completely crushed me. She had always wondered why she had been born to suffer such a cruel life and existence.
But knowing that Bell tried to save her and dying in the arms of her most beloved person gave her unimaginable happiness and comfort, affirmed her personal reason for suffering through a difficult life. When she tried to touch Bell’s face, only for her hands to disintegrate into dust, I had to swallow down my tears. Seeing Bell’s intense outpouring of grief, regret and agony at her passing struck me really hard in the guts. And those beautifully ethereal vocals from Sajou no Hana elevated the scene to masterpiece tier. I can’t deny that I cried really hard. He may have been a fool. But no one can deny that he has a heart of gold.
Part of me wishes that Wiene stayed dead for the emotional impact. Was that an asspull? I guess. Especially since it didn’t come at any price. I was half expecting that Fels would crumble into dust. If we’d always known that Fels had a resurrection spell up his sleeve, and that it had a ridiculously low chance of succeeding, it would have made for a better setup. Though it may have given away the surprise. Because from receiving her fatal wound to dying, I was devastated and fully believed there was no chance of going back. It sure hurt good before they revoked everything. But overall, I’m extremely relieved that she was resurrected by Dia Orpheus.
Concluding Thoughts
It’s early days. And the season hasn’t concluded. But I want to pre-emptively thank J.C. Staff for putting their heart and soul into such an incredible adaptation. You can feel the love that the animator, director and other staff had towards this arc. And hats off to Fujino Oomori for constructing such an incredible story with heartfelt characters.
Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post. See you next week to discover what fate awaits Bell, whose reputation is now in the gutters. And what follows on, since the fundamental crisis remains unresolved – the Xenos are injured and certainly face reprisal for trespassing and carrying out attacks on mortal territories.
Yeah, among the sadness and relief, I had the same feeling. That it would have been better (narratively speaking) if Wiene had stayed dead or if Dia Orpheus had been foreshadowed earlier. Perhaps it was in the LN, I don’t know.
Nevertheless, their whole suffering had been so unfair by this point that an easy way out doesn’t feel that unfair in comparison.
Whatever the case, I think that Wiene’s death is one of the best scenes in Danmachi, great performances from their voice actors. This has been Bell at its most heroic despite not fighting anyone for real and actually causing lots of collateral damage in the process. The post-credits scene was also very powerful in its simplicity. Bell has disappointed many who trusted him, and he can’t explain why he did it. At least his Familia knows the truth.
I think they could have made the post-credits scene more powerful by having Bell walk down the street, receiving hateful many gazes, to hammer home just how much reputation he lost from what he did.
I look forwards to seeing what Aiz’s reaction will be. Although Bell began this whole adventure because he loves her, and wants to catch up to her, it’s grown to be so much more than that. He was willing to put his connection with her at jeopardy because he deeply cared about Wiene. For the sake of doing what was right. And if she will ever find out or appreciate that fact before she rushes to any kind of judgement against him.
I wish they had shown Bells walk to Eina as he was shown a lot of animosity & his fall from grace in the eyes of the people, for what he did:
Show Spoiler ▼
Sorry. I don’t know how to hide it behind a “spoiler”.
Hid it behind a spoiler tag for you. Though I think it’s not much of a spoiler, since it just expands on parts shown in the episode that didn’t get fully adapted. Although this episode was fantastically adapted, I would love to have seen Bell’s walk of shame to really hit it home just how much he personally sacrificed to do what was right.
Thanks Zaiden. I just didn’t want to copy-past a wall of text that made up 90+% of my comment without the option to hide it.
And yes, his payment was his social standing in town. We also skipped a lot of conversation among other familias in this arc, which explained why Loki familia was that early at the place where the Xenos emerged (See Sword Oratoria, when they explored the sewer). Or a little more insight what Hermes wants to do, and that he isn’t entirely on board with Ouranos making Bell the link between monsters and humans.
Or a skipped part of Season 2 with Sir in which Bell found and fought an amored monster in the underground of Deadalus Street (A high ranking member of Freyas familia came the to rescue and killed that monster). And Dix did mention this Arc that a big monster once escaped them, so Bell most likely did met and tried to kill a Xenos before. But he didn’t know that intelligent were a thing at that point.
Oh, yeah, now that I read it, I would have liked to see that too. But I suppose they didn’t have the time for that.
No Asfi me sad:(
Asterius’ definitely stole the show. Even with only one arm and after fighting 3 level 5s– not to mention thrashing Ganesha familia + Ryu, Asfi, and Aisha–, he was keeping pace with Ais.
Can’t wait to see more of Asterius being an absolute bamf.
Bell really put his money where his mouth was. Dude’s now taking steps away from a simple adventurer and into the direction of a hero. And can he level up already? He’s gonna need to level up a lot for his eventual showdown with his nemesis, the Minotaur from Hell.
Excellent catch. I totally forgot that Asterius was the one who singlehandedly wrecked the Ganesha familia too.
He took down a renown Familia and held one of the most formidable ones to a stalemate. That minotaur really is something else, and I think it would be really cool to see him fight against Bell. Though it would go against the idea of peace and cooperation between Bell and the Xenos. So I see them being allies fighting side by side, as opposed to enemies.
If Lyd’s comment to Bell back in their hidden village is anything to go by, Asterius is a battle-junkie a la Zaraki Kenpachi. Dude just wants to fight and get stronger.
Still, it would be a cool moment to see Bell and Asterius fight side-by-side if they do end up encountering a total monster— like Ottar and the Freya Familia. It would also be a bit of poetic irony, since it was a Minotaur, and subsequent embarrassment in front of Ais, that sent Bell on his quest for strength.
Actually is 3 level 6s, after the events of Sword Artoria of Season 1 anime, the 3 of them promoted, but it is not animated.
Actually the current story arcs are part of a major arc that spans 14 volumes of the main story (Bell and Hestia familiar) and 12 volumes of Sword (Aziz and Loki familia)
It will be cool if all will be animated so that anime only viewers will get to see the full story.