M Hoshino

The final two episodes of Banished From The Hero’s Party finally have everyone pretty much face off against everyone else as half the characters try to somehow force Ruti to properly take up the mantle of hero, even if that means taking away her free will or killing her brother, and the other half try to give Ruti the right to choose her future. Weirdly, only one human character actually dies despite the number who get their clothes slashed off (and why does every girl get slashed between the breasts).

But you can’t really argue with episode 12 too much given it satisfactorily has every character’s goals explored and resolves the issue before episode 13 gives us the epilogue and continues the natural progression of one of the sweetest couples I’ve seen in anime for a long time.

Banished From The Hero’s Party gives us a final fight before settling into the slow and quiet country life as promised in the title.

I think the one character I still don’t get in Banished From The Hero’s Party is Ares. I mean, his obsession with accompanying the hero is all too clear but just having the Sage blessing doesn’t seem to account for his over the top possessiveness. And even if all his plans had succeeded after aligning with a demon, would Ruti have really still travelled with him? Particularly if he’d actually succeeded at killing Gideon?

As the episode progresses, Ares becomes increasingly unhinged and finally ends up where so many failed villains end up by the end of a fight they’ve clearly lost: standing alone and wondering why the person they are trying to kill just won’t die.

Don’t take it personally Ares, you just aren’t the protagonist of this story.

Though it does make you wonder why they bothered letting him live during his last attempt to kill Gideon.

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As for the demon they don’t actually ever really explain his motivation. How does it benefit him to have the hero back in action? I mean it is a cool fight scene and all but I felt like we are still missing part of the story here.

Meanwhile, Mr Crawley Wawley ended up being pivotal during one part of the battle and so proved he’s more than just a cute spider in Banished From The Hero’s Party.

But, the battle does end and Banished From The Hero’s Party gives us a final episode where wounds are healed, choices are made and characters learn that despite their blessings they can make some choices. It’s a little bit cloying and yet kind of perfect for how this anime has progressed.

And we do at least return to Red and Rit’s life with the two making it clear that they aren’t together because of their blessings and they aren’t planning on going anywhere. Seriously, those two are so cute and perfect together.

Perhaps the one genuine complaint I walk away from these final episodes with is that silly hat Ruti was wearing as she went about town. It just looked ridiculous.

That and the other characters who had all kind of showed up for the final showdown also just kind of went their own ways and disappeared again as quickly as they arrived. Sure Red, Rit and Ruti were the central characters but when they brought all the others in to the story they could have at least finished with a BBQ or something.

Anyway, that’s it for Banished From The Hero’s Party but be sure to check out the full series review.

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

Banished From The Hero’s Party Episode 11 finally explains what was going on when Rit ran into Danaan earlier in the series. Admittedly it was a small moment and not the most significant thing happening but it is nice to have that kind of continuity in a series.

So turns out there’s two Danaans running around. One is actually the demon that ate the hand of the real one, meaning the real one only has one hand which at least makes them relatively easy to distinguish. It is always considerate when doppelgangers give you some kind of obvious visual cue as to who is who.

Not that it really matters when the demon version is just with Ares, who has finally arrived in Zoltan, and Ares doesn’t need much incentive to trash Red’s shop or to try to get Ruti to go adventuring with him again. I have to wonder just how delusional Ares is and he isn’t done yet as Banished From The Hero’s Party decides not to kill him even after he throws Red into a wall right in front of Ruti.

He does at least finally get stabbed though Ruti makes sure he can heal the damage.

Banished From The Hero’s Party has finally brought all the players togehter.

Part of me wonders why Ares is so obsessed with accompanying the hero on her mission. Since Red left the party that mission has been miserable and full of bad food and failure. Surely even Ares has to realise at this point that even if he wants to accompany the hero, others are needed to ensure success.

Then again, he doesn’t seem like the most reasonable kind of person and given he’s pretty much listening to a demon (one he knows is a demon) by the end of this episode I guess we can’t expect much in the way of logic from him for the foreseeable future. Ruti should have given him a bit more damage to content with. Maybe then he wouldn’t have time to come up with silly ideas like the one he’s now contemplating.

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Meanwhile, staying true to its strengths, Banished From The Hero’s Party decides to simply lay the cards on the table with Ruti’s friend explaining to Red what she’s been doing and Red deciding to accept Ruti’s decision and lending a helping hand to ensure it doesn’t land her addicted or going on a rampage. He’s like every nice older brother in anime wrapped into one caring package.

Even Ruti was a bit taken back by Red simply accepting that she’d decided she didn’t want to be a hero anymore.

