After the bizarre out-of-body experience that was last episode, we get something very much different and, in my opinion, the show’s strongest episode so far in terms of character.
We start by introducing a new
character, “Big Sis” Amatsuka, a senior Valkyrie who Miko seems
to be very fond of. Azu and Sono, less so. Along with her fighter
squad, she’s an ace who goes to wherever the fighting is the
toughest… which makes her appearance at Tateyama base both odd and
somewhat worrying.
All the same, at first it looks like
we’re going to get another episode that’s more lighthearted and
fanservice-heavy. And we do get that material, don’t get me wrong,
as there’s a bath scene and all the stops are pulled out for it (I
dare say it may have soaked the majority of the episode’s animation
budget), and another scene with a good deal of comedy at a
restaurant.
In this, we get to kind of know
Amatsuka. She seems like a bit of a troll, and also has some kind of
history with some of the other girls, particularly Azu and Sono,
which doesn’t seem to be pleasant. More importantly, though, she
reveals the reason for her coming: high command is planning an attack
on the Primary Pillar anchored at Mount Fuji, something that’s fairly
established as tantamount to suicide. Regarding this operation, Azu
is determined to give Odin a piece of her mind and Claudia, with her
own question, comes with, eventually granting the two of them access
to Odin’s theater, where he appears to be watching the previous
episode.
Azu demands to know more about the
operation, and Odin tells her on the condition that she play knockoff
street fighter with him while they talk. While thrashing her at the
fighting game, Odin explains that they’ve managed to predict when the
Pillar will enter a dormant state (thanks in part to Azu’s own
theories) and are going to hit it with everything they’ve got while
it’s ‘asleep’. This may reduce the danger, but won’t eliminate it
since the pillar will awaken when attacked. As they conclude the
game, he uses it to psychoanalyze Azu, pointing out that she
overthinks things, hesitates, and that loses to her both losing the
fighting game and getting shot down as often as she does. He warns
it will get her killed some day, too. She’s not a great Valkyrie but
she has a brilliant mind, prompting Odin to suggest she might be
happier with another path. This seems to really get under Azu’s
skin, and we get the hint she has some dire reason for wanting to
stay personally in the fight (especially as we later hear she turned
down retirement to go to Tateyama base).
After Azu storms off, Claudia questions
whether her transfer had anything to do with this operation and
learns that her power will be essential to destroying a primary
pillar. Odin sees her off with a much more cryptic and ominous
goodbye than usual, offering Asgard’s blessing and promising that the
gates of Valhalla will always be open to her.
In the lunch scene, we get some comedy
with Claudia being tricked into ordering a whole giant fish (which
she ultimately manages to eat without complaint, shocking the others
who knew what was coming) and Amatsuka interacting with the group.
She seems intent on needling Azu, and Sono doesn’t want to take it,
ultimately storming off.
We follow up with her in the
Commander’s office when he returns. They have a fairly cryptic talk
about Sono’s presence in the office and Amatsuka’s arrival on base,
and we see a picture the commander has showing him standing with
Amatsuka and Sono from some time before as, after Sono departs, he
mentions not being able to be forgiven. No answers yet, but Sono’s
interactions, direct or otherwise, with Amatsuka are the most
character we’ve gotten out of her in the entire show, so I’ll take
it. Considering she was (in person rather than in battle) pretty
much the “calm, quite and sweet” one, seeing that she has her
limits and things that push her buttons is a good first step to
understanding more of who she is.
Stepping back a moment, Odin’s
conversation with Azu was also a very legitimate attempt to take Azu
out of the “one note” category, reinforced by Azu’s interactions
with Amatsuka. Combine that with episode 3, where the serious and
darker ending of the episode gave us some actual good insight into
Miko, and we are actually fleshing out all the characters, at least a
little. It’s nothing spectacular but we at least are able to see
(rather than just be told about) the traits that are called out, so
it’s already beating… far too many shows I’ve reviewed, really.
In any case, the episode ends with the
final countdown to the deactivation of the Fuji Primary Pillar. The
Valkyries are all pretty worried, but Odin (who we cut back to at the
very end) is excited. And not his normal trolling interest either,
but really scarily excited as, from his theater, he declares that the
decisive battle and Ragnarok are upon us.
That most certainly doesn’t bode well
for our cast in the next episode.
I think, after this was such a
surprisingly decent character episode, the show is going to have to
show its hand in the upcoming episode. Usually I can get a bead on
whether or not a show is going to pan out at least decent pretty
quickly, but Warlords of Sigrdrifa has been something of a slippery
one, starting off with promising action and a good character arc from
Claudia before getting a little slow and jumping to the sheer
weirdness of episode 4, which was starting to make me think that the
show might not actually do anything with its material.
Next time, though, we’re promised the
Decisive Battle. In Episode 6. I want to resist citing Yuki Yuna is
a Hero every bloody episode of Warlords, but it seems determined to
make me use that comparison as Yuki Yuna is another show where we had
a “climax” that fired way too early so that the audience, unlike
the characters, knew that it was only going to be the start of a
second act.
There are a number of ways they could
go with this in Warlords. In Yuki Yuna, the destruction of the
Vertex created a false peace that was ultimately shattered by
tragedy. But I think we’ve been a bit skewed towards relative peace
so far in this show, so I kind of hope they go a different way. One
option would be to have the characters fail: countless soldiers and
valkyries die (probably not including any of the valkyries we know,
though I wouldn’t be surprised if Azu fell after receiving Odin’s
warning), the pillar stands, and the show moves forward with a much
darker atmosphere, not unlike the early parts of Episode 1 that were,
in an emotional sense, concerned with Claudia’s guilt over being a
sole survivor. Another way would be to have the heroes win this
battle and destroy the Primary Pillar at Mount Fuji, only to reveal
that all they’d done was kick off the next and more brutal phase of
the struggle, sounding the horn for a true Raganrok to come and
getting us a new and possibly more compelling wave of enemies. After
all, for all Odin’s machinations, representing the forces of Asgard,
Loki and Surtr are notably missing.
If they botch the next one, though… I
don’t think there’s going to be any real coming back. It needs to
get us back to the good action we saw in the first two episodes, it
needs to have good emotional stakes, and it needs to meaningfully
launch us into whatever the second half of the show will be. Whether
it’s truly the decisive battle or not, it will likely be the decisive
episode.