RJ Writing Ink

Edens Zero Chapter 47 Review/Recap

Beyond the fact that she was trained by Valkyrie, we know little about Homura or her past. Aside from her inability to keep her thoughts to herself, that is. If she wants to find her master, Homura needs to get past Xiaomei’s duplicate of her. A psychological battle as well as a physical one awaits us in this chapter of Edens Zero.

Recap

Homura’s visibly unnerved by the fact that she must find a replica of her master. So unnerved that she throws caution to the wind and goes on the attack. The replica, though, has all the original’s memories, and uses Homura’s weaknesses against her, pinning her to the ground.

Try as she might, Homura is too frazzled as the memories of Valkyrie come flooding back.

In a flashback, we see Homura was an orphan from a village that was destroyed. Before slaver’s could capture her, Valkyrie saved her. After hesitating, Homura follows Valkyrie, remembering her first lesson: ‘words gives us strength’.

In the present, Homura hardens her resolve, vowing to find her mentor, no matter what she has to go through. Ultimately, her resolve wins her the day, beating the replica Valkyrie, giving the crew of Edens Zero a perfect victory.

Review

It’s important to a good story to establish its side characters. They need to be able to help hold the weight of the story. In a shonen manga, that also means being able to have their moments to shine.

Homura manages to do both of these in this chapter, albeit it’s only a brief moment. I had a feeling that Homura was an orphan, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that her village was destroyed. This happens more in Mashima’s works than one would think.

Like the previous chapter, though, I felt like the whole thing was too rushed. I hope that this could play out over a few more chapters to push Homura so that she would grow stronger.

There’s also the whole “replica” thing. For some reason, I don’t buy it. Call it a hunch, but something tells me that that’s the real Valkyrie and she lost so that Homura woul surpass her. We won’t learn for sure until next week, though, so it’s up in the air.

In the meantime, I hope that the manga learns not to rush with the pacing. Edens Zero has the potential to be good, but if this keeps up, I fear it won’t end up living up to my expectations.

I give “Words Give Strength” a 3/5. And I’m being generous with this one.

Rising of the Shield Hero, Episode 21 Review/Recap

I had been wanting to post about this since the start, but I never found the time to do it. That said, I couldn’t help myself from wanting to write something for this moment.

If you haven’t been keeping up with anime, Rising of The Shield Hero was one of the big names to come out of winter 2019. It’s an Isekai story about Naofumi Iwatani, a college student who gets summoned to another world as one of four heroes meant to save it from destruction. Standard Isekai, until you learn that Naofumi is the Shield Hero, who can only use a shield to defend and nothing else. It gets worse.

The show got a lot of controversy from the first episode when Naofumi was wrongfully framed for attempting to rape a party member, Malty. Then comes the fact that Naofumi’s first real companion is a slave girl he bought. So, there’s controversy about this thing. Not that I care.

Long story short, the anime just had Naofumi take down the corrupt religion of the Church of the Three Heroes that was behind his troubles. In doing so, though, he almost died.

Recap

Naofumi wakes up in a high-class hospital after being saved by the Queen, Miriela Q. Melromarc. He’s been asleep for three days while his friends Raphtalia, Filo, and Melty have been by his side. He’ll live, but it will take a month or so to heal.

The Queen then explains that everything Naofumi went through wasn’t supposed to happen. The Four Heroes were supposed to be summoned seperately by different countries. The Church of Three Heroes, though, decided to be turds, summoned them anyway, and hogged them all to Melromarc. The Queen was all over trying to stop an international incident while her husband and daughter put Naofumi through hell.

The Queen is, understandably, furious beyond words. She outlaws the Three Heroes Church, but she goes the extra mile to convince Naofumi to stay in Melromarc. If he leaves, the international community will invade Melromarc for what they did to him.

At the Royal Palace, with the entire country watching, the King and Malty are tried for treason, incompetence, and being pieces of garbage.

Malty’s put under a slave crest to make sure she tells the truth, but despite all that, she continues to lie. About framing Naofumi for raping her, kidnapping Melty, trying to kill her sister.

The sentence for both of them: death. Yet Naofumi’s not satisfied with that, and decides to make the rest of their lives hell. Instead, the King’s name is changed to “Trash”, and Malty to “Bitch”; her adventurer name will now be “Slut”.

Good thing, too. The Queen was willing to offer up her own life in exchange for her horrid husband and daughter. Naofumi decides to stay in Melromarc, but he plans to help everyone in the world from here on out. So he, Filo, and Raphtalia set out once more, only this time, everyone knows that they’re heroes.

Review

There were a few differences between what happened here and what happened in the manga, and light novels. First, Naofumi was the one who called for their deaths rather than wanting to spare them. It took the Queen to convince him to make them go through a fate worse than death.

Second, in this episode, even Motoyasu turns his back on Bitch after he learns the truth. In every other version, he’s on her side despite it defying all logic.

My point is that the way they react ends up being out of character for both of them. Every adaptation of Shield Hero, in fact, has gotten lighter in tone to make Naofumi more heroic. In the web novel, he could be just as bad as everyone else.

Everything that I just mentioned, though, is me nitpicking. It doesn’t tread water against the moment we’ve all waited for: Trash and Bitch get what they deserve. In regards to that moment, the anime did it better than any other version.

Having the two pieces of filth stand trial while broadcasting it across Melromarc was a great idea. That never happened in the literature or manga, so it made the whole thing more enjoyable.

The best thing, though, was seeing the anime version of Cersei Lannister crying and in pain. Every time she got shocked, I was grinning ear to ear.

I know it sounds sadistic, but let’s remember everything she’s done:

• She stole Naofumi’s gear
• She falsely accused Naofumi of trying to rape her
• She manipulated Motoyasu to fight Naofumi so she could take Raphtalia away from him, and likely hunt her down and kill her for fun.
• Charging an unfair toll to a distant village, then cheating in a race against Naofumi
• Framed Naofumi for kidnapping Melty, tried to kill her, and burned down a forest to flush them out.

That’s not even the worst of it. The Web Novels say she pulled what she did to Naofumi on other men. She’s a monster, and seeing her in pain is cathartic.

So, it may irk me a bit that the episode ends on a positive note, like everything’s right with the world. It isn’t, and there are going to be more troubles in the future. I will overlook it all, though, because it was worth seeing Bitch get what she deserves. It’s what I wanted to see Cersei Lannister go through in the end.

The anime is going to keep going for a few more episodes, but this felt like the perfect way to end the show; or at least the first season. By god, it was worth it, though. One of the best anime I have seen in years!

I Give “Naofumi’s Triumphant Return” A 5/5. I’m going to watch this episode over and over again.