“Kill her!”
Impression
Are you fucking serious?
I didn’t see this coming. In the end, the twist wasn’t the reveal of the seventh, but rather the reveal of the seventh – another Brave claiming to be the genuine article who happened to not make it inside the barrier before it activated. I’m actually impressed. I can definitely see why the story stretches beyond a single novel now – the mystery is far from over, let alone the adventure itself. In fact, with the hunt for the seventh continuing on like this we can properly label Rokka no Yuusha as a ‘mystery series’, instead of as an fantasy adventure with mystery elements to its opening arc.
We arrived at a definitive answer this episode, and it’s made full use of the observation many people made earlier on in the season – which was that Nashetania broke the tablet on the altar in her ‘panicked’ attempt to ‘deactivate’ the barrier. In fact, this was the very scene which made many people start suspecting her in the first place. But I completely missed the fact that Nashetania was the one who sent him to the temple in the first place – at the time, it was a small thing which could easily be interpreted as one comrade helping out another, when in reality it was a calculated move designed to trap and frame Adlet. Fremy, Adlet and Goldof were there when Nashetania broke the tablet – it’s kind of hard to believe that none of them reacted when a big, important-looking and non-ceremonial tablet was cracked cleanly in half, but I guess they chalked it down to her having been in a panic and nothing more. And at the time, they had no idea that they were told a fake activation method.
I found her reaction really interesting post-reveal. She showed zero remorse, and just calmly went through the factors which led to her failure. At first, she continued feigning ignorance, which I didn’t think she’d do – at that point, her position would have been so compromised by the ‘mistake’ she made that she couldn’t accomplish anything more in relation to causing discord among the Braves. But after she realized Adlet wouldn’t be supporting her any longer, she surrendered – it was like she was waiting to see if Adlet was as wrapped around her finger as she thought he was. In other words, whether she still had a pawn to use. Too bad Fremy already became his legal wife. Nashetania would have brought Goldof along with her if he’d done what she said without asking questions – which basically means that she wanted an obedient slave, and not a comrade. I think the issue was never one of ‘trust’ in the proper sense of the term – rather, it was an issue of whether he would listen to her unconditionally when she needed him to, and that’s also what she was trying to ascertain if Adlet would do for her. I think she managed to completely emasculate Goldof with her sadistic smile, though. He practically confessed to her, and she laughs at him. Bitch.
As for her desire for a world with peace – yeah, that’s definitely going to go down well with the Fiends, isn’t it. And she claims to be able to do something about the Demon God once it’s revived? Isn’t 500,000 sacrifices a rather conservative estimate? What about the humans and what they think of all this – she claims to want to change the Fiends, but will the humans want to live in a society with Fiends, let alone whether they can given that they’re on different rungs of the food chain? When the huge talking Fiend came to Adlet’s village, the only way to get them to listen to him was to frighten them out of their minds. This is like trying to make lions and deer get along. I don’t know what information or plan she has, but from my point of view Nashetania has no idea what she’s talking about.
I’m not sure what to make of Rolonia. If anything, she looks terribly out of place with her awkward cow outfit and derpy design. I wonder if this sets a new standard – maybe in the future people will say: ‘there are bad designs… and then there’s Rolonia.’ Something tells me she isn’t the seventh, though – she’s more a threat to Fremy and her relationship with Adlet than she is to the Braves as a whole. Not that she’s a very big threat – she looks like a childhood friend type, and we all know that the childhood friend never wins. I think it’s Maura. I haven’t forgotten how everyone, both viewers and the characters themselves, thought it was Maura before Nashetania was outed. Maura may not have been behind the activation of the barrier – she arrived with Hans, and it was already broken then. But this doesn’t change the fact that she’s been suspicious as fuck for a while now, and everything points to her by process of elimination. If we take her credentials and reputation seriously, she may have some other reason for infiltrating the Braves that doesn’t involve impeding them here – I don’t know what that is, but the fact remains that there are seven of them, and there should only be six.
Overall Thoughts
Rokka has had a fantastic run. It initially seemed like a classic fantasy adventure, but it started getting really good once the mystery got involved and the plot thickened. I didn’t think it would take up so much time – I thought it would be a minor detour, and that we’d be onto fighting the Demon God by the end of the anime. Of course, in the grand scheme of things it is a minor detour, because there are many more novels to come – and really, the mystery still isn’t over. I think it all definitely works best when airing weekly – it has a lot more impact if you’re forced to wait in between episodes and are left in suspense as a result. Even with other mystery anime it manages to distinguish itself – everything else I can think of features multiple mysteries, whereas this was about solving the mystery. It was a show which was very intently focused on doing only that, and it turned out really well because of it – every single episode counted, and there was never anything without any meaning. Like Joukamachi no Dandelion and Symphogear GX, it’s one of several shows this season that I ended up enjoying far more than I thought I would.
