Thought this was a great episode as a whole, even if there were some changes made to deal with some constraints that I loved from the books like drunk Sylphie for example. I loved the attention given to Nanahoshi's frustrations in this episode that led to closing herself off like what Rudeus did earlier on in the series after feeling like his life was over and heading in a direction he could not recover from, this time with Rudeus helping Nanahoshi out. She's been stuck in this world for years and even though she has Rudeus' help with mana, her circles kept on failing and there's only so much one can take with no progress till it eats them up and causes them to lose their heads in the process. Rudeus did a great job in being a friend by supporting her through these issues, asking for help through others with ideas that he couldn't come up with on his own and overall, give Nanahoshi the environment to let her get back on her feet. Now that there is a new avenue to explore with multi-layered summoning circles, Nanahoshi now has a whole new world to explore to deal with the complexity of a task like summoning stuff from another planet which gives her a lot more hope to work with. It helps that she did manage to summon that bottle too, entailing that there is hope still there for her. Glad that Rudeus again, took care of her with the help of his friends in being a support and preventing Nanahoshi from making any bad decisions that she and her friends would end up regretting. Soldat took care of Rudeus when he was at his lowest so I bet Rudeus could empathize with this situation, alongside his issues he experienced of helplessness in his past life. I just love the exploration of Nanahoshi's character and how being trapped in this world can be good for some but absolute hell for others, especially with the life she had previously and the lack of real family, aging, conveniences, normal morals, etc in this new world. Her VA was fantastic in this episode.
The friends were great, the memories at the end with the party were great. I wish Gandhara was sung since that was in the books but Nanahoshi did sing a Japanese song at the end there in Tsubasa by Under Graph. She did hum this in her introduction in season 2, so her singing this at least makes canonical sense with the actual series and the song is great so I have no issues. It was nice seeing her have some optimism and enjoy company with people from this world for once without having to put a barrier around herself. It doesn't mean she has to change her goal of leaving this planet but some nice moments along the way is appreciated.
Great to see Aisha and Norn at the end there, and even better to see the GOAT himself in Ruijerd after quite some time. Got some elaboration of the plan from Paul's letter, but it is nice seeing Ruijerd manage to help them guide the way over the year to the house here to give them a place to stay while Paul, Roxy and the others were off to Begaritt. This letter of course is old so they would already be there by the time the letter reached Rudeus but it is nice seeing Paul and Rudeus in communication with each other.
I could talk more about the episode but it's too long. I absolutely loved the episode as a whole, and it was nice exploring Nanahoshi's character in more depth and creating more great chemistry between the cast in this episode. Even got some more magic exploration and world building in this episode by understanding how magic circles work more in detail, alongside the relevance of mana in a bit more depth too. And there were some great drawings of expressions in this episode in showcasing the suffering and feeling of failure and hopelessness that Nanahoshi was going through and Rudeus was relating to from his past experiences. A lot happened in this portion but it was well put together. |