How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 21 – Marriage For Political/Monetary Gain

Posted on by Karandi
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 21 Review

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom visually was very unimpressive this week largely because the entire episode was characters standing around talking in the throne room or talking through a mirror together. The only scene that really broke this up was when Souma told a story about two gods running opposing nations and then the animation was minimal and definitely more storybook style rather than impressive to match the framing device of it being a story.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 21

All things considered, you’d be forgiven for just kind of tuning out as this episode more or less re-established the arrangements more or less decided last week, confirmed everyone was on the same page, and then had Souma chat it out with Maria from the Empire so that she didn’t get the wrong idea and decide he’d broke the Humankind Declaration for which he isn’t even a signatory.

About the only real takeaway from episode 21 of how a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom is that Souma has finally accepted he is king, not an interim, and he’s not going to take his reforms slowly anymore.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 21

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom has more talking heads than anything else.

One thing I mentioned in my review of the previous episode was that Juna would have cause for complaint if Souma agreed to marry Roroa while she was still on hold. And yet, her only comment this week was that she wouldn’t go against any decision Souma made.

Haiku Kotaro Bokuto

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That isn’t good. That isn’t helpful. Souma doesn’t need a harem of ‘yes girls’ surrounding him telling him how brilliant he is. He needs decent, solid advisors who have their eye on the safety and security of the kingdom.

In that respect, Roroa outclassed Liscia, Juna and Aisha this week as she’s the only character with a future plan at all that involves doing anything other than just nodding as Souma talks and standing beside him looking like a window decoration rather than a character. Honestly, Souma should call them on this because for a Realist Hero who wanted to surround himself with the brightest and best and those with talent, he seems to now be surrounded by a bunch who can barely contribute a nod to the conversation. This is hardly a riveting supporting cast.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 21

Honestly I have little else to say about this episode. It was a lot of talking and things are all agreed between the main players. I guess we now just wait and see who the new problem is and all things considered it seems like the church state is going to be the new antagonist. It will be interesting to see if they manage to do this well or not.

Also, I’m not convinced the entire population of Amidonia is fine with being annexed into their traditional enemy’s kingdom. Sure, those in Van who have been under Elfrieden rule would mostly be fine with it and others would see it as an improvement over their circumstances with Julius in the lead. But a Realist Hero would be aware that there must be pockets of discontent. But that issue and what they will do about it isn’t really addressed this week.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 21

I can’t say this second season of How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom is disappointing because realistically it is pretty much exactly like season one. There’s some interesting ideas but the actual episodes are bogged down in static conversations and the characterisation isn’t great. It would have been nice to see this anime improve on season one but at the very least it has been about the same quality and hasn’t gotten worse.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 20 – Incompetence Finds Its Victim This Week

Posted on by Karandi
How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 20 Review

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom bounces viewers back to the war in Amidonia (or the fall-out from the war) after rapidly wrapping up the whole mad-scientist plot. I mean, we start still in the lab and dealing with the whole dragon bone theft issue but after seeing a weird curiosity, that mostly just made me think of mecha godzilla, Realist Hero more or less dumps that line of plot progress and instead we see the mess Julius has wrought since claiming back Amidonia.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 20

You wouldn’t think one incompetent leader could get into so much trouble so quickly but between destroying infrastructure improvements built by Elfrieden, cracking down on individuality on things such as the colour of houses, and then brutally putting down a rebellion after people had starved to death, Julius couldn’t really have done a worse job. It’s unfortunate that his father had alienated or fired anyone competent in his government leaving Julius with opportunists and morons to advise him.

Not like he would have listened to good advice anyway.

Realist Hero has already clearly established that Julius, much like his father, as a strong belief that he is in the right and that he can bully or beat down anyone who disagrees with his view of how the world should be and how he should rule. Unlike his father, Julius has neither the force of personality or the standing army to pull this one off.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 20

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom seems to be expanding Kingdom into Empire.

Seeing Julius brought down might have been amusing if Realist Hero didn’t actually have real consequences in place. While seeing someone do a poor job and pay the price for it, having to flee his own country, could be satisfying, in the meantime the people of Amidonia are starving and in fear for their lives. Not only is their own army putting down those who dare complain, the country was being invaded from the south.

