Welp, we finally get to hear Iu’s call to help to Yotsuya through the backstory that was introduced in the previous episode, which was honestly a much darker tone than I was expecting. Then we get to meet a new and exciting character to join the party hopefully for the future. And I think it was a pretty okay episode, but there were definitely moments that could have been improved or expanded on. But we have to keep the plot moving so I’m not too upset by them.
First, let’s take a minute to talk about Iu’s backstory because I really wasn’t expecting the narrative to go the way that it did. I genuinely thought that perhaps the girl that Iu looked up to was hit in a tragic accident rather than a suicide so uh… I was not prepared for that to come up. I also understand why they took the approach that they did, by framing this as a traumatic experience for her and turning it into the classic “I can control my fate because of the people I’ve met along the way” but I kind of wish they wouldn’t have used it the “Well, it was now my turn to get bullied”. The backstory itself gives depth to Iu as a person, but people can get bullied for any reason, so it just sits a little bit wrong with me how the whole things played out. I did, however, appreciate the conversation about friends and how they are her support systems and people that she can lean on, but in this world, she’s been stripped away of that to her most vulnerable self. And that vulnerability is just enhanced by the trauma she experienced when she was young. So, I’m really not too sure where I stand on that whole segment. But it really does just end abruptly once everyone wakes up the next day. I’m interested to see whether or not they will bring it up again in the future.
Well, once that’s all out of the way, the gang heads out in hopes of completing their quest only to find that their destination is all the way across the continent and unreachable by foot for their time duration, so it’s time to enter a fighting tournament. Well…. it’s time for Yotsuya to do all the heavy lifting again because the other party members managed to get captured! And as frustrated as I am with Yuka right now, I’m actually kind of glad that she called Yotsuya out for not going straight to rescue Iu first. Because both sides gave a pretty compelling argument. The two girls were on the side of saving her life in the current moment, but Yotsuya recognizes that the quest needs to be completed so they can continue their lives in the real world. It’s a tough choice to make, but he’s really not wrong in his decision. Imagine if he went with the other two to rescue her and they all got captured. That’d be… really unfortunate. But it also served as a way for him to separate from the rest without having to worry about keeping everyone alive.
Plus, we get to meet Kahvel who seems like an interesting character to add to the party, but I think she’ll add a refreshing variety. Aside from our main character we have, popular girl, timid nervous girl, and cocky skeptical girl. And the fact that Kahvel isn’t necessarily in the state of “Gross he’s a pervert” is nice, so hopefully she’ll be able to balance out Yuka. And that isn’t to say that I hate Yuka, it’s good to have a skeptic, but it can be frustrating at times.
Based on the opening I thought we weren’t going to meet Kahvel until later, because I assumed that she was going to be an additional party member, but hey! Getting a bonus party member who is part of the game world will be pretty useful especially because she can teach the party sword skills and she’ll probably get the bonus fun time of slicing through all them over and over. Perhaps the great misunderstanding with her, is that she won’t know that one of them needs to stay alive in order for all of them to stay alive and she’ll try to slice through all of them at once. It’s probably not going to happen, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had that moment. But at least with her help, the day is saved, and the party can continue along and try to complete this quest and live to see another day.
