If Marronnier Oukoku no Shichinin no Kishi were airing during the week, I might well have already committed to covering it. As is it’s absolutely still in contention, but what little this season has going for it is pretty much all on the weekend. The pace is very ambling indeed, which is a quality I often find endearing. But so far there’s no imperative behind Marronnier for me. It’s relaxing, amusing, wistful and likable. There’s just not that much that grabs me at this point.
The tournament duel between Swordsman and Eleonora was suitably odd given all that. There seems to be a certain intensity to it, in that these are childhood friends who struggle to find anyone else who can challenge them in physical exploits. But when push comes to shove and she wins after it turns into hand-to-hand combat (he tries to surrender first) he doesn’t seem all that bothered about it. Just another day in this weird castle where offbeat people do offbeat things.
The brothers all seem to have some literal magic powers – Swordsman and Chilly put them to work for Eleonora before she leaves. There’s mention of their papa, who I’m guessing may be the missing icon of the nation from the prologue narration. A knight named Johannes (name dropped last week) shows up to join Insomniac’s party to the Land of Long Nights, and a definite vibe is surfacing that these “diplomatic” missions are not what they seem. And might even be traps, though Baribara betrays nothing suspicious. Interestingly she’s a foreigner – hailing from the Country of Might to the west, from whence she was exiled despite being their finest military strategist.
I don’t know dark this series gets, so it’s hard to know how seriously the threats to the brothers might be. Insomniac is the first to leave and he’s taking it hard – you get the idea that these brothers are so close that being separated will be the greatest trial for most if not all of them. There’s definitely at least one big shoe still to drop, that’s for sure – there are things we haven’t been told that are probably essential to the premise making sense. I’m fine with letting things play out for now, but I wouldn’t be averse to just a tiny increase in the sense of urgency.
