Ok, so the episode opens straight out with Mumei’s flashback in which we see a girl whom she presumably knew, getting killed by a guy. The name of “Young Master” is pronounced again and we get to see his shadow… aaand that’s it.
Back to the current times, the big giant Kabane smoke monster somehow turned into a monster spider and is rushing to attack big Kirito and some unnamed characters. Now, the smoke Kabane really looks like some Miazaki monster but this time more like one from Mononoke Hime. Yes, the one at the beginning that attacks the hot prince and his gazelle. Gosh I was so scared of this monster when I was a kid…
Back in the mine, Ikoma and Mumei are alive and they both acknowledge the fact that what they did in the previous episode was pretty stupid, so I guess this scene spares a lot ranting from everyone.
On the train, the Gay scarf gang is talking nonsense again. Those half cooked spaghettis wanted to leave Mumei and Ikoma behind and leave while they still can. Hopefully, some shreds of hope remain with Ayame, big Kirito, Takumi and Pink Killua who think they shouldn’t abandon them since they can be useful. Yes, it’s not like they are the only ones who stand a chance against the smoke Kabane or anything.
Back in the mine again, Mumei and Ikoma have a little discussion about being weak or not while Ikoma tries to free Mumei from the rocks she’s being trapped under. In that scene Mumei continues to show her practical mind while at the meantime proving us, that she doesn’t really want to believe in all that shit of the weak having to die or something. Also, because she started to panic, she thought she was going to turn into a Kabane. Though it was just hunger, she explains that all the people in her group turned into kabanes and thus she thinks she might turn into one if she’s weak. What group? Do Kabaneris turn into Kabane when they are too hungry? Who is really Mumei, what is her mission ? I guess the pile of mystery continues to grow.
While Ikoma fights the Kabanes in the mine, we are gifted with a flashback from the time when Mumei was a kid. During what I presume was a Kabane attack, she lost her mother because a random dude started to freak out and shot her for some reason. But Mumei is saved at the last minute by a lonesome cowboy guy on a horse who has a bow and a cape. If I’m not mistaken, this guy is the young Master everyone keeps talking about, so maybe Mumei is serving him as a payback for saving her life.
Kirito and Boris, with the help of random soldiers, manage to remove the rocks and to save Mumei. Right after she has regained her conscientiousness she worries about Ikoma (the ship is starting to sail so much I can almost hear the waves and seagulls). Ikoma is lying on the floor either bitten to death or wormed out after shouting so much. Either way he’s only alive because he’s 2 cool 2 die, not like the shit ton of Kabane that he killed while Mumei was unconscious. It’s interesting to see that now, Mumei recognizes that Ikoma is strong. Well, actually, she says so and then changes her mind, saying that they are both weak. Well, that kind of means that she recognizes Ikoma as her equal which wasn’t really the case in the first episodes.
Anyway they escape from the mine and manage to regain the train while the smoke Kabane is growing and getting stronger. We actually learn from Mumei that this new form of Kabane is called “fused colony”. So it’s like loads of Kabanes that fused into a big monster but inside the big mess there is a Kabane that has become the heart so if they can kill this particular Kabane then the whole smoke thing will die.
The plan is simple: shooting the big thing with a canon and then killing the heart. Mumei is ready to do it but takes the advantage of the opportunity, before leaving the train, to apologizes to that kid for saying mean things about Taro the dog. Poor Taro the dog, R.I.P
At this point, everything and everybody is epic. Pink Killua takes off her clothes, Best guy does a dangerous move to remove some shit that
was blocking something, Takumi shoots the monster at the right moment, thus allowing Mumei to kill the heart of the smoke shit that explodes! But the most important thing is that… hum… it somehow pains me to say it… gnnnn…. I guess I have no other choices than to be honest but… Boris was actually cool in that scene… Well, all he did was killing some Kabanes with the sword that Ikoma invented but he was pretty cool… Well, that doesn’t change the fact that he acted like a moron during the first part of the show though. Being good at fighting isn’t necessary correlated with having a functional brain.
Well anyway, the path is clear now, they manage to stop the train from derailing and everyone is happy. Actually, I don’t really know, I’m just assuming that they might be happy since they’ve just escaped a huge smoke monster alive. However, I’ve noticed that one of the train’s car was lost during that battle. I wonder if there was people in it. Hopefully it was the headquarters of the gay scarf gang. I can’t stand those dudes…
It’s funny how short this episode felt like. It’s also quite strange that instead of making the battles last for 6 episodes like some show made by the same studio that I won’t name, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri tend to solve every battle in one or two episodes. We still don’t know how many episodes this show is going to have tho, but I’m guessing one cour? So yes, that’s some kind of weird pacing. It almost feel like some Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure sort of pacing, where every two episodes, there’s a new enemy to fight and then, the heroes continue their never ending journey.
I’d also like to mention that this episode’s fight animation quality was astonishingly wonderful. Clearly showing the best parts of what Wit Studio is capable of….
Sorry I can’t…
I don’t know what happened for this episode to be released like that but this fight animation was horrible. Even without pausing and going through the sequence frame by frame you can tell that it was ugly. Then, if you are too curious or have some time to lose like me, you can look at every frame and oh boy, it’s funny but not in a good sense. Surprisingly enough, the rest of the episode is well animated and close ups to the characters’ faces are beautiful as always. But that fight animation? Eww. I don’t recall the other fights in the previous episodes being this poorly animated… hum..
So now, I”m wondering what is going to happen next. Are they going to pass by another deserted station and fight some more Kabanes? Or finally arrive to the capital so that we can learn more about the political system of this country and what it is so broken. I also haven’t forgotten what Solid Snake said about the shogunate collecting weapons to kill humans and I want to know more about that.