Karen's Anime Blog

Wow, this episode. I enjoyed it, but it features a pretty huge infodump, so please bear with me.

Still in the Raven’s camp, Klen puts Alicia’s Stream Splitter Regalia into his Shadow Pocket, saying it draws too much attention; Alicia is crushed to have her precious binky taken away. Nelluru comes out with Luna and the two of them look incredibly adorable together. Nelluru is carrying some pretty clunky baggage but claims it’s not heavy, and I wonder: Did Klen use parts of the Troll to recreate Nelluru’s body? I saw some speculation about that online, but I didn’t think it necessarily happened. Now though, with Nelluru’s apparent super-strength, along with the fact that we find out later in this episode that Betty the Troll’s corpse happens to be missing a few limbs, it looks pretty definite.

Give your wetnurse a cute Troll makeover, for everything she does for your little one.

Alicia gets Klen’s permission to go to Vroko’s office in search of another sword, and she’s giddy when he agrees; the first moment of actual happiness we have seen from her in this series. She finds a sword and some “female armor,” which is, err, not the dumbest looking thing I’ve ever seen, but it’s still in the “bikini armor” category. I should have expected it because she wears it in the OP, but it’s pretty silly.

I like how Alicia knows enough to question what Vroko was doing with this thing, but also knows enough not to give a damn what his horny dead ass was doing.

Everything is going well for Alicia for once, then action: Klen gets slammed through the wall behind her. A cloaked figure begins fighting Alicia, and she can barely keep up with him. He uses some kind of wind attack to blast her through the roof of the building, and she falls down painfully. Outside, he offers to let her go if she’s willing to leave, but of course she’s not having that. She goes into killing mode and does a “Hidden Sword Rising Dragon” attack, but Klen commands her to stop at the last possible instant.

Alicia may not have magical ability, but she clearly has some kind of heightened supernatural fighting ability. She’s such a cool heroine.

Klen claims the stranger’s attack was due to a misunderstanding. The stranger relates that he was sent looking for “a small man and a troll” and he found the remains of the troll in the cavern, missing some limbs (aha!). He also notes that Nelluru reeks of troll (aha some more!). He thinks Klen is the “small man” he was sent to find, not knowing about Vroko. Eww, to think of being mistaken for Vroko! Klen reveals to Alicia that the stranger is a dark beast, under a powerful illusion that must have been cast by the Lord of the Dark Beasts to the West, Zavthier of Phantasms.

This is interesting, because we’re used to Klen being pretty much invincible; even the magical mist that threw him off his game last episode was merely a minor inconvenience. But with Zavthier involved, now we’re dealing with a being that’s punching at his level. The stranger is named Gart, and reveals his true form, a predatory looking giant bird. Asked to reveal his own form, Klen lazily snaps a tentacle and then puts it back in Shadow Space. Since Zavthier is considering getting rid of the humans just like Clevatess is, Gart and the party are on the same side, for now.

Klen wants to know why Zavthier has set her sights on humans: she’s worshipped by the Orggites of the West, who are humanoids, as a god. Why would she want to kill her own worshippers? Gart relates that dark beast younglings have been going missing, and it’s suspected that humanoids are behind the kidnappings. Thanks to talking to Carme last episode, Klen knows that human babies are being trafficked too.

We get the full conversation between Klen and Carme from earlier where she reveals that Vroko was selling all the babies that came in to someone, possibly the same group that’s stealing the dark beast little ones. The men who came for the babies were talking about “talent,” presumably magical talent like Luna has. Then we find out something beyond awful; Nelluru’s stillborn births weren’t actually stillborn, Carne killed them. I understand that the women of the Ravens were killing the babies because they thought their lives, once sold, would likely be torture, but even so: how could you bring yourself to kill a baby? How could anyone do that? Klen, who I think is actually a little miffed on Nelluru’s behalf, points out that Carme didn’t even try to save the babies the way Nelluru’s mother clearly saved her. Wow. I’m still kind of reeling from that.

Zavthier. Technically I should have a picture of Carme here, but I don’t want to look at her stupid baby-killing face again.

Alicia offers some exposition about how in recent years, wizards have changed the face of warfare by using magical attacks on the battlefield. She thinks that hoarding babies with magical talent is something the wizards would do. I like the fact that magic is kind of new and exciting in Clevatess; usually, in most fantasy I’ve seen/read, the magical system is something that’s been around for ages. The first to bring wizards to the battlefield was General Drel, the Dragon Slayer. Drel, it just so happens, is the man who killed Alicia’s father– we don’t know why yet. Obviously, just talking about him is painful for Alicia.

He’s been on screen for five seconds and I already want Alicia to do a Hidden Sword Rising Dragon to his face.

Klen asks, quite reasonably, why Alicia came to kill him instead of going after the man that killed her father, and Alicia says it was her father’s last wish. I assume she means her father’s last wish was for her to follow her dream and become a hero, not “Go kill Clevatess, I hate that guy. Fuck that guy in particular.”

We’re now following the clashing of the Boelate and Eslinn armies, with Drel commanding Boelate. On the Eslinn side, things look bleak: they have 6,000 soldiers to 50,000 advancing enemy forces. Their only hope is to get into the fortress Boelate is attacking, High Gate, and fight defensively from within. But that requires the cooperation of the Hiden kingdom, the leadership of which Clevatess just wiped out. Oops. If Boelate can snare the Hiden magical forge, they could conquer the whole continent.

Then we switch back to Boelate and the main gate is…already opening for them? Wow, that was fast. I don’t think the Eslinn guys can get inside and hold them off now. Maybe they were talking about holding them off at a different location? I may be missing something here.

Meynard, a creepy-looking wizard, informs Drel about Luna’s whereabouts, since he was in contact with the Ravens and knows they conveniently found a Hidenean baby. He also mentions that the Crown Princess is somewhere safe, so maybe there’s a chance Luna will be reunited with his mother; I have a feeling if that happens though, she’ll get to hold him for three seconds or so and then her head will get chopped off or something. It’s just that kind of show.

Meynard. In this episode, they do this weird fisheye lens effect a few times and it really doesn’t work for me.

Drel sends Meynard to go fetch Luna, and I have a feeling we’re going to get some quality Alicia Vs. Wizard action in the next episode. Wow, there sure is a lot of stuff going on in this anime.

Next: “Insect Controlling Wizard.” Great, I hate bugs, can’t wait!