Shingeki no Bahamut: Virgin Soul – 11

All in all it was a fairly measured week for Shingeki no Bahamut, which has given us episodes mostly either packed with action and plot or heavy with dark emotion.  There wasn’t all that much of either this time, rather a narrative content to move things along at a measured pace and a fairly heave dose of humor.  Some might express disappointment that after waiting so long for his return, we saw nothing of Favaro (I might even be among them) but on the whole, I thought it worked pretty well as a breather (and a safe candidate to outsource) episode.

The main thrust of events here was up in Heaven, where Gabriel is doing her best (and successfully) to persuade El to join the fight against Charioce and humanity.  In case you haven’t noticed it already, the whole “angels and demons” think here is by no means a clear-cut good and evil dynamic – rather, they seem like opposite sides of the same coin (which would make things easier if they eventually team up against the humans).  Gabriel doesn’t deceive El, but she does seduce him – play on his righteousness and innocence, and his desire to reunite with Jeanne.  Gabriel heals El (including his windpipe) and he does agree to join the fight – but by no means to I think El will be a wholly reliable ally for the Gods.

Meanwhile, the other drama (and I use that term loosely with Nina involved) is Jeanne and Nina trying to escape their island prison.  That’s going to pose quite a challenge, but fortunately Rita has arrived to lend a hand.  And it’s a great episode for Rocky, who has remarkable personality for a severed appendage (and notably, it’s not at all like his former owner).  Jeanne hardly seems like the formidable hero of yore here (and that’s not even counting the arachnophobia) – it’s really Nina who’s the one holding her companion’s spirits up, and certainly the one doing most of the heavy lifting.

With the declaration of war from the Gods, it seems pretty obvious we’re headed for a new phase of the story.  Is El really enough to tip the scales in their favor?  Well, unless there’s a lot more to his power than what we’ve seen (and that’s certainly possible, given his restoration)  Charioce takes the opportunity to try and blackmail Jeanne into swearing fealty to him, and it’s really the first sign of weakness we’ve seen from him – it’s clearly the dissent this challenge from the Gods causes among his subjects that has Charioce uneasy more than the fear of losing to the Gods in battle.

 

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7 comments

  1. Rita arrives to lend a hand … -_-

    I don’t believe you went there.

    Horrific puns aside and all, I thought this was another great episode.

    Ah yes … am I the only one hoping Nina beats the stuffing out of Charioce? A nice, lengthy, humiliating thrashing would be satisfying. (Yes, Charioce has got past the limit for me.)

  2. I’m sick and tired of fans defending Chaorice and Benten. They’re right bastards – deal with it.

  3. Y

    I couldn’t tell this ep was outsourced. Thought the action was decent and loved the amount of time and detail given to Rita and Rocky. And that music!

  4. S

    Can’t wait for Mugaro/El to return to the fold of Nina’s pack who will truly help him instead of use him. I had enough of a McGuffin innocent being used in season 1 already. Favaro had too much experience with that to let everything go smoothly, but how Jeanne will deal with this is out of my guesses.

    Also betting that arachnophobia will be coming back around, the writer is too good to just drop random trivia like that without putting it to use later, and that’s what I also love about this show.

  5. s

    I loved how Nina’s response when she realized that her “suitor” was actually Charioce was somewhat out of character, and all the more realistic for it–no changing into a dragon or beaning him with her ball and chain. Just shock and disappointment. I think our girl grew up a lot in that moment.

  6. Well, to be fair, I think she’s not going to transform there because she’s anything but turned on in that moment. What’s going to be interesting is that if falling in love turned off her old “switch”, will having her heart broken turn it back on – or result in some sort of new trigger altogether?

  7. s

    Or maybe no trigger at all. Perhaps she can begin to direct or control her transformation process. It will be interesting to see what happens!

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