Review with spoilers:
I’ve made it fairly clear that so far Zodiac War hasn’t exactly been amazing viewing and this week isn’t an exception. That said, I actually enjoyed this episode significantly more than episode 1 or 2 because the Chicken was actually kind of a fun character: you know, before they inevitably cut down the one character we’ve actually learned about during the episode.
This show has clearly set its formula in stone with giving us glimpses of a character’s past and the messed up life they have had, as well as their internal thoughts about the other characters and the fight, before terminating their life in a gory and what seems to be an attempt at surprising twist at the end of an episode though given it has now been repeated three times that leaves something to be desired.
However, the Chicken had far more personality and was far more interesting to learn about than either the Boar or the Dog, though no better at making me sympathetic for the ending we all kind of saw coming. If we get another plus out of this episode it is that the Boar is finished for good and isn’t a walking zombie boar anymore.
Although, as the post title suggests, this episode has a pretty fun title though ultimately that gives away not only the death of the Chicken (though I guess that was kind of inevitable) but also the one who will strike the blow:
Cutting a Chicken with a Beef Cleaver
Clever? Yes. Leaving any room for any kind of surprise in the episode? Not really.
And once again we learn nothing of why the zodiac’s are fighting or who is in charge of setting up this match or even what they actually achieve if they win. I was pretty sure I was going to drop this show this week but then I kind of liked the episode despite having issues with the overall story (or lack of overall story other than ‘kill each other’). Still, looking at the good points of this show (it looks great, the character designs are interesting if a little crazy at times, there is definitely potential for the story, and well it is hard to really stuff up a battle royal too much) I’m probably keeping this on my watch list and maybe it will grow on me.
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Karandi James.
On a side note, episode two’s title: “Tricks both mongrel and fowl” (鸡鸣狗盗) is yet another chinese idiom. It means very useless talents or small amounts of power, and can also be used to refer to very thieving actions.
This probably does not relate to episode two either but its yet another good reference through the use of titles.
Of course, the english translation butchered the idiom’s meaning completely and I didn’t recognise it at first, but after coming across the kanji for the episode titles today I realised what it was. Episode 1 is not an idiom, however.
Hopefully this is even more useless knowledge you get to know 😀
Did you know that that is a chinese idiom?
To kill a chicken with a beef cleaver(杀鸡用牛刀) means using excessive force to accomplish a small task, and this idiom is usually used to describe how you have no need to spend a lot of effort in order to accomplish small things, or in simpler words, don’t overkill.
Well, it’s not like that is related to the episode to anyway, but I like how they managed to tie in a chinese idiom as a title in order to reference chinese culture even more.