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What I did wonder was why Julius didn’t get the Empire to help him again? Or why didn’t Souma ask the Empire whether they supported Elfrieden annexing the neighbouring kingdom (at their request, of course)? As much as it seems a logical conclusion, if the Empire doesn’t support it then they’ll just end up where they were before.

Then again, all these invasions and talks of refugees flooding across the border struck a little too close to home this week and events in the real world are significantly more dramatic than anything this anime is managing to coble together in a fictional setting.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 20

Though, throughout all of this, Souma and Hakuya both note that while Julius’ failure was within predictions, the speed and coordination of all the failings seemed a little contrived. It was nice to see at the end that clearly there was a helping hand within Amidonia pushing events in this direction. Otherwise it really would have felt like things just too easily fell Souma’s way in Realist Hero.

And of course that brings us to the end of the episode where Souma inadvertently acquires yet another candidate for his harem. Politically it makes sense. That said, if Souma agrees to that proposal before tidying things up with Juna I suspect there’s going to be a fall out somewhere along the lines.

How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom Episode 20

Anyway, I could continue to point out Julius’ failings but I think that point has been well and truly established already in Realist Hero. It was interesting that when deciding what to do, Souma went through the advantages and disadvantages of expanding and taking control of Amidonia. I loved that he mentioned they would lose the reparation payments they had just secured. It actually does make it feel more realistic when that kind of materialism is definitely considered as a factor even in the midst of a humanitarian crisis.

I guess we’ll see in the next episode how all of this plays out.

Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022

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Sabikui Bisco Episode 9 – Does Anyone Have a Cure For Heart Break?

Posted on by Karandi
Sabikui Bisco Episode 9 Review
https://www.crowsworldofanime.com/

So many anime should watch episode 8 and 9 of Sabikui Bisco to really understand how to capitalise emotionally on a cliff-hanger ending. Seriously, I thought episode 8 left us at a heart-wrenching moment and my greatest fear was that this week we would literally just see the characters walk away from it within the first few minutes of the episode.

Instead, episode 9 begins with shattered characters and words that are clearly foreshadowing disaster and then things escalate and just don’t stop until the dramatic conclusion of the episode (which I am going to try hard not to spoil because that really should be watched). I’m just left wondering what Sabikui Bisco does for the next three episodes and whether it can ever be as emotionally devastating as it was this week.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 9

Although, it probably doesn’t need to be. What it really needs to do is address what all of this actually changes in the world or whether it was all for nothing.

Sabikui Bisco was far more committed to its plot than I gave it credit for earlier in the season.

In order to avoid too many spoilers I am afraid this particular episode review is going to end up being a little bit all over the place as I focus on less prominent details than the conclusion.

For instance, I haven’t really talked about Jabi much in any of my episode reviews of Sabikui Bisco so far. Yet this mentor character from Bisco has played a key role at multiple junctures in the story, despite spending most of the series injured or captured. And you have to admit, this old man has some spunk.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 9

I mean, Jabi is the one who raised Bisco so we had to know this guy was a bit on the reckless side. He also clearly has a big heart. Throughout the course of the series, his own safety has never been his priority concern. Instead, he’s always looked out for the others, whether it be Bisco or even Pawoo when she was captured.

It makes me wonder why Kurokawa ever thought threatening Jabi’s life, or even his fingers, would somehow convince him to surrender. This old man was never going to fold over something like that.

But now I’m wondering how Jabi is going to react next week to the final of episode 9… Okay, not going there.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 9

Honestly, there’s little more you could ask from Sabikui Bisco at this point. It has been a zany adventure and buddy quest with this whole dystopian thing going underneath it and this episode just brought all those elements together so well. It is always nice when you are watching an anime or a story and realise that everything actually does work together and clearly there was a plan from the start when the writer put this story together.

About the only real visual criticism I could make of episode 9 is that it is pretty much the same colour from beginning to end and it is quite a bleak and dull looking episode compared to previous ones. Then again, given events, the colour palette more or less suits the episode perfectly.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 9 Review

Can the next episode be out already?

This is perhaps the biggest problem with seasonal viewing in that there’s so much I want to say but at the same time don’t want to say until people have a chance to watch this episode on their own.

Anyway, Sabikui Bisco has gone from being a curiosity and kind of interesting to being something I am highly emotionally invested in and that is definitely a good thing given how many other anime this season kind of lost me at the mid-way point.

