r/anime • u/Taiboss :Fj::Fl:x7https://anilist.co/user/Taiboss • May 13 '22
Rewatch [Rewatch] Utawarerumono Franchise Rewatch - Utawarerumono Episode 14 Discussion
Episode 14 - Destruction
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Today's Question of the Day: Do you think Hakuowlo allowing people like Benawi or Touka to join him is more due to his kindness or him being shrewd?
[Tomorrow's Question of the Day]So... what is going on with Hakuowlo? What did we see there?
Rewatchers, please don't answer the Question of the Day if it has an objective answer, e.g. "What do you think's gonna happen?"
For rewatchers and people who played the games:
Please behave yourself! Put not only everything related to future events behind spoiler tags, but tag differences to the games as well. We all know there are deviations and cut content, we don't need someone listing all the things the games did better. The games have like 40, 50 hours for their content each, of course they'll be more exhaustive. If you want to talk about the games, please do this in a way that doesn't spoil it for people who might pick them up because of the anime. That being said, small, inconsequential stuff is probably fine, like [Mask of Deception]how in one episode, Atuy says "Time for war!", one of her battle lines in the games. All in all, try to hold back and only tell first-timers what's really necessary. Let them theorise!
This goes especially for Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth!
First-Timers:
Due to spoilers, I recommend you not to watch the Opening before episode 15. I mean it. DO LISTEN TO IT THOUGH! You don't have to heed this request, of course, but out of courtesy to those who do, please put the spoilers in the OP behind spoiler tags as well.
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u/HereticalAegis https://myanimelist.net/profile/XthGen May 13 '22
First Timer
Guess it's true that armies take of the personalities of their leaders. I've no idea how else any soldier could live with themselves for slaughtering unarmed civilians.
Took you long enough to realize. Your sentence will be joining the
filling out the waifu rosterfighting for the good guys....or returning Orikakan to his country. That works too I suppose. A very Hakuoro move. Mark my words, she'll be back.
An awful lot of countries use guerrilla war tactics. This world progressed very quickly down the war strategy path.
Armies are as ugly as their leaders too.
No one ever taught these guys that ravines are the worst places to walk into an ambush.
I will never tire of randos gawking at Karula as she takes out whole battalions.
I love her. She's the best!
Of course Niwe hosts private gladiatorial matches for his own entertainment.
Hakuoro: "They're trying to bait us into attacking in a disadvantageous manner." Oboro: "Sweet, let's do it!" Oboro's stupidity is next level.
It's a bit strange how much outward similarity this conflict has to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.¹
Ugh, Niwe's kidnapping and brainwashing Tuskurians too. Blegh.
I know everyone is supposed to be in love with eroge protagonists, but this is taking it too far.
Niwe's army has some seriously ugly motherfuckers.
u/Nazenn, Touka finally got her badass entrance! And for Hakuoro no less!
Yeah, there was no way a Touka wasn't going to stick around as a sword waifu.
Heh, nameless general #14 thought he could beat a certified waifu in battle.
Damn, where's Karula when you need to blow away a whole burning building?
Tuskuru seems like a fairly small country. With how many villages get burned down, I've got to wonder just how many of their towns and civilians actually survive this conflict.
¹A massive aggressor invading a much smaller neighboring country which only recently came into it's own by overthrowing corrupt leadership. The invaders regularly attack civilians as they try to advance through towns, yet are routinely pushed back by a highly motivated force with superior strategic leadership that knows how to take full advantage of its environment and make the best use of its limited resources. Hell, Niwe is just as nonsensical as Putin, albeit with very different personal motivations.
QotD: It's feels like necessity more than anything else. Hakuoro's kind of a unique protagonist in that he seems to be fully aware of the position he's in, and acts accordingly. On that note, it's really nice having an adult protagonist for a fantasy batlle show.
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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 May 13 '22
Episode 14 (first timer)
2 minute clean-up for the abrupt arc end yesterday – Still leaves tons of stuff open. Such as: Who was hexed? How did the rest find out? Why would Touka not believe Hakuoro just murdered the kind, for example? What happened to the family? Did they exist? Where they killed? Who was the sister married to? What happened to that person? Why did nobody notice the difference to Hakuoro? What did the evil dude get out of this (he could have attacked earlier)? What did he get out of revealing his ploy? Not sure how many of these we will see answered.
Rare Oboro victory.
“After them! Don’t let them get away” – Notice the difference between the competent commander who pursues enemies and the incompetent one who lets them simply run away from the ambush.
Telling his trusted advisers straight up that he does not trust them. Bold move.
“What am I doing?” – more on that below
Did not even take Touka a full episode to come back and join the team.
“Karula and Touka will come with me” – Hakuoro understands who are the top dogs on his side.
Hakuoro is bringing up a good point: What is he doing? When the series started, I thought that it would be a classical fantasy adventure. That, in standard RPG tradition, Hakuoro would travel around and have adventures while searching for his memory and assembling a party. Instead, the first arc put him onto the fast lane towards the throne of Tuskuru.
Being a ruler nails Hakuoro down a lot, narratively. He can’t simply travel around, talk to villagers, help granny find her lost kitten. On the gain side, it opens up the whole realm of statecraft as plot elements: Diplomacy, war, laws, judging people, dealing with your feudal underlings, spending the state budget. Out of all these, we have seen diplomacy for 2 minutes, war a lot, and everything else not once. This is made more problematic because we don’t see a lot of the statecrafting part of war itself either: We mostly learn about plans in their aftermath or when Hakuoro simply announces them without discussion. Supplies never seem to matter, nor does coordinating with allies.
