Lord of Vermilion: The Crimson King Episode 4: Another Drop for the Season

I was hoping now that they’d had their exposition dump the story could actually pull itself together, but the mess that is episode 4 of Lord of Vermilion proved otherwise. Honestly, it might still get better but I think I’ve given it long enough to flounder about.

I’m feeling this story was written by someone who never really got over the whole edgy teen stage in their life. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with a supernatural action piece being written for people who appreciate edgy teen drama, but it would be nice if it could at least be done competently. This episode drops us into the story after the characters clearly decided to help the church with the whole destroy Tokyo plan in order to remake the world, though Chihiro seems more just happy smashing things, a fact which the reporter kind of points out in his usual unsubtle way.

However, during the second battle of the episode, Chihiro and the girl from the other side somehow end up in a land of white mist (as opposed to the red mist where they usually are) and they have a conversation that essentially goes in a complete circle before dialogue starts repeating (much like listening to two NPC’s in a game that are just stuck in the same loop). Then she helps him escape for reasons unclear.

I still haven’t been given a reason to care about these characters. Despite the exposition dump last week, I still don’t even really get the nature of the conflict or what either side even wants. Delaying answers is fine and all but you have to make the audience care what the answer is. Despite my normally curious personality, I just don’t because at this point it doesn’t seem well thought out enough to be satisfactory regardless of what the answers might be.

And so, I say farewell to Lord of Vermilion.

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Thanks for reading.

Karandi James