The two have a talk about it and Red explains he was trying to find a way to diminish her blessing even after leaving the party but he hadn’t succeeded and it is just great to see two characters that actually listen to one another and try to respect what the other one wants.

Again, surprised that Banished From The Hero’s Party ended up being that anime given earlier episodes were pretty vapid and yet they’ve kind of snuck the character development in underneath what seemed like fairly unremarkable story telling and the pay off at the end of the season is actually kind of worth it. It doesn’t elevate some of those earlier episodes given they felt pretty pointless but it at least makes me feel happy I kept going with this one.

So with everyone either at the old elven ruins or on their way there, I guess this is where we’ll have whatever climax this story is going to throw at us? Here’s hoping Banished From The Hero’s Party can end on a high note. I enjoyed the opening even if it felt pretty average and the mid-season was watchable but not remarkable so a decent enough ending will work to bring this one to a close.

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

When Banished From The Hero’s Party episode 10 started, I wasn’t expecting the happy reuinion between Ruti and Red we seemed to get. Other than a few awkward words the two more or less fell into their roles of doting brother and younger sister fairly readily except that Red/Gideon has said he won’t return to the party and Ruti is still hiding something from Red (you know, the guy she broke out of prison).

Honestly, the two spending the day visiting the sauna and walking about town was kind of cute and it really just made me want to punch Ares all the more for his getting rid of Red given clearly Ruti needs her older brother. As you see how others respond to her hero blessing you realise just how isolated she is from others and having a grounded and supportive brother around must have been a massive relief.

Banished From The Hero’s Party shows great chemistry between the two siblings.

What might have been an instant sore spot, Rit, turned out to not actually lead to the petty kind of conflict you might see in another anime. Banished From The Hero’s Party definitely addresses the relationship between Rit and Red and Ruti is jealous to an extent but rather than lashing out about it she instead takes a bath with Rit and explains how she is feeling.

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While Ruti might be blunt, she isn’t petty and she doesn’t even really blame Rit.

For Ruti, having the hero’s blessing has controlled her whole life and her brother is one of the few bright spots in it as she remembers his warmth from even before the blessing kicked in.

I seriously didn’t expect Banished From The Hero’s Party to be as good at nuanced relationships as it has turned out to be when I first started watching it. It seemed just to be a b-list generic fantasy anime and yet it has turned out to first develop a plausible relationship between Red and Rit that has been pretty satisfying to watch and with the inclusion of Ruti they’ve now demonstrated it wasn’t just an accident.

While the plot of Banished From The Hero’s Party remains kept at arms length and at times you have to wonder if the characters really care at all about the whole hero defeating the demon thing, given no one seems in any rush to accomplish anything, at least we’ve got decently developed characters who most of the time seem to deal with things in a sensible manner. You also have to wonder if the demon is actually a threat at all given most people seem to just be living their lives without concern.

I do wonder if Ruti is going to get back on mission given her declaration that she is going to live in town. I know she has another goal other than just finding Red but being close to Red seems to be directing her decision a bit here. I also wonder if Ares and the other members of her party will catch up with her and how that will go. Please let Red punch Ares.

Of course, Banished From The Hero’s Party is only supposed to be 13 episodes so we’ve got three more episodes to really build to some kind of climax and resolve in order to get an ending. Unless we’re just doubling down on the slice-of-life aspects in which case I guess we can just sauna and milk-drink our way to the end of the season and call it though I somehow don’t believe that would be particularly satisfying.

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

Banished From The Hero’s Party Episode 9 begins with the Hero (Ruti) and the shy assassin girl, whose name I don’t remember because I’m endlessly distracted by the cute spider she carries around on her shoulder, ditching Ares and the other random member of the hero’s party in the desert and flying the airship toward Zoltan. Now you might think Ruti knows she heading toward her brother but in point of fact she’s planning a prison break to get more of the drug that Red worked pretty hard to eradicate from Zoltan.

There’s reasons but they aren’t great and I’m guessing largely this was just a massive plot device to get the two into the same geographical region so we could get that final scene of Ruti walking into Red’s shop. And I can’t even complain about it too much because that scene was worth it.

Did anyone else cheer at the start of this episode of Banished From The Hero’s Party as Ares stared in disbelief at the sight of the airship (carrying the hero) deserting him?

Speaking of things that were worth it, Banished From The Hero’s Party finally gave Ares his comeuppance. Honestly, while I may have wished death or injury upon him, he was too pathetic a schemer to really deserve such a fate (and honestly Red really shouldn’t have left on Ares say so, that really doesn’t say much for Red’s character). Nope, he royally deserved simply being left behind like unneeded baggage. It is the inglorious end to his role in the party that absolutely matches his contribution.

