So, it would have been good to get a little more of this setting development earlier in the show, but I guess we were too busy messing around with fundoshi idiots? Because there is some legitimately interesting stuff this episode that’s… not too late, but kinda late to set up.
So, the basic outlay of the episode is
that on one side we want to retake Tateyama base (the commander
having laid aside a stockpile of resources for just this
eventuality), and on the other side we’re attempting to decipher
Odin’s last message about “Thor”, “Valhalla”, and “Asgard”,
the key to which is apparently left with his favorite ‘daughter’,
Claudia.
In the process, we learn that in this
setting, Northern Europe has no native mythology. It would have been
nice to realize this earlier as up until about this episode everyone
went along with the god Odin and Valkyries and the like as though
they knew what mythology had just come to life. Even taking the
“traditional” form of Odin was what seemed to convince the first
humans he made contact with to believe he was the god he claimed to
be in Episode 1.
Anyway, we split the party with that.
Claudia opens a gleaming golden rift to, presumably, Valhalla on
recalling Odin’s words to her about the gates always being open, and
Azu is all set to follow her because Azu is the one with the brains
to puzzle out whatever they find. On the other side, Miko is going
to fly into battle to reclaim the airspace over the base, along with
the three stooges. Sono is… not doing well. If the breakdown last
episode wasn’t enough of an indication, she’s having a time, and
doesn’t see herself as fit to fly.
We actually follow up on that a good
deal. She talks with Miko, and we learn that Sono kind of sees
herself as cursed, bringing bad luck to the people she sees off, and
that she’s afraid of the sky by now. Miko tries to cheer her up by
saying that she can do good wherever she goes, and Sono starts
working on the curry rice line for, presumably, all the refugees,
serving food to the needy. While there, she’s greeted and thanked by
a pair of junior Valkyries she protected during the retreat from the
Pillar, and hearing how she saved their lives seems to make an impact
on her psyche, though possibly not a good one as they say they want
to be strong like her and she breaks down again at the thought of not
being strong.
For Claudia and Azu, they enter the
grand hall of Asgard, finding a mysterious light with runes, some
statues, and murals. Slowly, they’re able to identify Odin and Thor
in different forms (Thor alive and Odin in old man mode) in the
Murals, while Claudia touches the floaty runes and is caused to
recall the song she sang to the dying soldier, which has apparently
been passed down her (Norther European) family for generations, so
long that the meaning has been forgotten. Obviously a plot hook, but
before that can be investigated too closely, one of the statues
animates and attacks.
In the skies over Tateyama, there seems
to be no end to the minor Pillars that Miko is fighting. They come
by the handfuls, the tens, the hundreds and finally assemble into a
new massive kind of Pillar. Miko is trapped inside, in what seems to
be a clockwork labyrinth. As that manifests, the people on the
ground scatter and panic, much to Sono’s chagrin. Things get even
harder for her as her pregnant coworker collapses because the baby is
coming now.
And that seems as good a place as any
to cut the episode.
This has been one of the better
episodes of the show so far, honestly. We got some actual
world-building around Claudia and Azu, some real emotional moments
with Sono and with the valkyrie that Amatsuka gave her life to
rescue, and even a little flying action. It’s far from great, but it
is at least scrambling and trying to give us a decent show.
One of the big problems seems to be
that I’m not sure what the tone of the show as a whole is. It mixed
in a lot of very light stuff early, but is not trying to skew heavy.
And it’s not that you can’t do that. I actually think it’s important
for shows, even mostly serious shows, to know how to make the
audience laugh now and again. To see people smile or have fun. But
the good and fitting humor in this would be things like the sequence
a couple episodes ago where Claudia got the horrible excessive fish
dish from the mess hall and actually cleaned her plate to everyone
else’s shock, and less so other elements that don’t feel like they
fit in a serious world of warfare. I’m trying to not let Episode 4
continue to throw me for a loop here, but there is that spirit of
zany nonsense that’s hard to forget.
There’s not much to do now except to
see where the resolution of the current arc and the finale take us.