Images from: Sabikui Bisco. Dir. A Ikariya. OZ. 2022

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Arifureta Season 2 Episode 7 – Departure’s and Turning Points

Posted on by Karandi
Arifureta Season 2 Episode 7 Review

Arifureta continues to be a mixed bag of varying animation quality and varying amounts of care. At times there are scenes that look truly beautiful and then they are followed by a still image depicting everyone walking in for dinner with the sound of footsteps over the top to give us a sense of actual movement going on (unsuccessfully). Likewise we go from a silly game of tag where Shia’s bikini top gets stolen to full on conspiracy and murder at the castle.

Arifureta Season 2 Episode 7

As always, my feelings on Arifureta are mixed as the overall plot line is fascinating and all of these characters have moments where I truly do like watching them. Then there’s everything in between those moments and when that starts dominating the episodes I find myself wondering once again why I continue to push through with this anime.

Rascal

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Definitely a case where reading is the better option for this story because you can definitely get through the more frivolous parts quicker and when you get to the meat the story is actually really good.

Those still watching Arifureta really have to just accept this is what it is.

You’d be forgiven early on for feeling that episode 7 of Arifureta was just going to be more filler time with fan-service as Hajime and the girls delay leaving Myu and her mother due to Hajime suddenly having sentimental feelings toward leaving Myu behind. Admittedly, it is a pretty decent character progression point given other than Yue, Hajime had cut himself off significantly from others after the initial betrayal that led to his fall so seeing him so connected to another is actually a great step forward.

It doesn’t make watching them play tag in bikinis any more interesting. Nor does it make morning wood jokes actually amusing.

Arifureta Season 2 Episode 7

However, for all that Hajime and gang seem to be in a holding pattern this week, events back at the castle involving the other students are in full swing. We finally get to see Aiko in her prison and admittedly she isn’t doing a whole lot other than fretting about things. It would have been nice to see her plotting escape or trying to get a message out or literally anything to show that she had grown beyond just wringing her hands and hoping, but at least we’ve finally seen what happened to her after her abduction.

Of course, it does leave you wondering why she isn’t just dead. All well and good to say she’s been taken off the board but the problem is she could be placed back on it if you just leave her where she is.

Arifureta Season 2 Episode 7

Aiko isn’t the main point though. What we see this week is that huge numbers of people in the castle are being influenced and this leads to an attack on the Knight Commander and pretty much only decent guy there. While a fairly common criticism I’ve had of Arifureta up until now is that we don’t spend enough time on this aspect of the story, leading to only having a vague sense of any of these characters, the Knight Commander has managed to make an impression so the attack upon him definitely carried weight and it definitely has huge implications for the safety of the students going forward.

Arifureta Season 2 Episode 7

And just to ensure that the plot is really hopping along we also get a cut of the demons declaring that their god has spoken and they are going to war. This could potentially lead to a very violent climax if all of these plot threads actually come together.

All that is really left is to see what Arifureta decides to do with all these plot points. Hopefully something good. Or at the very least, explosive.

Images from: Arifureta 2nd Season. Dir. A Iwanaga. asread & studio MOTHER. 2022.

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Sabikui Bisco Episode 8 – They Aren’t Going To Leave It There (Oh they did)

Posted on by Karandi
Sabikui Bisco Episode 8 Review
https://www.crowsworldofanime.com/

If I thought episode 7 of Sabikui Bisco left us on a dramatic cliff-hanger, clearly I was mistaken as episode 8 shows us exactly what a dramatic cliff-hanger really is. I guess the only question I’m stuck with is whether I think Sabikui Bisco will actually follow through or whether this is going to be one of those stories where we get a dramatic cliff-hanger only for everything to be resolved within a minute of the next episode beginning.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 8

Only time will answer that particular question and in the mean time I’m going to try to review this episode without spoilers. Though, this episode did very much cement my opinion that despite all the weird mushroom trappings, Sabikui Bisco is very much going through the motions of an adventure narrative plot. We had four episodes setting up the adventure and bringing the two main characters together. The next four episodes had their journey to find the MacGuffin and then set up this new problem. Now, with four episodes left, we’ve hit another dramatic turning point in the story.

Sabikui Bisco wasn’t going for light viewing this week.