It would be nice to believe this is the last we’ll see of Ares but I somehow doubt he’ll accept being ditched lying down. I’m almost sure he’s going to become a two-bit villain further down the track and maybe that will lead to the satisfaction of getting to see the hero or Red swat him but mostly I’d just be happy to never see Ares again.

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Be that as it may, Banished From The Hero’s Party still spends plenty of time on just kind of hanging around. This week Red is sad he doesn’t have many customers because apparently people in Zoltan don’t like the cold (they also don’t change how they dress despite complaining about being cold or even snow falling which just seems weird).

Anyway, after some encouragement from Rit, Red heads out to distribute a new product he’s made which is essentially a hand warming pouch and so we once again see the smiling faces of everyone who loves Red.

There’s also this weird side bit where there’s some random knight blocking a bridge. He first encounters the hero who knocks him flying and then we see him, in his boxer shorts, try to take Red’s money and that ends much the same way. Like brother like sister I guess.

All of this is just kind of a delaying tactic on behalf of Banished From the Hero’s Party. We know that sooner or later Red or Rit is going to run into Ruti now that she’s arrived in Zoltan so it really is just building up suspense until the moment the two actually meet.

And the whole episode of Banished From The Hero’s Party kind of rides on that anticipation and really makes you wait while these characters go about their business. Ruti’s assassin companion eats at a food stall right next to Red, Ruti imagines a conversation with her brother while scouting the prison, and all of this kind of leads up to the moment they actually encounter one another.

This kind of tactic would have fallen flat if it wasn’t worth the effort but Ruti’s expression and even Red’s widening eyes, as Ruti walks into the shop and recognises Red makes everything in this episode feel worth the time.

I guess we’ll have to see what Banished From The Hero’s Party does next week and 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

I could spend this episode review of Banished From The Hero’s Party bemoaning the lame resolution to the town nearly tearing itself apart as a mob was whipped up (through relatively obvious means) and almost as quickly the mob decided the kids made friends so we can all go home.

But you know what, the fact that the plot here was really lame is pretty obvious and given the build up happened in an extremely accelerated fashion over the course of pretty much a single episode so we were given little reason to care in the first place just means that I’m not really all that invested in the fact that it didn’t resolve well.

So, rather than pointing out every idiocy that went along with that particular storyline in Banished From The Hero’s Party, I’m going to look at a couple of things that this episode did really well.

Banished From The Hero’s Party has pretty much confirmed itself as a fairly sub-standard fantasy (enjoyable in places but don’t think about it too much).

Let’s be clear, it doesn’t matter how much this anime decides to fail in some areas, one area it has impressed me on is Red and Rit’s relationship. Admittedly, with all the fantasy stuff and various subplots, they aren’t as well developed as romantic leads might be in a straight romance. But there’s been some consistent build up in their relationship with one another and this episode gives us one of the best anime confessions of love I’ve ever seen.

What makes it so great isn’t just that Red is ridiculously sweet and Rit’s blush never gets old. This was kind of like the final moments of The Princess Bride where the grandfather explains that the kiss between Wesley and Buttercup surpassed all of the previous greatest kisses of all time. The reason it works is because it didn’t come out of nowhere.

Over the past few episodes of Banished From The Hero’s Party these two have been getting closer and closer and this episode started with them sharing a double bed for the first time. I love that neither of these two characters are ridiculously aggressive or ridiculously shy about showing how they feel. It makes them feel so much more real than so many other fantasy anime couples. That and they are just super sweet.

Also, they don’t ask the other one to change who they are.

In fairness, Rit does ask Red if he considered returning to the hero’s party after all this time. I loved his response. He didn’t just say no. He made it clear that he may have when he first moved to Zoltan. But things had changed. And one of those things was that he was now very clearly with Rit.

You know, if we take the communication and trust these two characters have in their relationship and move it to a much better story, it could truly be an anime for the ages.

However, Banished From The Hero’s Party is not that story and probably never really wanted to be that story. It’s a B Grade fantasy plot with a really solid romance running alongside it and unfortunately the romance is outshining everything else and just kind of makes the rest look worse than it actually is.

But going forward, I guess we’re getting more demon contracts and more of the fantasy elements because it seems like Red’s quiet country life must be thoroughly disrupted before we reach the end of the season. I do wonder if we’ll actually see Red reunite with the hero’s party or not but I do hope his apothecary survives whatever is coming because he has put so much time and effort into building his business.

Anyway, I guess we’ll see what they do in the next couple of episodes. Though if they kill off Rit just to get Red motivated I am going to flip a table. You know, just as soon as I find one that is light and has nothing on it and won’t damage me or anyone else.

