Radiant

Episode 9:

Man, seems that I found my personal favorite character in the villain side after watching this episode despite I heard that this is a filler and the filler is surprisingly good. Dragunov enters the slot regarding "One of my favorite characters of all time" for me due to how well he treats his subordinates and being a good cook, doesn't want to hurt more innocents despite being working with the Inquisition due to noble intentions and when you hurt innocent, expect that Dragunov will kick your ass so yeah... I'm amazed by him. And I think what Yaga said is kind of interesting. Oh! And this episode seems to foreshadow an incident at a place called Rumbletown and hearing a person whose name's is Konrad is totally a bad news... (This is the same Konrad de Marboug right?). Also, seems that the Masked guy who wounded a Nemesis proves himself to be deadly and he was voiced by DIO from JJBA :P

@Lyendith Since I watched Ep. 9 and some people said its a filler, I kind of wonder if Dragunov truly had some redeeming qualities that he had in the anime actually? Kind of growing an affection to that dude.

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Dec 3rd 2018 at 3:00:40 AM

Bump

Oh he definitely does. Cooking wasn't one of them originally, but I'll take it.

@Lyendith Cool. I think he's a cool villain IMO. So yeah, while the cooking is absent in the manga. I think the Benevolent Boss qualities and doesn't discriminate people who are sorcerers (Like in Episode 9 where Dragunov freed the captives who were accused as Sorcerers) are still present in the manga right?

Sure does. I honestly don't even consider him a "vilain", just an antagonist.

Cool!

Btw... I got this from MAL and basically it says Valente's reaction about the anime:

Tony Valente : "I suspected that a lot of readers from the first hour would not find themselves in the freedom of the first part of the season! To be honest, when I saw the scripts of the first half come I turned and we had a lot of sags with the production team ... obviously the manga was not calibrated to make episodes digest they had to rework them and add original content. Even if I understand their arguments, I would have preferred it to be done otherwise, I admit. We agreed as we went along, and finally on arc rumble town they ended up following the story of the manga more closely! a personal advice, if you do not see so many different things, wait for the second half to embark on the series again! And if not, there is still the manga, he will not change direction :)" So, i recommanded to all the anime only people to hear the advices of Tony Valente and go read the manga, because he will not change direction

The source in question.

@Lyendith Your opinion on this?

Link doesn't work. =[

I get the argument of adapting the story's pacing to an anime format, but I don't see how that justifies adding entire episodes that slow that pacing down to a crawl. Like, episode 10 not only tells us stuff we already know, but it shows us entire scenes from previous episodes that we've already seen. There's absolutely no excuse.

Now episode 11 will FINALLY go back to the main plot. Took them some time.

Come to think of it... What dafaq did I just think when sending Valente's reaction without any proof at all.

Alright, Episode 10:

So the episode mostly focused on the Broom Race in Artemis' academy and unsurprisingly, Seth lost in the end with his altruism towards other competitors which is alright. Though have to admit that I feel bad for Doc again because of the constant misfortunes that he had. Anyways... The rest of the episode isn't that good and I call it the weakest of the fillers. Possibly because due to over-reliance of the flashbacks which makes it look like a stock-footage of previous episodes and those scenes are pretty unecessary IMO and if it got cut, nothing in the episode would change. The only positive thing I could say is probably the ending and it feels rather ominous with Grimm's presence.

@Lyendith Since you're familiar with the manga, wonder if Grimm is a good guy or a bad guy? Also, yeah... Have to admit that of all the fillers in the show? The only filler that I like is the Dragunov filler. The rest aren't that spectacular actually. Ranging from adequate (Might be the debt episode) to poor (Like the broom race episode) so yeah...

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Dec 15th 2018 at 7:20:06 PM

Well shit, I messed the number of the episode yesterday. Anyways, Episode 11:

Today's episode is about the trios hunting the Nemesis in a place known as Rumble Town and there's a mysterious controller who controls said Nemesis. Also, seems that Grimm is someone that you won't underestimate with and this is the first appearance of the Inquisitor Konrad De Marboug and he also seems like a douchebag that doesn't need to be underestimated so yeah...

Well… They kept relatively close to the source material for once, although it's a pity they didn't keep Seth's "Maybe they're just all dead?" line. Now I'm a little more excited.

I also really liked the music themes in this episode, especially the flute.

Grimm is… an odd case. He doesn't seem to be a vilain, but nobody really knows what he's after.

@Lyendith That makes sense. Konrad on the other hand is blatantly obvious and I smell Complete Monster vibes on him haha. Just look at dem mustache

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Dec 15th 2018 at 7:47:23 PM

Btw, I keep listening to Radiant OP song, 04 Limited Sazabys-Utopia and holy hell that was a hell of an earworm to the point I can't stop repeating the song all over again. Been trying to replace Black Clover, BNHA and Murder Princess OP and it got a good synergy with Radiant OP

I think Konrad is the guy who author commented some of his lines being verbatim from some French politicians?

Yeah, that one.

…It was a pretty good episode. Pretty faithful while adding just enough details here and there, and the soundtrack is really starting to shine (like that scene with Grimm at the end). You gotta wonder why they didn't stay this faithful from the start instead of adding tons of pointless filler. The animation still stutters a bit, but at least the scenes themselves hold up.

Dragunov trolling Konrad was great.

Episode 12:

Dragunov trolling Konrad is the best part of the episode. And right now we met with a new character who are the interpretations of immigrants in Europe and man the Episode ends up with a cliffhanger.

@Lyendith Let's just say I have a huge huge special reservation on Konrad right now despite being played as a joke in this episode. I hate discussing serious topics such as politics but I feel that he is a personification of what if a Far-Right person got granted an absolute power. And I feel he can be a lot worse in the future.

For those interested, scanlations have just finished the Rumble Town arc (chapter 28). There's been a lot of chapters released lately.

Cool. How many chapters that the story will get interesting?

Depends what you call "interesting"… but to me the writing and pacing start to noticeably improve around chapter 20~25 so the fight with Hameline, basically. Not that the chapters before are bad, but that's about where the series really hits its stride to me.

Alright... That makes sense. I made a promise that I want to read the manga but given my busy schedule... Yeah.

Episode 13. Boy that escalated quickly. I actually thought the pace was faster than in the manga, but the developments were also pretty fast actually. They changed some bits like the Zehd family being arrested, while Seth pulled a trick to make the Inquisition believe they were innocent in the manga. It sort of makes sense, but we'll see how that affects the rest of the arc.

I really like Hameline's voice actor. Her delivery when she talks to her Nemesis was perfect, both sad and determined.

@Lyendith Btw, is it true that the first chapter started with hundred pages. Nani!?

Yeah, but the series is released directly in volumes anyway, so the chapter length doesn't matter much.

@Lyendith Makes sense since the later chapters will have like 20 pages so no issue here. Will get up my lazy ass and read that manga haha