Every now and then I watch an episode of an anime that just leaves me emotionally wrecked. That was this week’s episode of Sabikui Bisco. We begin with Milo facing Kurokawa having watched his little broadcast in the last episode and we finally get to see what images drove Milo to drugging Bisco.

Kurokawa is just… well, evil would probably be the best term. Cartoonishly evil. Motive revealed – profits at the expense of the lives of everyone suffering from the rusting. Maintaining power. Oh, and throw in the kicker reveal about Kurokawa’s life before he was the governor. Added kicker, he’s personally responsible for why everyone hates mushroom keepers.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 8

That’s a lot of reasons to hate a person. And the thing is with the over the top nature of how this story has played out, having a villain that is so ridiculously villainous just kind of makes sense.

Speaking of over the top, Milo really stepped up this week in Sabikui Bisco. As much as it didn’t end up working out, you have to admit the sight of him charging in to the villain’s den, taking out the lackey’s and taking slices out of Kurokawa was really impressive. If Kurokawa didn’t have plot armour because he’s needed to still be around in the final act of this story he would definitely have been taken out by this attack.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 8

What doesn’t quite add up though is that Milo did go to a lot of effort and clearly put some thought into his attack and yet turns out Jabi was going to rescue himself and probably could have gotten himself and Pawoo out without Milo or Bisco ever turning up. It really does suck when the designated hostages can rescue themselves as it makes the efforts of the heroes look more than a little futile.

Still, how awesome was Jabi?

Sabikui Bisco Episode 8

Actually if we are ranking how awesome the characters were this week in Sabikui Bisco, tragically Pawoo who only gets to be the damsel in distress and torture victim comes in quite low but Bisco, despite coming to save Milo, doesn’t do much better. For all that he’s had some truly awesome moments throughout this series, somehow here he was just kind of off his game.

I know, they are going to use the whole poisoned last episode thing as a reason, plus he didn’t really expect the attack to come from where it did, but given some of the dodges and cool moves he has pulled off previously it really did seem like they had to seriously de-power Bisco this week in order for the story to progress as they wanted.

Sabikui Bisco Episode 8

Anyway, Sabikui Bisco was great. I love watching this scene unfold and my only issue is the credits started rolling leaving us severely hanging until next week.

Images from: Sabikui Bisco. Dir. A Ikariya. OZ. 2022

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Love of Kill Episode 7 – Sorry, Not Dead Yet

Posted on by Karandi
Love of Kill Episode 7

Okay, Love of Kill you aren’t as predictable as I thought and yet I’m not actually sure that’s a good thing. In my episode 6 review I speculated that the stabbing of Chateau’s boss would set up “a really obvious scenario where Chateau will have to decide whether to trust Song or believe the worst about him” but it turns out that the boss didn’t die and both Song and the boss more or less told Chateau that Song didn’t do it.

Love of Kill Episode 7

So if we aren’t setting up a massive misunderstanding to pit our two leads against one another what is Love of Kill doing?

Well it turns out that after a perfectly good chance for an obvious misunderstanding was cast aside, we’re just going to have the bad-guy flat-out blackmail Chateau into attempting to neutralise Song and hand him over with her mother’s life in the balance. Same result but more convoluted path to get there really. Though it did at least leave Chateau with actual expressions on her face this week.

(Spoilers coming below.)

Love of Kill Episode 7

What is Love of Kill’s end game?

I’m more than a little confused at this point whether a romance between Song and Chateau is even the point despite Love of Kill being listed as a romance. Chateau makes a weird declaration this week that Song is always on her mind but otherwise they seem to be in the same holding pattern they’ve always been in. Worse if you factor in that she tries to kill herself before he chokes her unconscious this episode.

Haiku Kotaro Bokuto

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On that note, Chateau is still playing the damsel in distress and any illusion that she might be a strong female lead had fled the building. It’s the ‘I don’t know what to do’ and ‘I can’t solve this problem so I’ll throw myself off a cliff’, actually shoot herself in the head, complex and honestly I am really disappointed with her character as this series has gone on. While she was pretty flat in the earlier episodes there was so much potential in her to be an interesting female lead and she’s since either been perpetually kidnapped, outclassed, or just given up.

Love of Kill Episode 7

Even her attempt at suicide is underwhelming and I’m not entirely sure it would have solved the problem. Would they have actually not killed her mother if she killed herself? Would Song be able to avoid them even if she didn’t bring him in? It definitely seemed like running away and it most definitely seemed, given she knows how fast Song can move, like she wanted him to stop her or perhaps she would have acted faster and more decisively.