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

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

I mentioned previously that I found episode 4 of Banished From The Hero’s Party a pretty dull affair and overall this series, while not glaringly bad in any particular way, has been a relatively ordinary viewing experience. Well, here is episode 6 and honestly despite drug induced rampages, further intrigue with the hero’s party, a potential foe seeking Gideon alongside a former ally, and even a bathing suit scene where our overly busty Rit bounces around in the water with Red, I mostly felt pretty indifferent to the whole viewing experience.

Would I call Banished From The Hero’s Party a bad anime? Not really. There are some things it has got just right. Particularly Rit’s character. I love the mix of shy as well as the girl who overcomes her own nervousness to ensure she gets what she wants. And full credit to Kanon Takao as the voice actress as she’s really on point.

Also, it is incredibly relaxing to watch. Seriously, you cannot feel stressed while watching this episode particularly as it just of numbs your into this zen like state. Though I suspect I was supposed to have some emotional reactions to some of the things happening here.

At the same time, I’ve mentioned in a post at some point previously that the worst thing an anime can do is be dull and unfortunately Banished From The Hero’s Party is just that.

There are particular small details I could nit-pick at, such as Rit’s random glowing red splotches on her exposed skin (a common artistic choice in anime for reasons I may never understand) or even the lack of an overall understanding of where this story might go because we have the slice of life tale of Red and Rit which is going nowhere except following their daily lives mashed together with the epic quest the hero’s party are on and its actually a bit odd to go from daily nothingness to searching for the weapon to defeat the demon. But what would be the point?

Overall the package for Banished From The Hero’s Party is pretty bland. The OP kind of gives the real review of this anime as you have this bubbly pop nothingness playing at times over epic scenes of characters doing amazing things before we merge more into the slice of life village life scenes and really it’s as forgettable as the rest of the anime.

General feelings of discontent aside, what happened in episode 6 of Banished From the Hero’s Party?

Anyway, episode 6 has Red just happening to be visiting the doctor when they hear a commotion and come across a man who has clearly Overdosed on the new drug they made some noise about a few episodes ago. Then rather than address that plot line, Red and Rit go play in some water for awhile because apparently we haven’t seen Rit’s breasts bounce enough and can I just ask why this pseudo-medieval style society has bikinis?

Anyway, cut to the hero’s party and Ares is still talking about how they don’t need the missing party members because they’ll get the weapon they need as they’ve finally arrived at the right location. Clearly that’s going to go badly but again cut away.

Banished From The Hero’s Party then has yet more drama in town and Rit goes to deal with it and finds a creepy dude who is clearly unstable and we know this because he is once again doing that weird tongue thing crazy people in anime do. At least he didn’t lick blood off a knife. That situation is resolved pretty readily and then we move on to a heart to heart with the kids again about blessings.

Finally, we end with a cliff-hanger as a named character is brought to Red and Rit injured…

And none of that really elicited any kind of emotional response from me because despite being a slice of life, just how many different things were crammed into that one episode? None of them had space to breathe or resonate. It is more a list of things happening and you can connect them together but there’s little payoff at that point.

Again, I don’t actually dislike Banished From The Hero’s Party, I Decided To Live a Quiet Life in the Countryside, but I suspect if I get any busier at work I’ll probably put off watching episodes and not really regret it.

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

I was pretty harsh on episode 4 of Banished From The Hero’s Party, largely because I found that episode pretty dull. Episode 5 manages to get back to at least sleepily pleasant and there’s enough going on in this episode for it to just kind of enjoyably roll by even if it isn’t exactly thrilling.

This week our episode begins with various representatives from the adventurer’s guild showing up at Red’s shop to try to talk Rit into becoming an adventurer again. It is kind of amusing how every single person in this story feels the need to mention that Red is a D Rank, even though he’s retired from adventuring to open his shop. Though I guess Red also perpetuates a misunderstanding by using a different name, so the fact that he used to travel with the hero’s party doesn’t play into it.

I Found a Shorter Name For Banished From The Hero’s Party, I Decided To Live a Quite Life in the Countryside: D Rank Apothecary in the Countryside

Anyway, while the adventurer’s have no luck convincing Rit, a representative from the thieves guild tries to convince Red to cut ties with Rit for an Elven coin. I mean, it isn’t as though Red is forcing Rit to stay. Even if he’d accepted and taken the coin, I doubt Rit would have left and gone back to being an adventurer.

Which apparently doesn’t work for the thieves guild who are worried about what Rit will do while she hasn’t got ties to the adventurer’s guild. Like all good thieves they are being governed entirely by self-interest.

