Blade and Soul Episode 2

Blade and Soul continues to prove that this show is far different from what everyone had initially anticipated. It is definitely a slow-pace storyline, but the action really makes up for it because it’s such high quality and the movements are so fluid it’s exhilarating to watch. More than anything right now I would love Karen, Hazuki and Alka to become an alliance. Thanks to intervening Hazuki’s pursuit and fight against Alka, Karen had managed to make it just on the nick of time to save Hazuki’s life. Had she been any second later, Alka would have already silted Hazuki’s throat.
Speaking of Karen, she is such an interesting character and I do hope we will see more of her. She is a proprietress of Tomon Inn, her niece is apparently missing right now (it is up in the air whether this will be brought up ever again) and she is also a dancer and a total badass. She didn’t attack Alka when she discovered her mark and simply told her to leave so that she doesn’t draw trouble to her inn.
Hazuki on the other hand, man she is a great character and boy does she become a crazy fighter when she gets serious. Hazuki is actually a mercenary, but does bounty work as a side job to ensure she makes enough money to feed herself. She has the tendency to wound up drunk and drink more than what she can pay for at Tomon Inn so Karen makes her do odd jobs to pay it off such as cleaning up the place.
Some people may be a bit annoyed by the fact that Alka hardly utters a word, but it doesn’t bother me too much because her actions makes up for it and that is all part of her character as an assassin out for revenge. Besides, she kind of has to be quiet to avoid drawing anymore attention to herself because her butterfly mark stands out like a sore thumb (and it doesn’t help that she barely makes any effort to conceal it- frankly I don’t think she really cares, but it will only cause trouble for those around her or ends up getting involved with her) like we had seen last week. This week she had three people (excluding Hazuki) jumping on the opportunity to hunt her down for the bounty reward the minute they caught sight of her mark. As I had expected, they ended up killing each other in the progress not before bickering amongst each other calling dibs, giving Alka more than enough time to analyze her opponents.
We will be seeing Varel next week. She is quite an opponent because she appears to be able to consume people’s souls or something of the sort. I am eagerly awaiting her face off with Alka, but I wonder who the other lady is (with the eyepatch) and what her relationship with Alka and what kind of opinion she has of her. She didn’t look very happy about seeing her bounty and all. I get the feeling she may be part of the Clan of the Sword, so that would be an interesting thing to see.
While the animation is absolutely stunning, without a doubt, the combat is the true highlight of the show… but ugh that CG during the dancing scene was just bad, like really bad. It looked SO OUT OF PLACE. Other than that, the CG ED featuring Elle Karen was much better. (By the way did I ever mention how much I actually like the ED Song? I really enjoy it.) There was actually also a censor bit during the fight (which surprised me because I missed it the first time round because I was covering my eyes ahahaha), which is perfectly fine by me for all I care!
By the way did I ever mention how much I actually like the ED Song? I really enjoy it.
I will be giving this show one more episode before I determine whether I am all in for the season. Lets see how next week goes!