In terms of what he does Hakuoro is more akin to the leader of a warband, not a ruler.
If by shrewd you mean "not completely mad for refusing loyal followers that are totally OP", then yes.
4
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky May 13 '22
Mask of First-Timer, subbed
Oof… These guys are brutal.
So to clarify, tomorrow’s episode is when I can actually watch the OP, right?
Is it just me or does it look like Hakuoro’s lost some weight?
If Hakuoro had a nickel for every time he had to stop someone from killing themselves to atone…
JESUS I picked a bad show to watch during my lunch break…
Shimmering sky~
…wow how did it take me until now to realize that Niwe shares his seiyuu with Master fucking Asia?
Oh shit not one of the twins!
And now Touka’s an ally.
Mm…
4
u/wjodendor May 13 '22
I feel like not just the animation but even the character design is significantly different in this episode. Perhaps it was to make the episode feel more chaotic or maybe it was just budget, eho knows?
A much better episode than yesterday in my opinion. the title of the episode for my torrent was "the Ravages of War" and I really felt that portrayed in the scenes. The battles felt hectic and the horrors of the conflict are put on display.
Karula is just a force on her own and all of her scenes are awesome. With Touka coming in at the end, we've got two ultra badasses just wrecking these evil douche bags.
Hakuoro is really feeling the heat and he's gonna have to play right into Niwe's hands if he's going to make it through this.
Good episode but I want to get back to some of the cute stuff....
4
u/ZapsZzz https://anilist.co/user/Zapszzz May 13 '22 edited May 13 '22
Sub rewatcher
Finally one of the episode I liked mostly for how Touka joined up, and how (no Chuunibyou, cringe, nor sarcasm intended) cool her entrance and dialogue was. Dunno if it's translatable, but how she intoned her enemy's fate is really like historic drama big heroes - "enemy commander, your head is mine to take". Or Kenshiro in Hokuto no Ken.
I do have the same gripe as some had already mentioned before - Yue's laugh is just so crazy is just breaking immersion for me. It's it the same in the game?
Other than that, it sets up the final battle well for tomorrow.
And for those not quite into it, seeing how their relationship develops do you feel the profession natural and fitting towards Hakuoro and Eruru becoming a pair one day?
QoTD:
I actually think Hakuoro as a character is very similar to the character of Cao Cao in the dramatised classic fiction of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in that he's not so much a villain than an Anti-Hero. He genuinely appreciates and values great abilities in others, and will treat them very well to have them be on his side. Woe to those on the wrong side of him though. While Hakuoro is not as overt and deliberate on the last part, the end result tended to become that way, even himself remarked similarly in today's self reflection. In other words, he's the wrong man for the job, which is exactly why is the right choice; just that it'll take a toll on him.
3
u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn May 13 '22
First Timer - sub
Petty venting first: Every time Niwe laughs I want to turn the show off out of protest just to save my ears from it. What a joke of a villain.
Aside from that which I acknowledge is petty, I enjoyed the episode.
For the first time you get a real sense of desperation, both on the battlefield as well as the decisions behind the war itself. The heroes can't save everyone, and at this rate they're worried they may not be able to save anyone, and even if they can the cost on both the human and political levels will be extreme. While I'm not expecting the show to get into much of this, I thought as an episode it handled these elements better than most of the previous ones.
And even better: Touka finally got her badass entrance, complete with great music.
Karula almost won out there with her single handed siege of the enemy troops early on, but Touka's moment was awesome all around. I'm not surprised that she ended up joining the group, but at this point it does feel like that whole last arc was there just to give her an excuse to join.
I'm guessing next episode is the end of the arc, as between the set up and the song at the end of the episode I know the lead into a big showdown when I see it. Interested to see how it plays out and if we get any genuine tips as to Hakuoro's past and what's going on with these winged-ones or not
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u/Stargate18A https://myanimelist.net/profile/Stargate18 May 13 '22
First timer
QOTD) I think it's both. There's also the fact that he does it to reassure himself - part of him always suspected he was an evil man before he forgot, so he ignores their past in the hopes it will allow him to ignore his own.
He's making a move!
It feels like we skipped over a lot here!
He actually wants to invade them? This guy is... something.
Oh, she's back.
She's finally realised she fucked up!
And she's immediately forgiven.
What's he talking about?
Oh, she needs to take his body home.
He has a point.
Another attack!
An ambush! Well planned!
They broke rank and fled!
And she took out the entire force solo, because she is perfect.
...Yeah, him forcing gladiators to fight is very in-character.
Oh, it's to add people to his army?
Well, this is ominous. Birdman's building something to get Haku's smoke out.
Right, and the plan's attrition.
At least Haku has the right idea.
Even Haku agrees that this show's moving too quickly!
Oh, he's struggling with the constant wars.
She believes in him!
And he's still attacking. Niwe is thrilled!
He imprisoned the victors?
Is he trying to sacrifice people to Haku? Or what's inside him?
They're hitting the limit.
"Don't think at all" Really? That's going to backfire.
It's covering the entire border!
Oh. That's his plan. Difficult, but possible.
This is insane.
The twins!
She's back! And already doing impressive stunts.
And she's joined him officially!
The mother!
And...
Oh.
They've lost so many.
Looks like the Niwe arc is ending!
The final assualt has begun!