©©Yu Hashimoto/Shueisha/Lilitha Manufacturing Committee
Apart from final week’s temporary (and albeit nonetheless bizarre) alien stint, the sequence has performed a reasonably good job of hiding its online game roots and roughly managed to face by itself two ft. Whereas that final half continues to be true, it was solely a matter of time earlier than we reached a state of affairs that felt somewhat an excessive amount of prefer it was ripped straight from the unique recreation – and we’ve lastly reached that time. This week’s episode will be summed up as an prolonged boss encounter – and whereas it’s definitely not unhealthy, it didn’t precisely depart me with a lot to hold onto.
With the autumn season approaching, Sakuna and the others are lastly prepared to reap the rice fields, however earlier than they will, they uncover that one thing from the volcano appears to be poisoning the fields. Sakuna goes with the Ashigumo to research and discovers a monster poisoning the realm utilizing the corpses of the Ashigumo’s brothers as a boss combat ensues. It is high quality for what it’s – and it is animated fairly nicely – but it surely’s not a really compelling combat by itself and looks like a type of issues that may in all probability be much more thrilling to play than to look at. Essentially the most we get out of it’s studying extra about how the Ashigumo used to work along with Sakuna’s dad and mom to guard the land – and whereas it is good to be taught somewhat extra about them, it isn’t sufficient to hold this complete factor by itself.
Fortunately, that encounter solely takes up the primary half of the episode, and once they understand they’re no match, Sakuna and the Ashigumo are compelled to retreat. Sakuna realizes she’ll want extra energy to defeat the monster, however as a substitute of leveling up for some new assault expertise (which she does point out as an choice), Tama recommends utilizing her powers as a harvest goddess and rising her energy by harvesting the rice fields. Whilst you’d assume that may sound much more boring than preventing a large monster, I used to be far more on this section as a result of I felt like I used to be at the very least studying one thing from it. If something, it gave me a higher appreciation for rice farming, because it highlighted simply how intensive a course of it’s. Finally, issues come again to the boss combat, as Sakuna decides to combat the monster as a substitute of the Ashigumo, however her determination to take action as a result of she desires to spare him the ache of harming his family members at the very least exhibits that Sakuna has turn out to be rather less egocentric since coming to the island. It makes for some good character growth.
However past that, there’s not far more to this one. The ending of the combat seemed fairly good – and it’s good that the Ashigumo appears to be sticking with the group longer – however that is probably the most the present has ever felt like a online game, and the episode suffers somewhat for that. Nonetheless, given how nicely the present in any other case prevented feeling like a let’s play, I’m prepared to put in writing this one off as a blip and hopefully issues will choose up subsequent week.
Judgement:
Sakuna: Of Rice And Break presently streaming on
Crispy bread.
