Boy, this show. I realize that the term “NoitaminA” is effectively meaningless these days but Heion Sedai no Idaten-tachi is in the running for least-NoitaminA show ever. It’s just plain vexing and weird, a stew of tonal dissonance that’s alternately whip-smart and shockingly crass. It’s more than half over and I still don’t know what to make of it as a viewer, never mind a writer. But it’s interesting, whatever else it is (or isn’t) and I suppose that’s why I keep covering it.
Sorabael comes into prominence this week, the “holy land” of the Idaten mythology. It was a wasteland (thanks to Rin’s shoddy composition, since she built it as a sort of land ark in preparation for the demon war) but Prontea came along and did the whole milk and honey thing. Nowadays it’s run as a corporate powerhouse, raking in cash with sham religion and exporting said religion worldwide. Ysely doesn’t care about any of that – he just wants to make sure they don’t go to war with Hotaena, the third superpower, after Zoble gets taken down. Which he matter of factly declares is about to happen.
There’s no question of the takeover of Zoble failing – this is a total mismatch. Brandy knew it, which is why she sent her kids away before it happened. Miku (pretty much the sharpest knife in the drawer on the demon side) knew it, which is why she bailed herself and left a stack of reports for Obami and Takeshita. The only question is how it goes down. Rin would just blow out the whole country humans and all, but Prontea and Ysely would prefer otherwise. For Prontea there may be just a hint of restraint in it, but for Ysley it’s purely a practical matter of what the post-Zoble world will look like.
What’s interesting about this is that pretty much unarguably (to me at least) the most relatable characters here have been the demons. Corey is a very normal middle-school bozu who just wants to stay alive. Brandy is a mom who prioritizes her kids when she knows she herself is fucked. The problem here is that their whole whole country is founded on an incredibly venal scheme of nation-building through rape and genetic engineering, which pretty much puts the kibosh on any debate over which side is in the right in this fight. That dichotomy is interesting in and of itself.
What seems clear is that anybody who goes up against the Idaten ends up either dead or brainwashed, so I think we can pretty much write both Brandy and Takeshita off. Miku may escape, and in fact Piscalet (who’s also among the most sympathetic characters) urges Ysley to try and make her an ally. But her plan seems to be to restart the demon race in exile using the demon whose body is somehow the means to fuse humans into demons (and herself, and the nurse) which seems pretty inconsistent with the Idaten’s interests. I honestly don’t know what the endgame is here – especially with the manga ongoing – but I am curious to find out.
