Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Kiba – episode 18

“The Prayer That Doesn’t Die”

or

“You can’t! Our God is immensely powerful and huge!”*

One of my unwritten rules is to avoid comparisons to Evangelion. However, when you’re faced by one giant monster punching another giant monster into submission and then commencing to eat the other giant monster followed by a close up on that first giant monster’s almost human eye, well … you can’t help to invite comparisons to episode 19 of Evangelion. It is inevitable.

Beyond being Evangelion, this episode had some okay moments and maybe a genuine, bizarre shock that kind of proves to me that this series is just a series of events thrown at the screen in the hope that some of the repercussions will stick. Just like real life.

Spoilers inside

Hugh unleashes Pronimo on the God of the Karbuhu people. Pronimo proceeds to eat that God so it can become Super Double Excel Pronimo, a red spirit with breasts.
In a scene of unparalleled stupid brilliant excellence, Kemp shoot something through his ears that somehow renders him deaf without destroying his brain so that he may fight the collective unconscious of Karbuhu and moralise at Rebecca about the evils of war and prejudice.

So, Rebecca dies. I could not shed a tear for everyone’s favourite psychotic revenge-bent princess, for I am an unfeeling fiend. Or perhaps because, as she had never been able to live the life that she wanted to, I never got to see her the way she should have been. Something like that. She died a weak death at the hands of Elmeda, who is a character only worth watching because she’s bound to be betrayed by Hugh somewhere along the line. Hugh betrayal is the next big thing, you know.

I suppose that I should reflect on the tragedy of Rebecca: raised by a father alternately characterised as a despot and as a peace maker; hypnotised into killing said father by the man whom she loved for no reason other than narrative convenience; betrayed by her hideously effeminate rebel alliance comrades (ironically, the one who stayed true to her was a masculine woman); expected to be married to aforementioned inexplicable love only to find herself matched up with Dumas, the stupidest man in the history of unintelligence; left for dead only to be saved by a clan of freak peaceniks who lay eggs and live in a subterranean world and have gills despite the fact that they’re exclusively land dwellers; consumed by revenge; undone by own vengeful aspirations.
Basically, Rebecca’s life sucked. She should embrace death as a time where the writers won’t pile unfortunate events upon her until her back breaks.

Let’s see what else happened in this episode: Kemp got killed because he was giving too much exposition to Rebecca. He was literally telling Rebecca her own life story as she had her back turned to Elmeda. If that’s not great strategy, I don’t know what is. Despatching your enemy and then learning the meaning of life from your friends and allies is far too impractical for my tastes.
Also having masked women recognise Roia and then explaining nothing? Genius! Roia is in fact the grand heiress of the four kingdoms! Kiba mystery solved! Roll out the red spirit!

Kiba is good again because it’s being interesting in the course of its illogicalities. If you can be entertaining while you make absolutely no sense, you win a small victory. Only small, though, it doesn’t lend you any legitimacy. By the way, remember Kees, whom Noa accidentally killed back in episode seven? Thanks to the preview, we know he’s still alive! Good stuff!

*Sadly, this is a direct quotation from this episode.