Shingeki no Bahamut never stops impressing me. In the first two episodes, I was drawn in by the humor and the action. Then, the third episode grabbed me with Kaiser and Rita’s relationship. And now this episode.
If the dynamic between Kaiser and Favaro wasn’t already engaging you, the show took it a step further by exploring their shared past. It’s easy to see Kaiser’s side of the story; he put his trust in Favaro, and Favaro betrayed him. In the end, Kaiser’s father died and Kaiser ended up disgraced. Of course, Favaro undoubtedly sees things differently. His group of bandits stole from the rich and gave to the poor. We aren’t explicitly told much about Kaiser’s father, but we can assume that he wasn’t the most charitable person in the world.
And hey, at the end of the day, this was mostly orchestrated by a demon and a morally deficient human. Favaro might not have even realized that Kaiser’s father was going to die any more than he realized his own father was going to die. Certainly, telling Kaiser that would be small compensation, but can we blame Favaro for what he did?
Then again, Favaro wasn’t the greatest person in the first two episodes. He’s only helping Amira because an act of deception went wrong, and he only “saved” her because he couldn’t control his horse. On the other hand, in episode three, Favaro was nice enough to save Kaiser from the hallucinations. It would have been so much more convenient for him to wait for Rita to kill Kaiser, or to just let Kaiser delude himself into thinking he had a life amongst the zombies. Favaro obviously has some affection for his old friend, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.
The action, as always, was well-done. Even that brief fight when Amon and Favaro met on the docks was well-choreographed. Both parties managed to gain the upper hand in ways that were easy for the viewer to follow. A less diligent studio would have let the comedy carry the scene, but not Mappa.
If I had a complaint, it was that Favaro’s victory over Amon in the final battle felt cheap. Amon just stood there while Favaro shot his crossbow gun thing at the ship’s wheel. Looked to me like Amon had plenty of time to kill him.
This episode was deep enough into the story that there wasn’t as much humor as in previous episodes, but it was still there. Rather than beating that joke about Favaro not having the eyes of a liar to death, the show built upon that structure by having him shove the fish eyes in front of his face. And I still haven’t gotten tired of Amira judging the tastiness of everything, and I doubt Mappa will ever let me.
This was an exceptionally good episode to an exceptionally good anime. If you haven’t started watching Shingeki no Bahamut yet, you owe it to yourself to start now. It’s the best show of this season, if not this year.
Mo[r]e Anime 