Who do you think the seventh is?
I could answer your question, but I’ve read TVTropes on the series, so I already know. You’ll probably be surprised if you ever find out… Any word on them planning to continue this? As you said, there’s a lot more yet to come.
Not that I know of. Honestly, I was hoping that we’d get a sequel announcement at the end of this episode given that there are so many more novels available to adapt. I haven’t been following up on its pre-order stats in Japan, but those numbers are way more important than the opinion of fans in the West.
I’m now wondering whether to read the novels. At the very least, I want to go through Vol 1 and see what’s changed in the transition.
Lol, luckily I couldn
t bear the wait inbetween the review of episode 10 and 12 and just read the last two chapters of Volume 1, so I know what was happening. In a wired way I kinda thing that Nash really belives in her insane Plan of changing the fiends and for a peaceful world. What I find intresting is that she doesnt reviel any details of her Plan, I guess this together with her beeing alive is devinitly coming back later. I really love how after her saying, 500000 sacrafices are a small number, Adelet immedetly goes ” K, she`s nuts, just kill her”. But I agree with you that this show was really good, despite the limited butget. From what I herd it is also extremly faithfull to the Light novel, ( I could have been different “glances at Tokyo ghoul root a” ) and I really hope for a second season.I suppose she does have a plan, but the required 500,000 casualties was the first step. As the Braves were appalled by that fact alone, I guess she didn’t see the point in elaborating further? I’d have liked to have heard about it just for reference, and to fully gauge exactly how nuts she is. The Braves will definitely see her during their quest as a mid-boss or something (inb4 Goldof character development when that happens).
Ah yes, I forgot to mention that budget was an issue at times. The biggest visible effects were probably the derpy faces at times and the use for CG for Nashetania’s blades and the Fiends, but I got used to the latter fairly quickly.
It will take some seasons to get to her plans but yeah the show pretty much married the idea of having small armies defending humans from “outsiders”, hence six heroes are called to duty and Tanya comes up with the idea of talking to them only at the end and then throws numbers so that the point for heroes still persists.
Btw, who knows if the legend is a fabrication given as origin myth or something, apocalyptic animes tend to deny the end of days (and thus non japanese myth with it).
I remember some people (including myself) doubting exactly how legit the Goddess of Fate was back during the first few episodes. Even if it’s not outright a fabrication, legends do get twisted over time – and there’s a period of 300 years in between each generation of Braves. I also haven’t forgotten how eerie that scene was when Adlet first got his mark – I wonder whether the description of it in the novels was anything like that.
it pretty decent for detective gimmick and i really rooting for demon side screw humanity get lost yuusha for fighting between themselve rather than use most of their head i so sad when i heard demon already lost a few time along time ago while most story human always win agaist demon so predictable7/10 another adventure for human score.
Is that you, Urobuchi?
I think they did use their heads most of the time (except Goldof, who used his dick). With the info they were given, everything pointed to Adlet as the seventh – it’s just that both him and we as viewers know he wasn’t because we’ve been following the story from his point of view. If it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure there were Brave casualties each time they took on the Demon God.
Blu rays are selling poorly:c
Aww, that’s disappointing. Too many adaptations these days are being produced to promote the source material instead of being a genuine effort to adapt a story into an anime.
The seventh is…. me!
Yes, I am the seventh!
bwahahahahahahahaha
But being serious, I think the anime business at Japan need change. And fast. They make profit mostly from dvd and blu-ray selling while the world is moving to stream (Netflix, Crunchyroll, Funimation, Amazon). If we make some math we see that for be profitable an anime need sell a lot of blu-ray inside a market, Japan, that is in contraction and have only 100 million customers. But the huge market, everyone else, will not buy dvd and blu-ray nevermore, we are buying stream.
Maybe that is the reason that really good anime is selling few blu-ray.
