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「 始まりの凶行」 (Hajimari no Kyoukou)
“The Rampage Begins”
This week’s episode veers further and further away from the slow life by having Red and Rit deal with the narcotic potion that is being abused by more of Zoltan’s residents. Although the duo are able to have some form of romance blossom between the two, there are a lot of tumultuous events that keep them from fully being able to actualize their love.
LOVE’S A’BREWING
The best part of this episode had to be the moment where we finally started to see Red and Rit get closer to an actual romantic relationship. It’s still a fairly weak bond with Red being wooden around Rit as she pushes herself closer to him. But because Red reciprocates her affection and admits to not wanting to look desperate or love-starved if he accepted her affection, it gives Rit express permission to keep advancing towards him.
It is odd because we got hand-holding and kissing in this episode, but the relationship still feels like platonic affection past the camping scene. They still treat each other like co-workers by the time they have to investigate the town’s drugs or talk with Al about blessings. Even the scenes where they are getting close treat Rit’s advances very plainly.
There’s a lack of bombast or pizzazz put into Red accepting Rit’s love, and their big kiss lacked any kind of passion. It felt like watching a stage kiss where the actors don’t need to show us they’re really in love because they’re only just playing characters in a relationship. Or a first date that went well enough, but one person goes in for their first kiss and the other person is too shocked to react immediately. The story treats the two like they’ve finally accepted each other’s love, but aesthetically, it just looks like none of their hearts went into it.
I FEEL BLESSED
Another neat thing about the episode was how they went further into how you have to try to make the most of the blessing you were granted. They hammer on the idea that living a normal life on common skills is impossible, and that the blessing system forces people into a specific role in society. If it’s not the role you want, then tough titty.
But it also forces you to be creative as well, considering how Red suggested that Al could always channel their Weapon’s Master blessing towards knives because you can still live a normal life in a practical trade if you’re a knife expert. Whether it’s cutting boxes or selling cutlery for a pyramid scheme, it’s neat that you could take an otherwise harmful blessing and channel it towards something that’s a little more resourceful than being compelled to attack or kill.
It’s why Albert and Ruti were screwed over. For the former, his men are completely out-of-control because his Champion blessing made him a glory-hound who is starved of glory by being from a peaceful town.
Meanwhile, Ruti can never be in touch with her feelings, whether they be normal human sensations or brocon desires, because her Hero blessing shuts off every sensation the average person has access to. Her blessing, in turn, forces her into a joyless lifestyle where she can kill and save the world, but sensations that make her hungry, tired, or bothered are out of the picture.
And because she is constantly going against her desires, she has to rely on others for a bulk of her emotional connection such as granting permission for others to see him. It’s a sad turn of events considering that, even if she’s able to reunite with Red, she is still doomed to be a hero and go against her desires, pushing her away from truly being able to settle down or feel anything beyond bloodlust for whatever enemies come her way.
The more and more I hear about this blessing that people get, I feel like people in this world were programed in. The concept of Blessing sounds like a code that runs in the backend of your brain.
To your point about the romantic hook-up feeling “passionless,” I think that’s more a problem of the adaptation rather than the writing of Red and Rit’s romance. In the manga (and to a greater extent I assume, the LN) Red’s perspective on his growing affection for Rit is articulated in its stages, culminating in their first kiss. Not to mention the anime for some reason omitted Red’s response to Rit’s kiss and it just baffles me because that would have been significant in making the audience feel like their growing affection for each other is a two way street based on burgeoning passion brought from a sense a escalating comfortableness the two are growing for one another. Gone from this adaptation is Red’s flustered thoughts, his self-awareness about his romantic prowess and how to go about getting closer to Rit…..I don’t get it. The anime is still preserving the utter wholesomeness of their relationship that makes their connection inspirational but, yeah; there are certain choices is also making that befuddles me because it’s sort of harming the organic nature of their chemistry.
When reading this manga, I couldn’t help but see their relationship as the strongest element of the story. The fact that Rit basically learned early on that she couldn’t be all tsundere if she were to get the attention of a guy like Red was such a great writing decision illustrating the emotional wisdom the author possesses. Rit demonstrating that she could take advice and exercise enough self-awareness to reflect upon said advice, manage her insecurities, and transform her approach to something more affectionate displays the kind of solid, mature character writing you don’t see much of in anime-related content. To me, this was one of the best writing moments (if not the best) in the entire series. It’s just really refreshing to see adult characters process their emotions like mature adults…….in anime/manga/ln no less; pigs are gonna fly