Episode 9: The Promise with the Loved One
BOY THIS EPISODE WAS A FEELS TRAIN. Now, I don’t really like Meliodas, mostly because of the unconsented groping. However, this episode actually made me sympathize with him. The fact that his test was to relive the happy moments with Liz and the next moment, watch her die was heartbreaking. As someone who has experienced losing someone I love dearly, I can’t even imagine the pain that Meliodas was going through that moment. But I also understand the importance of him having to overcome this. In order for him to get his power back, they have to make sure that he doesn’t go out of control and cause that sort of destruction again.
Watching Meliodas and Liz interact, I honestly wished that Liz was the main female lead instead. She’s spunky, actually STOPS Meliodas from groping her and overall seems more interesting than Elizabeth. But I digress. This episode actually threatened to have me tear up because of all the emotion we saw through Meliodas. Not to mention the music that was playing. The score was absolutely beautiful and just fit the mood so well.
I also have to give credit to Meliodas being unable to succeed in the trial after trying again. It felt so genuine with him screaming “NO WAY IN HELL!!!”. It would have felt too contrived and cliche if he were to just get over it that fast. It’s not that easy to kill how you feel about a situation or someone. Especially when you feel so strongly about it. I gotta respect Meliodas in the next instance though. Instead of throwing away his emotions, he instead became determined to never let something like this happen again and he’d use his power to protect his friends and loved ones. I’m glad he didn’t stop loving Liz, but knew that she was gone and was willing to move forward without rejecting her memory. It was a big first step towards closure for Liz’s death. Don’t push away the memories of someone just because they hurt, but embrace them and treasure the memories you shared with that person.
Moving from one feels train backstory to another, we get to see more of Ban’s backstory of his life before he met Elaine. Before that, I honestly love the fact that despite Ban’s reluctance, he’s still watching out for Jericho in his own way and even accommodating her to some extent. Considering his personality, I would have thought he’d just keep trying to stop Jericho from following him. I honestly thought he’d try to ditch Jericho when trying to find a place to stay and have her fend for herself. But instead he got a room for the both of them (despite him having her pay lol). I honestly like their dynamic more than Ban x Elaine, even though I know the Ban x Jericho ship will never leave the port. But I’m used to liking the ships that aren’t meant to be.
The entrance of the were fox shows us that there are so many other races we are not aware of in this world. The world of this series is still very mysterious with how many different races there are and how magic even works. I remember in the previous season that they mentioned vampires off hand and my immediate response was “THERE ARE VAMPIRES IN THIS WORLD?!” I hope we get to delve more into what other races there are.
Episode 10: What We Lacked
Back to back feels train… I don’t know how much feels I can take in such a short amount of time lol. In any case, we get a nice backstory of Ban’s childhood and boy, this man has not had it easy from the get go. His home life sucks, he’s constantly on the verge of starvation, gets beat up on a daily basis, nearly sold off… the list just goes on. I absolutely adore Zhivago and Ban’s relationship though. Zhivago is literally the father figure Ban needed in his life and I’m sad that their time together was so short.
Despite teaching him how to steal for a living, Zhivago was a encouraging and caring parent-figure that watched over Ban and if he ever got himself in trouble, he’d bail him out. I’m a sucker when it comes to parent-child relationships, even more so when they’re not bound by blood. His time with Zhivago was probably one of the best moments in Ban’s life. When Ban declared he’d trust Zhivago just warmed my heart and the guy even started tearing up.
But we can’t let things be happy as I’ve learned in this series. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see Zhivago internally struggle to decide who to save since both Ban and his actual son were in grave danger. The animators did an amazing job on his expression and you can clearly see the pain he was going through at that moment. In the end, I can’t blame Zhivago for going after his son. Afterall, blood is thicker than water. But in the end, he was too late and his choice haunted him for the rest of his life as he believed he lost both his sons in one day. I nearly started crying when Ban revealed who he was to Zhivago and he had never resented him for his choice. Animation, voice acting… it was all too perfect in this scene and it hit my heart in so many different ways, you have no idea. I really like good father figures in anime and Zhivago definitely takes the cake.
Seeing the different pairs go about their trials was interesting, especially how Gowther is actually capable of doing close combat. Since the only times we’ve seen him fight, he’s always using magic. The situation with Hendrickson is a rather complicated one. I for one really like him as a character, but I also understand that just because he was being manipulated by Fraudrin, doesn’t mean he’s completely blameless. Though I guess this kind of goes back to how much of him was being controlled by Fraudrin and how much was his own actions. Still a little unclear in that regard.
As much as I love King, I can’t agree with how he’s going about things here. I feel like his anxiety and frustration are just spiraling out of control and he doesn’t know how to properly deal with them. Considering Diane lost her memories again and ran off to who knows where, Hendrickson appears and Meliodas’ connection to the Ten Commandments. Everything is kind of coming at King all at once and it’s probably grating on his mental and emotional state. On one hand, him questioning Meliodas’ alignment is unfair, but on the other I do think that Meliodas should explain things. Since King does tend to jump to conclusions when people keep him in the dark (Exhibit A being how he believed Ban killed his sister at first).
Someone… alleviate their stress and anxiety… please.
