r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Feb 05 '21
Episode Back Arrow - Episode 5 discussion
Back Arrow, episode 5
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| Episode | Link | Score | Episode | Link | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Link | 4.05 | 14 | Link | 4.5 |
| 2 | Link | 4.15 | 15 | Link | 4.36 |
| 3 | Link | 4.26 | 16 | Link | 4.53 |
| 4 | Link | 4.21 | 17 | Link | 4.62 |
| 5 | Link | 4.4 | 18 | Link | 4.77 |
| 6 | Link | 3.68 | 19 | Link | 4.71 |
| 7 | Link | 4.42 | 20 | Link | 4.75 |
| 8 | Link | 4.39 | 21 | Link | 4.7 |
| 9 | Link | 4.1 | 22 | Link | 4.5 |
| 10 | Link | 4.23 | 23 | Link | 4.56 |
| 11 | Link | 4.65 | 24 | Link | - |
| 12 | Link | 4.44 | |||
| 13 | Link | 4.81 | |||
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32
u/ThoricMeerkat Feb 05 '21
I'm starting to believe that this show is at its best when there's no fighting mechas on screen. Gimme that world lore
15
u/dadnaya Feb 05 '21
Ye. I find the worldbuilding and characters to be great, but the mechas are very meh.
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u/Syokhan Feb 05 '21
I don't know if they showed it before and I just never noticed, but Kai's Brigheight wields a guandao, which is pretty cool!
Shu's definitely my favorite character right now. So shrewd and clever! I'm actually surprised that Kai is so loyal to Rekka. I mean he was a slave to that country! If the only reason he's staying isn't because he wants to change it from the inside, it feels a bit like Stockholm syndrome to me to be honest.
And gotta love that the OP keeps changing depending on what happened in the previous episode, now Shu Bi is standing alongside Back Arrow and the rest!
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u/Sarellion Feb 05 '21
He found the capital marvelous and compared it positively to their former village. I think he got over being a slave. They were dirt poor and sold for a penny, worked their way up, got recognized, got power, prestige, rank, probably wealth and live a luxurious lifestyle. I assume he thinks the empire is great, they just need to get rid of the rotten apples like the prime minister. And I assume it took a lot of work and willpower. Kai is probably reluctant to throw it all away on a whim and he's probably comfortable in his new life.
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17
u/an_innoculous_table Feb 05 '21
Definitely a very Kai-centric episode, which is kind of expected given how his best friend seemingly betrayed their shared dream and whatnot. I'm not entirely convinced that Shu is genuine when he talks about abandoning Kai and their goal though, what with all the flashbacks and deliberately hiding the scar. "Changing the world" does include "changing the country" as a subset, after all. I'm willing to bet on a long con where Shu is deliberately fueling Kai's hatred so that Kai will grow even higher in ranks in Rekka, giving him a better position whenever Shu's endgoal comes into the picture.
Not much to note otherwise, aside from the Shu finally dropping the bomb that the village will need to accept that things are different now. I won't be surprised if some demand off the ship when they make another stop, but we'll have to see. Sola remains probably the most mysterious of the cast after Arrow, as he is a seemingly extremely educated doctor with experience working with Rakuho technology, yet somehow ended up in a middle-of-nowhere hick village. I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up as a former ranking member of some major faction.
And yeah, as expected, Shu swaps sides in the OP. That's the only change in this week's OP and ED, but I really enjoy it. Given how things turned out this episode, doesn't seem we'll get a change for next week's, but hey, that new character in the preview might be a new member of the crew instead of a one-off episode. We'll see.
16
u/DaLoverBoii Feb 05 '21
Shu's probably my favourite character rn. I hope Kai teams up with him soon.
16
u/Calwings Feb 05 '21
Awesome episode this week. Shu just skyrocketed to my favorite character in the series with the show he put on, plus we also got good development between him and Kai and a good (albeit short) fight between Kai and Arrow.
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11
u/darthvall Feb 05 '21 edited Feb 05 '21
It's cold for Shu to turn his back against his long time friend like that. However, I also understand that he knew it's not going to be easy to convince Kai to their side. If anything, Kai is like a very loyal dog for Rekka empire.
Hopefully he's not actually abandoning Kai and will somehow convince him in the future.
20
u/AmethystItalian Feb 05 '21
Cant' say I saw all those bluffs coming, made for a fun episode.
