Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Utawarerumono – episode 6

May 16, 2006 on 11:46 pm | In Utawarerumono | 5 Comments

“The Assembled Powers”

In his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass describes a slaveholder who dealt pre-emptive beatings to his slaves in order to keep them obedient.
This has always sounded stupid to me, and this is precisely what Emperor Inkara is: an idiot. Normally in anime, when you see both sides of a conflict in their planning stages, you can get some sort of positive spin on the enemy. Not so here.

Oh, and you really can tell that Utawarerumono is based on an H game, can’t you?

Eruruu discovers a man climbing the walls of the Hakuoro Alliance’s newly captured fortress. The man, Shikinaro, claims to be a wandering salesman, but all is not as it seems!
Then Hakuoro and company take on a gate that happens to be guarded by Benawi and Kurou.

So, what do we learn from this episode? Aphrodisiacs can be peddled across the way, and they make girls blush and so on … and Hakuoro probably bought some in his video game incarnation.
We also learn are that Benawi’s code of honour is so Byzantine in its structure that he appears to think that looking sullen makes him an interesting character. Let me assure you right here and now that he is not, and that the conclusion to this episode was nothing short of, well, lame.

The fight preparation animation was good, as was the suggestion that Oboru has the power to jump over giant gates – thus rendering them useless.
Other gleanings are in relation to Hakuoro himself: simply put, he sucks at fighting. Hakuoro relies too heavily on the “sunrise deus ex machina”, the one that claims that at sunrise, any battle will turn in favour of the underdog. If Benawi was an actual soldier who cared about insurgents, rather than simply a rightfully treasonous fellow, Hakuoro would be dead 17 times by now. Being able to kill a fat man who doesn’t know how to govern is hardly an accomplishment.

I’m afraid that Utawarerumono is getting silly at this point. Eruruu’s pointless jealousy does nothing to help.

5 Comments

1. I actually enjoy Utawarerumono, and I don’t think this episode is nearly as bad as you make it out to be.

   I like Benawi… even though he has no expression, his action speaks volumes about his character. He feels conflicted about the rebellion, as he knows that Inkara is wrong, but his loyalty towards him hasn’t been lost completely yet (I’m betting there will be a back story about Inkara being a good ruler, but is ruined by the stuff he’s smoking). Benawi doesn’t want to kill needlessly, and tries his best to convince Hakuoro to surrender, and only decides to land the killing blow when his oration fails – which it is bound to do, since he is such a monotonous boring hack. I’m puzzled about why he let that guy through the gate though… that doesn’t make any sense, except that maybe he’s trying to get back at Inkara. But if that’s the case, why not just switch camp?

   And Oboro’s gate jumping… I just laughed.

   Comment by Lupus — May 17, 2006 #

2. Hakuoro had no chance against Benawi because he was using such a short weapon on horse (or whatever those things are called) back. Maybe he would have gotten another weapon if his oponent is more ruthless.

   Comment by cclragnarok — May 20, 2006 #

3. Utawarerumono is getting silly ? What, sillier than Haruhi ?

   Comment by Karry — May 31, 2006 #

4. “So, what do we learn from this episode? Aphrodisiacs can be peddled across the way, and they make girls blush and so on … and Hakuoro probably bought some in his video game incarnation.”

   Didn’t the peddler give Hakuoro some of that stuff before he left as a parting/thankyou gift?
   That’s kind of suspicious…

   Comment by Jessica — February 21, 2007 #

5. Benawi is a man of little expression, this may be true. However, to call him treasonous I don’t agree with. He comes across to me as more of a very disciplined, high moral character whoes devoted to his country first and foremost with everything else taking a back seat. And besides, anyone who offs an “emperor” that…stupid, fat, lazy, self indulgent and generally U.G.L.Y. has to be one of the good guys. Inkala was even worse than his ‘baby’ brother Sasante. Plus you gotta admit Benawi knows his fighting moves!

   Comment by Drace — April 12, 2008 #

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