Dissatisfied with the outcome the thieves guild do send someone to try to talk to Rit later in the episode and it more or less ends as expected with her thoroughly shooting him down.

Red also presents Rit with a bracelet which leads to a major blush-fest between the two. Seriously, Banished From The Hero’s Party really enjoys coming up with reasons for these two to either stand around or sit around blushing at each other. Five episodes in I would say it needs to advance this a bit but given the pace of the overall story (which is to say extremely slow) I guess it makes sense that relationships move about as quickly.

Anyway, quite a chunk of the episode is taken up exploring the previous situation where Rit had to work with the Hero’s party in order to get help for her kingdom. We see Gideon (Red) organising an elven guide through a bewitching forest in order to avoid the demon-lord’s army. It doesn’t really work out as expected but the mission is ultimately successful.

However, we do get a scene with the hero charging into the enemy and it literally raining blood down upon her.

It’s weird because so far Banished From The Hero’s Party hasn’t really explored the hero. She’s seemed pretty cold and self-contained, ridiculously over-powered when needed, but she’s had limited screen time and we know very little about her. This episode really did paint her as somewhat homicidal both in the battle and in a later scene where we see her reflecting back on learning when Gideon left the party.

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And I will just say it was incredibly satisfying seeing how Ruti dealt with Ares immediately after he told her Gideon had left.

Terrifying when you think that Ruti is the hero, but Ares most definitely had it coming.

Banished From The Hero’s Party continues to be a weird mix of slice of life with flash-backs of epic adventurers. There’s a lot of background political stuff but the focus always comes back to Red and Rit and their quiet life in their shop. Mostly the combination of elements works and episode 5 was pretty watchable even if not overly remarkable.

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

I haven’t been too critical of the kind of calm nothingness that is the overall tone of Banished From The Hero’s Party, I Decided to Live A Quiet Life in the Countryside prior to this episode and that is because each episode kind of gave me something interesting enough to watch even if not a lot happened.

Episode one established Red’s credentials as an adventurer and had him achieve his dream of having his shop built.

Episode two gave us the history of Red and Rit.

Episode three made me curious about the hero’s party and how they were coping and also did some world-building even if it was a little underwhelming.

And episode four, well it gives us characters having a sauna.

Just adding characters in towels won’t make Banished From The hero’s Party any more interesting

It didn’t help that episode 4 of Banished From the Hero’s Party decided to open with more or less the same sequence as episode 3, only this time Red is on a bed and not the floor. The audience gets a full view of Rit’s assets nearly falling out of her nightclothes and then we swap to a view of Red sitting up and blushing. The scene added nothing in episode 3 and as a repeat with a slightly different angle just feels lazy.

It’s almost as if they realise that episode 4 doesn’t really contribute anything to these characters and the plot is still just Red and Rit playing house so that’s going nowhere fast (and nor do we expect it to given the slice-of-life nature at play).

Weirdly, the early part of the episode is the most interesting as we see Red and Rit greeting customers and some of them are still a little shocked to see a high level adventurer, Rit, working in a shop owned by a supposedly nobody D Rank adventurer. While it seems weird at this point that the rumour hasn’t already spread clear around town, and even weirder that we never really see just customers in Red’s shop actually buying anything (how is he actually still in business) these interactions were the most interesting thing this episode had to offer.

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We did get a return of the adventurer from episode one of Banished From the Hero’s Party with the arrogant adventurer confronting Red about the death of the owl-bear. I kind of thought the plot had just forgotten about that and moved on so it was nice to see that past actions will have flow on effects.

That this sequence also gave us the only action sequence of the episode, with Rit leaping to Red’s ‘defence’. Lesson learned, don’t mess with Red or Rit will attack. That said, Red’s efforts to play dumb probably failed because the adventurer very clearly noted that he had moved from behind the counter to the otherside of the shop so I’m assuming this will come back to bite Red later.

However, then the episode goes for a sauna.

Yep, Banished From the Hero’s Party has Red invite Rit to his favourite sauna, they go with various other characters we’ve met along the way, and then we watch characters steam.

There’s a weak tea plot here about another sauna opening and the guy running this shop being worried but it’s pretty lame and resolved so easily it barely constitutes a problem and really is just a thinly veiled excuse to draw characters sitting in a steam room.

It’s all just kind of dull and if they were hoping the fan-service imagery was enough to keep things feeling interesting they are barking up the wrong tree. Even viewers who appreciate bath scenes and fan-service in general expect the scenes to have a little more life than these ones did.

Honestly, it was a lazy plot line with lazy animation and honestly it was a bit on the tedious side to watch.

Here’s hoping things go back to being pleasantly underwhelming in the next episode and this one isn’t a sign of things to come.

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