Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari Season 2 – 02

「霊亀の足跡」 (Reiki no Ashiato)
“Footprints of the Spirit Tortoise”

With intros now out of the way it’s full steam ahead into Tate no Yuusha’s meat and potatoes of rampaging ethereal reptile time. Or, well, mostly. Still a few left field swings set to appear in this arc’s opening stages, for if you thought one familiar was the only thing hidden in plain sight you’d best think again. Filo for one is still only rocking one ahoge out of three.

Considering Tate no Yuusha for me always worked best when Naofumi was left to his own devices it was quite nice getting an episode largely devoted to building the foundation for just that. While the usual scenery of bickering intermediates and the hero being the only one who can truly save the day remained present as usual, the subtle shift last season from Naofumi against to the world to Naofumi saving it with help was on proper display. Raphtalia is naturally the big one in this regard (her confidence and optimism were always her best traits), but everyone else from new party pickups to overseers help reinforce how Naofumi’s mission is quite literally everyone’s mission these days. Things always go better when you have a raft of compatriots to rely on, and Naofumi’s party and outer circle are the evidence for why.

Of course not everything was the usual character chemistry this week, a few more plot relevant tidbits also happened to be dropped. The big one for the moment is naturally the Spirit Tortoise itself: it’s a veritable anti-Wave mechanism using souls to control the Waves, and a mechanism which someone has co-opted for reasons unknown. Considering this was dropped alongside the existence of a set of vassal wielding heroes called the Seven Star Heroes it should be pretty obvious who in concept could be behind the latest shenanigans: Waves are calamitous, heroes are meant to save the world from them, not hard thinking one or two might see potential in the tools present before them. Mind you it won’t be that straightforward in practice (where’s the fun in that?), but until the Tortoise’s familiar Ost happens across some more relevant info let your imaginations run wild.

After all, won’t be long until Raphtalia’s is doing just that.

ED Sequence

ED: 「ゆずれない」 (Yuzurenai) by Chiai Fujikawa

Preview