Banished From The Hero’s Party episode 7 covers a lot of ground compared with the previous, more slice of life affairs such as episode 6.
While I would say at least I wasn’t feeling a little bored while watching this week, instead I had the issue of wondering if I was still watching the same anime. We had a child accused of attacking a family in their home with an axe, another kid getting weird visitors and gifted with very shady swords, the town guard being accused of harbouring an attacker, the drug issue still ongoing, people gathering and rabble rousing in the streets, exploding bodies, and the arrival of the member of the hero’s party who went looking for Gideon.
That’s kind of a lot in a single episode particularly when last week I’d have been hard-pressed to find anything of note that actually happened in the episode of Banished From The Hero’s Party.
I didn’t even mention that Red and Rit have Al staying with them and periodically we pause everything else to have a sword fighting lesson.
Banished From The Hero’s Party may have an issue with inconsistent pacing.
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The one real joy from this episode is seeing Red and Rit interacting. They are super cute in every scene with every blush, tentative hand hold, and the more overt moment when Rit gets back from a late night ordeal (well seeing a body blow up is an ordeal) and she leaps onto Red’s lap. It is seriously adorable even if Rit is keeping from Red that the hero guy is in town and that she just saw a body blow up or any other pertinent information.
Perhaps my biggest issue with this episode of Banished From The Hero’s Party came about because of how much was stuffed into a short space, but so many characters that we’d seen so few times were kind of just appearing in scenes but they weren’t really establishing who they were and what their relationship with the main characters was because it was just expected we’d remember. Which fair enough if any of these characters had been firmly established to begin with but the town’s population is kind of made up of generic fantasy characters that Red kind of says ‘hi’ to occasionally. Not exactly memorable.
Though rather than being good or bad, my main impression with the overall episode this week was one of curiosity. I wonder why the story suddenly escalated so abruptly? Why did the hero party guy make the expression he did after he spoke to Rit and decided not to let Red know he was in town? What possible use are the drugs and how are demons connected to them? And why was Ares stupid enough to not realise that his own life would be in danger if all the front line fighters were no longer with the party?
On that note, Ares nearly got squished this week in Banished From The Hero’s Party and honestly that would have been pretty satisfying to watch.
Whether they answer these questions, and whether this anime sorts out its pacing a bit, will only be found out by pressing on. And honestly, the journey here in Banished From The Hero’s Party remains ‘mostly harmless’ with the occasional moment of fun so it is hardly a problem to keep going. Whether I will remember a single moment from this series even a week after it finishes airing is also yet to be determined. Right now, I kind of doubt it because until this shows up in my watch schedule I mostly forget about it between episodes.
You can read my full thoughts on Banished From The Hero’s Party here.
Images from: ‘Banished from the Hero’s Party, I Decided To Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside’. Dir. M Hoshino. Studio Flad and Wolfsbane. 2021
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Karandi James
Im fairly certain that wasn’t really Danan based on his facial expression as he stated life’s full of surprises. I think it was actually Shisandan or some other demon impersonating Donan.
That would be interesting, though then I would wonder why a demon or something would choose a person who doesn’t live in the village to impersonate.
I swear I have seen this exact plot in westerns. The gunfighter retires to an idyllic life with his lovely maiden but local troubles arise and his past pursues him. Not that it is a bad plot but it feels familiar.
The twist here is that they were convinced to retire by appealing to their sense of inadequacy. But aside from that…
Classics are classics for a reason. Though somewhat more intriguing characters would help sell this.
Poetic how Ares used the fact that the Hero girl had to protect Red/Gideon in his argument to convince him to leave, and then he needed saving by the Hero girl. Yeah, who was the weakest link in this party, again?
The part where Red’s old friend convinced Rit to basically skulk around in secret, visiting him in an inn behind Red’s back, smells fishy to me, especially combined with that expression he made.
As for the drug and the demons… hmmm… we have a peaceful village in the middle of nowhere, where none of the greater powers are watching, which makes it a perfect staging ground. We have people being given a drug that enrages them and even upends the whole “blessing” structure of their physical and spiritual being. It could be some experiment, perhaps some effort to corrupt and turn people into monsters. The entire town could be wiped out, and how soon would anyone notice? Whatever it is could be used to spread anarchy and disorder throughout the entire world, and such things always begin in small, isolated, peaceful places, ya know?
I’m kind of hoping Ares gets made to eat his own words at some point (or killed off screen would work).
I think my issue with the whole drug/demons/conspiracy thing is it just seems too complex for the rest of this plot and I’m not sure enough time is being given to it for it to end up making sense.