Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Utawarerumono – episode 4

May 1, 2006 on 7:26 pm | In Utawarerumono | Comments Off

“The path of no return”

Wars begin! Lives will not be spared! Utawarerumono begins down the inexorable path to endless battle! Fight or be massacred!

Episode spoiler within

Nuwangi and his father Sasante visit the village to find Oboro. One of the guards makes an attack on Eruruu, but Tusukuru blocks it. She dies in the process, and Hakuoro becomes the village elder. Oboro goes to the castle to seek revenge, and Hakuoro leads the village on a full scale raid.

The deaths now begin to mount: I was actually surprised that Tusukuru was killed, despite the fact that such an occurrence is an effective spurring point for characters. Less surprising was the death of Sasante, who kind of had it coming. He was hideous in body, attitude and laughter.

The raid on the castle was excellent precisely because at the end of it Hakuoro looked upon the destruction that he had wrought and began to consider it. Impulse is what starts wars, and Hakuoro can now blame himself for beginning one despite all of the mitigating circumstances. The action was a mixture of excitement and … blurry action shots and stills with motion lines. The enemies all looked samey here, so I didn’t mind much. Besides which, the next episode features battles with legitimate characters rather than grunts, so that looks promising.

The other seed that has been sown is that of madness in Nuwangi, and that looks like it will go somewhere; Benawi, on the other hand, is a total mystery. Everything has changed at this point; looks like episode number four is the shift for many of the series this season.