Wow, critiquing a suicide attempt… Not exactly what I had in mind when I picked up an action/romance for the season.

Love of Kill Episode 7

And honestly, that’s about all that happened. The Boss was evacuated but the ship didn’t pull into port and have police investigate the attempted murder of a guest. Everything just continued on. It isn’t until near the end of the episode that some of the bit players in Love of Kill speculate that things might be a bit weird on the cruise given a passenger nearly died and no one seems to care.

With five episodes left it is probably a little late to hope Chateau becomes a more interesting character. Even Song has been a lot less fun recently. And the young stab-happy villain this week wasn’t exactly a show-stealer (nor was his brother who seems to be trying to do an L from Death Note impersonation).

Love of Kill Episode 7

So instead lets just hope they at least tell us a bit about Chateau’s past and maybe Song ends up at least getting a kiss. That’s about as high as my hopes for Love of Kill go at this point.

Images from: Love of Kill. Dir. H Ooba. Platinum Vision. 2022

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Tokyo 24-ku Episode 7: Time Moves on But The Plot Seems To Be On Hold

Posted on by Karandi
Tokyo 24-Ku Episode 7

Tokyo 24-ku seems like it was running low on steam this week. Either that or it is a lull before a storm however when the characters are all dispersed the way episode 6 left them, a lot of the charm of this anime seems to be missing in action. Maybe it is a case where if I was able to binge watch and move straight to the next episode it wouldn’t be so obvious but really all I got out of this episode was that Shuta is pretty useless on his own (and we already knew that) and bread is apparently awesome.

Tokyo 24-ku Episode 7

Not that Shuta is actually on his own. None of the characters in Tokyo 24-ku are. Shuta has Mari and his mother to support him as well as his father returning at the end of the episode. Kouki has a whole organisation around him. Even Ran has a group on the run with him. The problem is, other than Mari, none of these supporting cast members have really done much to feel like more than background noise.

Tokyo 24-Ku felt a little underwhelming this week.

For an anime that has given us one trolley dilemma after another and life or death stakes every other week, an episode that just looks at the reality of growing up felt very flat. Yes, childhood friends grow apart. They connect with others and their goals move them down different paths and eventually they may no longer connect even if they want to.

Levi

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And as much as Shuta seems to think there is, there’s no magic moment when you stop feeling like a kid and realise you are an adult. You just kind of keep going and one day you look back and wonder how it is you got where you ended up. Maybe that’s a really cynical way of looking at it but really Shuta seems to be agonising over his own lack of progress but he’s working in the bakery and improving his skills and still helping people out. Seems like he’s doing what he actually wanted to do.

His dream of being a hero isn’t so much squashed as taking a new form and finding ways to help people within his actual means.

Tokyo 24-ku Episode 7

Of course, I probably have another reason to feel down about this episode of Tokyo 24-Ku. For whatever reason they felt the need to nearly drown Shuta is the public bath after he took a bath while exhausted. I’ve mentioned before on this blog I have issues with drowning and here it felt like such a pointless scene. Not to mention both of the characters who went to perform CPR did so terribly.

First we get Kinako, Ran’s friend who has been left behind now that he’s on the run, who went for the usual cliche kiss approach to CPR and didn’t even try to hold his nose or literally anything that would actually make it effective. Fortunately she dithered so long Shuta’s father turns up. However he just goes for some super glowy mystical chest slam forcing the water out of Shuta’s lungs (though in reality probably cracking a rib in the process) and Shuta coughs himself awake. As usual, no ongoing effects from nearly drowning.

Tokyo 24-ku Episode 7

Honestly, I shouldn’t be annoyed at an anime for not accurately representing reality particularly in a show where magical phone calls increase abilities and give visions of the future. It isn’t like Tokyo 24-ku has tried to be particularly grounded. Still, poorly demonstrated CPR bothers me.

Tokyo 24-ku Episode 7

Anyway, the one actual plot point we get from this episode of Tokyo 24-ku is that the new phone alert system is spreading through the ward and arrests are up. Whether that ends up being a good thing or the next step toward the loss of freedom remains to be seen.

Images from: Tokyo 24-ku. Dir N Tsuda. Cloverworks. 2022

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