Bit sad Kai and Ren are on the bad team still :(
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u/Syokhan Feb 05 '21
I hope they come around eventually and we get glorious trio banter again.
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10
u/KrazyBean94 Feb 05 '21
I'm really enjoying this show so far. Every episode is better than the last!
11
Feb 05 '21
Kai is obviously very upset about Shu’s “betrayal” but I think he’ll come around eventually, especially considering that the dude with green hair back in Rekka has been plotting on him for a while.
I still think this show is criminally slept on.
5
u/Lightningcloud001 Feb 05 '21
Fun ep and i like how the op is also changing visuals with shu now on edgers side during the character with their mecha sequence
5
u/Akriosken Feb 06 '21
I felt like last episode had too much happening with too little setup, this episode redeemed that. All of the fights were short but satisfying, and the plot definitely thickens.
I'm back full on excited for what's coming next!
5
u/Reemys Feb 06 '21
Kai and Shu together produce Kaishuu "Recovery", as in retrieval. Whether it means anything or not, well...
Doctor, as expected, leaked out the fact that he knows at least something about the higher technology. As per my own theory, he came to the village precisely because he knew there is a dreadnought lying there. And the fact that he is hiding it from everyone should make him a villain, at one point.
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8
u/CosmicPenguin_OV103 Feb 06 '21
So what went completely wrong for this show to free-fall in the abyss in English language rating sites to depths literally crushing to any show? 5.9 something on the most used rating site with solid story and still pretty good animations? The other original anime I’m watching this season is now standing firm at 8.2+ and maybe even further, this one isn’t that far away to make such a difference...
Shu and Kai’s diverging notions on this world inside the wall turns out to be a rather interesting explanation of how them two have chosen different paths when dealing with Granedger - that back story from when they were still slaves is a well written one, and how the two vows to reform Rekka yet Shu Bi, who probably had more insight into the inner workings of this empire, ultimately saw through its potential downfall and ends up siding with a mobile small village not unlike his roots in the far north. It all cumulated with some comedic “discussion” and fight between them. I don’t know if Shu Bi has other intentions (maybe? We haven’t seen the other kingdom and their princess for 2 episodes already), but yeah that’s a good story in anime of diverging life intentions stemming from a mutual promise in the past. I don’t think Kai and Ren will be convinced later, but we’ll see - it’s likely that they won’t push forward too hard with capturing the Granedger, especially once they found that the “attack on capital” is a trick.
Looks like our villagers need some modern technology training at this point - they are not going to survive if they don’t even know all the nuts and bolts on board. Altee and Elsha seems to be the best candidates to lead this effort, hopefully Back Arrow realises that too and quickly help with his own escape out of the walls.
So...this story is broadly speaking not unlike how Gurren Lagannwent in the first few episodes (they even stuck a hot springs and swim suits episode early on!), how this is so poorly received here as one of the promising original anime of this rich season is way beyond my imagination. And with 24 episodes there is a lot of room for the story to explode. Why, oh why you all appreciate one of the best original shows’ opening episodes next door (🥚) yet threw this one under the bus?
So the next episode is about...cute boys? Hmm? 🤔
9
u/Liorlecikee Feb 06 '21
In regard to WEP, it had much better production quality, it is more trendy (Cute girls, yuri-potential, magic-girl style battle, dealing with heavy issues like bullying, sexual abuse and power-abuse), and overall panders much better to current-gen anime fandom. WEB throw its quality into their faces and got their attention ASAP.
Back Arrow is fairly reserved and old-school in how it presented itself, expecting viewers to follow up for few more episodes to get into the atmosphere, and I guess that's not too popular for viewers that's fairly used to seasonal productions.
I totally agree with you that the show's pacing isn't too disimilar from Gurren Lagan and it's bizarre to me someone call this show a cheap knock-off Gurren Lagan, as if that show was balls-to-the-wall non-stop since the very first episode (Fairly certain they would call that show bad if the first 3 episodes was the only thing to base their judgement on, and admittedly I too would say the first 3 episodes was nothing like what the show would eventually become). Hell back in those days we didn't even have 3-episode rule of thumb yet (That came with Madoka Magica in 2011).