How could it change, though? At the moment, the way they make the majority of their profit is from the few hardcore fans who buy the ridiculously high-priced DVDs and Blu-rays they put out for sale. I’m guessing this is the point on their sales curve that they believe will bring them the most profit – the slight increase in demand from a lower price would not earn them as much as they did before, because there are only so many people who will buy legit material when they can illegally download it for free in a matter of minutes. But an insanely high price works, because there will always be those rabid fans who will pay as much as it takes for something they love, and the industry is squeezing them for all they’re worth (think the 23-foot long Miia dakimakura that sold out on the first day of Comiket despite being priced at 100k yen).
As for why it’s hard to sell anime, I think there’s a difference between stuff you think is good and stuff you think is good enough to spend your hard-earned money on. I go through a similar process – I download all my anime, but the vast majority of it is deleted after I watch it. I enjoy most of what I watch, but only one or two per season end up making me want to use up my hard drive space to keep it for a future rewatch.
I am sure they need change their model, because Japan is a country going gray hair fast and older people have lower consumption (including buying less anime). If they don’t change their business model anime will be dead at 10-20 years. And we will feel the loss.
They need change their profit model for lower profit per unity but selling huge quantity of unities. They first need get rid from the dvd and blu-ray region system and sell to streamers (Netflix, Amazon, Funimation, Cruchyroll) for ALL world zone, maximizing their sells (the streamers compute how many people watch their products and pay in accord that profile).
Second, anime companies have the rights from older animes that they can sell to streamers just now and make some profit for maintain the business and invest at new anime.
Third, they will need be more open to what the western public want to see, sometimes what is good for Japan is not good for International market…
Why do I hear the same every time an anime series proves to be more original and different from the norm?
Sigh. Then people complain about why so few series leave the beaten track.
Who’s the 7th? I’m the 7th, you’re the 7th, WE’RE ALL THE 7TH!!!(laughs maniacally)
Jokes aside, you can read the English translation of the novels here:
https://rokkathetranslation.wordpress.com/
Start at Vol 2 to find out what happens next. The translators are in the middle of translating Vol 4; the Japanese have 6 volumes out now.
Note the emphasis on mindgames, conspiracies and secrets for later plot.
Man, I don’t even know what I was right about and what I am right about ._. Okay, that’s an exaggeration but in any case it’s time to read on!
Okay. So it’s really, really important to me to let this out here because of how important this place is becoming to me…
takes several deep breaths
MORA.
BEST.
GIRL.
FREMY.
BEST.
GIRL.
I say that, but I don’t have a particularly strong opinion on best girls in Rokka. I’m mostly picking Fremy for the Yuuki Aoi voice and the cool gun. But after reading a bit of Volume 2 (I’m somewhere around the middle, I think) Maura is nowhere near best girl for me. Why would you go for her?
It’s kind of hard when everyone keeps accusing each other and different people end up being suspected all the time (e.g. the me from the first episode would definitely have said bunny was best girl, but now – psshh). And there was so much to speculate about every week that I didn’t even think of recoursing to a best girl discussion!
SHE’S.
GOOD.
TOO.
Well, honestly, I say what I did but I don’t mean “best girl” in the traditional sense and even if I did, I wouldn’t for traditional reasons. But if I did, I’d feel dirty. Very dirty. After all, she’s a grown woman and what’s more is that she’s married and has a wonderful family ^_^
I’m glad you told me where you were at. Assuming you’re using NanoDesu’s translation as linked by zztop, I guess you’re at chapter 3, while I’m all the way at the epilogue of volume 2 by today… barely able to stop myself from reading too much in one day. I say that, but I had to take a walk down the road to get milk just to calm down at one point. I say that, but I’ll probably end up reading further today because it’s so gripping.
You know who else has a strong grip? MAURA!
I just have this… immensely positive feeling in my heart (I really mean that) surrounding her considering what I read, which is something I wouldn’t expect you to feel since you’ve not read as much as I. Be prepared for it though!
—
I hope I haven’t hinted at what happened, but I’m sure you won’t make any assumptions and I was careful to avoid saying the exact feeling I feel. You’ve seen enough of Gilgamesh’s giga-trash behaviour, to know that even the objectively “bad” guys can be loved very much.
—
And frankly a best girl discussion doesn’t really work for this series unless we’re weighing Rolonia against Fremy when it comes to Adlet, but there’s not nearly enough time for any kind of romance to develop right now. Well, then again, love finds a way. Even Tgurneu recognizes its power…
[spoiler] HINTwhether he likes it or notHINT [/spoiler]