User blog:SomeoneYouUsedToKnow/SYUTK's V4E10 - Guroyuri - Impressions/Recap

Youjo Senki is the best anime of the season. Deus lo Vult.

So, since I'm 99% sure we'll see a new Animalian location, and so far every damn place in Anima that isn't called Mistral is named after a flower, I decided to waste a bit of my time checking on Hanakotoba....the japanese language of flowers. Let's see:

-Kuchinashi = Secret Love. Ren and Nora are going there.....oh my god, does it finally become canon?

-Shion = Remembrance....well, we got Jaune talking about his good old days when his family went on intercontinental(?) camping trips right before we saw the ruins. And Ruby had some nightmares remembering Pyrrha's last moments.

-Higanbana.... = Never to meet again...Lost Memory....Abandonment...I don't see how what happened in Higanbana has anything to do with it. Although, they are said to bloom when you see someone you will never meet again....like the waitress.

-Oniyuri = Wealth...that village was an attempt by rich snobs to make a good town with a competent government (which failed because Neoliberalism gets you nowhere good).

So, the final one, so far, is Kuroyuri...Love, and Curse. Mmm...I wonder what we'll see there. Curse can be taken as Qrow's Diabolus Ex Machina Semblance, and hopefully Love will NOT be Lancaster.

Language of Truth:

Red means a fact, a truth , in the eyes of the user.

Blue is an hypothesis, a guess, pondering, wondering.

And now we begin.

1. Goodbye, and thanks for all the soup
We begin our episode with Oscar Mayer and Ozpin Head.

See? Nicest guy under Salem.

....Of course, then he does nothing else for the rest of the episode. Better than Tukson, at least.

2. The Lilies of Black
We return to Arse, now in Kuroyuri.

After we see a dead flower on the ground, we cut to a flashback.

3. Perfectly Safe For Children
We first see Kodomo Ren staring at a lotus...

Then he just tells him to go home and ditches him without even saying bye. Just like in Japan.

4. Not Your Fault (Maybe)
We return to the Arse pair amidst the ruins of Kuroyuri. As expected, they still find nothing, and so return to Qrow who was left all alone by a dead tree in the middle of town.

...Which, arguably, does make it her indirect fault from a certain point of view.

Now, this is a very touching scene, pretty heartwarming and all (though I wish it had more stressed-out yelling and venting), but I cannot like it. I can't. As long as Lancaster can become a thing and these 2 are stuck in the town with the Love meaning, I cannot take any advances in their relationship with a smile.

5. Bad Night, Good Bye
We return to Lying Ren amidst the peaceful Kuroyuri night, lying on his bed sleeping.

We hear the same sound we heard "before", though much louder. Ren's mother comes out and tells him they have to go. Adding 1 and 1, one can already tell shit got to town.

As they approach the door Ren's father, apparently called Li, enters the house while breathing heavily. He tells Ren's mother, apparently called An, that they need to hurry.

An says they should go to the safehouse, but Li says he saw "The Beast", and says that they need a Huntsmen...meaning Li isn't one like I thought. Kinda disapointed, the guy had a bow and everything. I thought he was a Hunter, not a simple hunter.

And then An then tempts fate.

Then they finally introduce themselves to each other, and almost-hilariously enough, Kodomo Ren's VA DOES pronounce "Lie" correctly, unlike An and Li.

Then the flash back ends. No, we never find out just how they hell did the 2 manage to leave Kuroyuri alive.

6. The Approaching Devil
We then cut to Ren and Nora on the windy mountain.

Before anything, I will point out...the mountain itself looks cheap to me.

I mean, texture-wise. When I see the texture of the mountain, particularly the ones behind Ren in this shot, it doesn't look too good to me. It looks like something you would see in a low-budget production, or a game from the early 2000s.

In fact I think I can make out the individual pixels in some places. The vegetation on the mountain does look modern, more in line with the art style present in the show... which makes it feel weird and conspicuous when put right alongside the 240p mountain.

The mountain looks rather brownish too, with a more realistic green...while the leaves and vines look a pretty outstanding, animesque bright green.

Seriusly, what happened here?

With rain and storm incoming, Nora and Ren find a cave. A cave from which wind is blowing. Meaning it might lead to the peak.

Before they even start walking in, a piece of fabric comes out flying and crashes against Ren's face.

Conclusion
Nice episode. We finally got a real example of Grimm, powerful Grimm, being almost-literal Nightmare Fuel, causing devastation and terrifying the people. I love creatures like it, things that induce that feeling of crawling horror. This will help me with an OC or 2.

Specifics:

1-I'm starting to feel the last 2 episodes are a bit rushed in plot progression. I just...feel like the plots haven't progressed much so far. Blake's and Ruby's have barely gotten anywhere, while Weiss, Oscar and Yang having their "dilemmas" and development skipped to the end without any in-betweens, making me feel they really are rushing things.

At the same time, this Volume feels less like it's trying to get any resolution, and more like it just wants to build things up. It's not trying to get to any sort of finish line, but instead just ditch us in the middle of the road.

2-RT needs to go out more with their dead villages. It doesn't look like the Grimm wrecked the place, it only looks like they killed everyone and then left. We need more REAL destruction.

3-Am I the only one who finds Kodomo Ren kinda....dumb-looking? I mean, his voice sounds dumb for most of the episode, so it may have influenced me but, I just look at Ren as a kid...and he just looks a bit dumb.

Especially at some points.

To make it worse, throughout the episode the animation team fucked it up with his facial expressions. His VA expresses emotion pretty well, but his face...doesn't. For the most part he doesn't even show any tears of fear or put a good terrified face.

4-My God, Qrow, WHY WON'T YOU DIE ALREADY. You're not even coughing anymore and yet you still refuse to freaking finally die or get better. Make up your mind already.

5-An is such an awful parent ...first she gives Ren an insignificant amount of money to buy something for Li. Then lets him run to the market and try to buy weapons and beer without supervision.

<font style="color:#DC143C">Just like in Japan.

6-...Say, where did Ren get his pink stripe on his hair? I mean, I assume the stripe itself was inherited from Li, but the color? An's hair is also pink (I think), <font style="color:#DC143C">but it's not the same kind of pink.

7-Now that I think about it, while this episode gave a good explanation of Ren's past...it didn't show much of Nora's side. We see how they met, but not much of Nora's life beyond "bullied hobo". She was just...there, if you ask me. She was there to be there.

Does she have any parents? She said her name was Nora, but just Nora, unlike Ren who gave his full name. <font style="color:#6495ED">Was she an orphan? Are her parents also "nameless"? Was she adopted by the Valkyries? We may never know.

8-The Nuckelavee...kudos to the Scottish for thinking up something so awesome. I have great hopes for that thing, and I hope it doesn't end up like the Dragon: Petrified before it does anything besides moving around.

I want it to wreck Arse if not RNJR. If Ruby tries to beat it with the Silver Eyes of God, I want them to fail to work, so they can't save their asses. I want them to not manage to kill it, only make it flee.

9-Is it just me or is some of the animation for Ren at the end a bit...stiff? Particularly with the arms.

10-Alright, Arse in Cursed Love, still no Curse, still no Love. Good. Renora not in Secret Love, still Secret, still no Love. Bad.

Granted, they held hands so it's getting there, but it wasn't a handhold of love, more like one of "stay with me, I'm scared".

11-I've heard quite a number of people say Ren is swimming in Death Flags right now.

Personally, he is definitely not.

The one swimming in Death Flags is Qrow. And the ones in real danger are Arse, towards which Nuckelavee is heading towards.

12-Before the end of Oscar's scene(s), we see a train with some neon-blue lines glowing.