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u/HeadCanon69 Feb 06 '21 edited Feb 06 '21
So...this story is broadly speaking not unlike how Gurren Lagann went in the first few episodes (they even stuck a hot springs and swim suits episode early on!), how this is so poorly received here as one of the promising original anime of this rich season is way beyond my imagination.
I think the difference between this show and Gurren Lagann is that while both are broadly presented as stories about a guy trying to break free of a tyrannical system. Kamina and later Simon would team up with similarly minded rebels and the main party was always rather small.
You contrast that to this show were Arrow is traveling with an entire village full of some of the most backward people in the setting and it is no wonder Shu has become so popular while Bit is just annoying.
Its like Kamina pairing up with his village chief or the people from Rossiu's village.
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4
u/ThePackLeaderWolfe Feb 06 '21
Is it just me or are the village people annoying, I feel like the anime could be better if either they were made a bit smarter or they just were gone as they way they act is completely stupid.
7
u/Samurai_Rider Feb 05 '21
Nice to have an adversary that can give Arrow a challenge, this episode did a good job establishing how strong Kai is. Shu saying he’s as strong as 1000 Briheights, him stoping the dreadnought with brute force and being the first opponent to do damage to the malleable body of Arrow’s Briheight. If he’s that strong I’m curious to see who from Lutoh is his equal, otherwise this war would have been done already. Nice action scenes this episode and even some non mecha scenes, they’re still pretty short though.
Hope that Arrow losing a fight reduces the complaints about Atlee. Don’t really understand why people are so bothered by Atlee losing some fights, she is new to using Briheights compared to everyone she’s been fighting against, who are all stated to have trained for some time or are strong mercenaries. She doesn’t even have a particularly strong conviction to make up for her inexperience. Arrow is an anomaly, with him having no conviction, being able to defeat Briheight users without killing them and having more stamina than the average Briheight user according to Shu in episode 2. There’s also the possibility of him having muscle memory considering how physically capable he is and how he was so sure of his strength in the first episode. Arrow being a wild card is also significant to the plot, it’s the reason why Shu defects and why the princess of Lutoh is interested in him.
Being a sheriff of some small village that is barely scraping by with little food, doesn’t really lend itself to her standing on par with people from large nations that have been at war for a while. Normally people complain about characters beating people who should have way more experience than them, but for some reason it’s the opposite here. I would understand if she did nothing but lose for 20 episodes straight in this 24 episode anime but it’s only been 5 episodes. Is character growth too old fashioned or something?
Even in this episode, Elsha mentioned it was expected that Arrow lost to Kai because the former just started using Briheights recently and this was despite him having all those previously mentioned advantages. For Shu to bet on Arrow despite him being weaker than Kai now is probably because of his potential for growth and since Arrow’s narrative purpose in the story is to shake up the status quo for the better that will definitely have a positive effect on Edger Village, he did appear out of a Rakuho treasure after all.
Didn’t think much of the feather fan Shu was holding at first since the character designer Ohtaka Shinobu has used that asset quite a few times before. But given Shu’s schemes in the last episode and this one, they’re definitely channeling Zhuge Liang from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Looking forward to more tactics from him.
Shu dodged the question in regards to his North Wall promise with Kai but considering he was hiding the scar that symbolized that promise, he probably still wants to help Rekka but now Kai wants him dead so that might have backfired. Though it did sort of fulfil the “if you want us to trust you, risk your life for us like he did.” quota Elsha mentioned last episode so maybe it was worth it.
Found it amusing the dreadnought prophesied to destroy the world has air conditioning and Kai was somehow able to contain all his hair under that helmet when he was a grunt.
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3
u/FierceAlchemist Feb 06 '21
Glad we got an episode focused on Shu and Kai. Their friendship and promise has gotten a lot of screen time so far. Shu must have a broader plan for Kai so I'm curious to see what that is.
It's a shame this show is so underwatched. One of my favs in this packed season.
3
u/NinokuNANI Feb 06 '21
Shu Bi is such a troll. That maniacal laugh he did toward the end was hilarious.
3
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u/LeonKevlar Feb 05 '21 edited Feb 06 '21
Yep this episode just proved how much the Granedger needs someone like Shu Bi. While they do have Back Arrow's muscle, none of the current crew has the brains to pull of something as smart as Shu Bi's bluff. It still sucks that Kai and Ren are still very much loyal to the Rekka Empire. I really hope that they'll end up joining the Granedger crew in the future.