Impression
I didn’t actually realize that each Night Raid member had a fantasy weapon in their possession, but I’m quite excited about these Teigu things – they’ll add another dimension to the many battle sequences we’ll be getting in the future. And it’s nice to know that Leone does actually turn into a beast when she fights, and doesn’t just have a weird penchant for cosplay. Bulat’s Teigu is his giant armour, while Mine owns a sniper rifle named Pumpkin, which sounds a lot cuter than it actually is. Their Teigu have always been around, and it’s just been something I’ve never paid that much attention to until it was pointed out – Night Raid used them when fending off the invading bandits at the start of the episode, too. It seems like White Fox have managed to animate that missing chapter, by the way. While it didn’t exactly teach us anything we didn’t know already, I must say that the scene with Lubbock was particularly gruesome. As you’d expect from this series, all these characters have steel in them – and despite how idiotic Lubbock was last episode, he is no exception. He certainly didn’t spare the girl from being sliced apart with wires just because of her gender – hell, you’d almost think that particular bandit was an attractive girl on purpose so that point could be emphasized.
What was supposed to be a mission to survey the conditions within the capital city quickly turned into an unofficial date between Tatsumi and Mine – or rather, we had Mine going around shopping while Tatsumi was made to carry all the stuff she bought. Mine is managing to tick all the boxes for her archetype for now – she’s a violent tsundere with pink twintails, complete with the obligatory fanservice scene where Tatsumi walks in on her changing and gets an angry response in return. I can tell that some people won’t be too fond of her, but I’ve decided that I actually quite like Mine. It just so happens that I’m weak to loli tsunderes, and Mine is a loli tsundere voiced by Yukarin and equipped with a giant laser. Part of me knows I should be more objective, but… I can’t say no to Mine TT_TT God her reaction to getting her forehead flicked was cute. Unfortunately though, her interactions with Tatsumi actually contributed to what is now quickly becoming a pervading mood whiplash throughout the series – the horrific public execution in the city was unsettling in more ways than one when preceded by Mine stomping on Tatsumi, while she sort of ruined the solemn nature of her own backstory when she started laughing about getting rich. I do hope that settles down eventually; its a bit of a shame when Akame ga Kill is already so liberal with its depictions of blood and violence.
Tatsumi and Mine may not have exactly tried their hardest, but we learnt a lot about the capital city’s conditions nevertheless – be it subtle depictions of beggars on the streets or more overt scenes with little girls being threatened in alleyways. Most notably, the prime minister and the boy king were introduced for the first time, happily sending a disgraced official to his doom – while I’m sure the prime minister is supposed to be the depraved mastermind controlling the capital from the shadows, I can’t help but feel like the king is a bit of a twisted freak as well. Maybe he might have been influenced into it, but he sure sounded like he was enjoying what he was doing – he actually reminds me of that little creep from Chaika who was running around with Blue Chaika on board their flying fortress. Now that he’s become what he’s become, I think he’ll probably have to go too when push comes to shove.
A wild Sayo appears next week! Tatsumi’s been pretty perceptive so far, so he’d better not fall for that one…
guess what Tengu Tatsumi will get.
I… have absolutely no idea 😀 Probably something to do with swords, if I had to take a guess. I also doubt Night Raid will just find one somewhere and give it to him, so it’s likely he’ll have to kill an enemy who’s wielding one.
you right and you wrong at the same time, just wait and see.
This was a fun episode. I have no complaints, even with the sudden changes in mood. Imo, the jarring transition during that part about Mine’s past was used to show us her typical tsun+dere nature and how she could just change from one to the other in an instant.
Skipping that part of chpt 2 makes sense now. Chpt 4 was not enough for an entire episode and going into chpt 5 where we meet our first teigu-wielding villain would make things feel disjointed. So they added brief bits, and they all worked, even the fanservice (Tatsumi training his dodging skills). Like you said last week, padding.
And, as far as tsunderes go, Mine is an enjoyable character.
Eh, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call that fanservice scene legit training, but it was fun nonetheless! It was the correct call to make given the layout of the source material, and fanservice was the easiest way to both pad out the episode and make fans happy.
No jarring problems it seems!
This episode–the first part, at least–felt pretty dull to me. The anime is of course following the manga word for word, but I guess the pseudo-date seemed lot shorter in the manga. And like you mentioned, I’m one of the people who finds Mein annoying in the anime. Oh well, she’s a great assassin!
I totally loved Rabac’s scene in the second half of the episode, which like you mentioned, came from chapter 2. I feel like it’s easy to take Rabac lightly since he’s always trying to sneak peeks at the girls’ bath or complaining about not having his own harem anymore, but he’s actually a really wonderful guy. He’s my favorite in the Night Raid! 😀
As for next week’s episode, I’m really excited! This beheader guy from the end of ep 3 is really intense, and in my opinion next week’s episode’s content is when the story really starts to pick up.
Gender equality prevails in this show when enemies are being slaughtered! These days, being a cute girl no longer exempts you from dying a bloody death. Also, I’ve been noticing that there’s a discrepancy with naming conventions with some characters – presumably Mein and Rabac is how the manga does it, while Mine and Lubbock are what Crunchyroll uses? I haven’t tried a fansub to see what they go for, might do that next week.
The beheader guy has a Teigu doesn’t he. Apart from the fact that these weapons were just introduced this week, the preview title pretty much gives it away.
Hahah you hit the nail right on the head for the beheader guy. He does have an interesting teigu. Akame vs Beheader is pretty great great though, it shows us some insight.
As for the name situation, the name spellings were changed for the anime to help with pronunciation. The names are pronounced the same, but they’re spelled differently. A few name differences in the manga were Mein, Rabac, Brahdt, Schere, and Esdese. But in the anime they’re spelled Mine, Lubboc, Bulat, Sheele, and Esdeath. It can get really confusing when I watch subs! I should probably start changing my spelling too, but I’m too stubborn about it and I prefer the original spellings any day. ‘Lubbock’ just looks so clumsy compared to ‘Rabac’… ;_;