Saihate no Paladin Episode 8 - Not Yet Forgotten

Saihate no Paladin has Will and Meneldor heading to a town to buy livestock and other supplies for the newly reclaimed village. While Will can eradicate the demons (as shown in the previous episode) he can’t bring back everything that was lost during the demon invasion and so after an off-screen bit of ruins exploration for cash the two head-off to town.

Naturally, because this is a fantasy anime, they hear a scream in the forest while walking and Will does his hero thing saving a bard and a travelling salesman from certain death (or at least theft) by a giant ape monster thing. The four then continue the journey.

Are Robina and Antonia a good addition to the mix in Saihate no Paladin?

This week we still get an unnecessary amount of internal dialogue from Will but for the most part with the addition of two more characters there’s at least less time for Will to spend in his own head. Robina is a particularly exuberant character who brightens up scenes just by being in them and she’s forced the other characters to be a bit more lively as well.

That she is also serving a plot purpose, being a bard and recounting the history of the land including (conveniently) the history of a certain warrior, sage and priestess, is just icing on the cake of a character who has burst onto the scene like a breath of fresh air.

I really love that Saihate no Paladin is keeping Will connected to his roots. While the story might not be quite right, even Will internally acknowledges the characters described in the bard’s song weren’t exactly as he would picture them, seeing Blood, Mary and Gus working together to take down a wyvern was still pretty awesome.

For Will, learning that some people (such as the half-elf in the story) were even still alive overwhelmed him emotionally as he realised that he wasn’t the only person alive who remembered the three even though they had been ‘dead’ for so long and now Blood and Mary have moved on altogether.

Perhaps the best thing about this episode was the Meneldor finally seems to have relaxed and isn’t putting on a false bravado or tough front anymore. He opening laughs and his interactions with Will and the others, while guarded to a point, feel far more natural. It’s taken a few episodes but Saihate no Paladin is slowly settling this character into his role.

Though while he might be settling his personality, his actual actions this week were a little bit sidelined as he was largely just there. He did some introductions and talking at times but he didn’t involve himself in the ape stand-off and wasn’t involved in the performing or selling in towns. Really he just kind of travelled along. Weirdly, you couldn’t imagine the group functioning without him being there but it was hard to say what exactly he did.

By the end of episode 8 of Saihate no Paladin the group have come across fields of wheat and the episode ends as they can see the ocean and a city sprawling along its edge. We’ll have to wait for next week to see how Will fares in his first real encounter with civilisation. I suspect that it isn’t going to be smooth sailing for him.

Otherwise this episode really was just a transitional episode moving us from the villages in the beast forest toward the city and continuing to expand our understanding of the world and its history. Will, and the audience, picked up quite a bit of history this week in Saihate no Paladin and toward the end of the episode a bit of the political situation was explained (I guess Will’s somehow going to get caught up in that situation, otherwise why tell us).

You can read the full season review here.

Images from: Saihate no Paladin. Dir. Y. Nobuta. Children’s Playground Entertainment. 2021