Episode 10: The Demon Hand Approaching!
Episode 10: The Demon Hand Approaching!
Hey kids! Need to download the episode? Check this out!
So, anyway. As you can tell from the episode title, things are about to get ominous.
We start with a repeat of episode 09's ending scene. Raven tells Stoffel that there's no turning back, that he can only walk forward toward "the glory." Stoffel stares down at his rather small army, which I think is supposed to be big and scary, but is actually rather... small. Only four guys on horseback? Oh come on. Well, maybe they're uber-l33t magic users. I dunno.
Vaguely ominous music plays as the title of the episode appears.
Next, Yuuri/Conrad/Wolfram/Wolfram's guards are preparing to leave the castle in the middle of the night. Still ominous music playing. Yuuri is back in his "disguise" because they're riding into town, and if his identity is discovered, it will cause a commotion.
So apparently the townspeople are SO STUPID that they WON'T NOTICE if some mysterious red-headed kid is riding the Maou's horse and accompanied by the Maou's fiancé, said fiancé’s l33t guard, a bunch of other l33t guards, and freakin' Conrad. Okay. Nothing suspicious about that, nope. And Wolfram's pretty pretty face isn't going to cause a commotion anyway, I guess. (*sigh*) I am baffled by this logic, but whatever.
Anyway, Gwendel says that he's going to stay behind at Blood Pledge Castle and prepare for the worst-case scenario. He tells Conrad to prepare, too.
Barely Disguised Maou and Company move out. A skeleton spies on them and flies away.
Meanwhile, Stoffel is sitting around, brooding, and not doing a very convincing job of being a villain. Raven walks in on him, and is soon joined by the flying skeleton that was spying on the Barely Disguised Maou. The flying skeleton drops two twigs, which Raven tells Stoffel means that the Maou has left his castle.
Wait, two twigs? I thought that Raven could talk to the skeletons. He did so in the previous episode. What's with the unnecessarily complex Super Sekrit Code Signals all of a sudden?
Next! Yuuri and his Totally Inconspicuous Cohort are riding toward town. The weather is great, the atmosphere is peaceful, and Yuuri's in good spirits. Wolfram asks how he can be so calm. Yuuri answers that since "the thief is Stoffel's man" (wait I thought they hadn't determined that yet?) and since Stoffel is Wolfram/Conrad/Gwendel's uncle, then things can't be THAT bad, right?
Wolfram replies angrily, "He's not any uncle of mine!"
Conrad reprimands him. "Wolfram!"
Wolfram responds with some appropriately vague anger. "You ought to know what kind of person he is! He--! He--!"
But of course Conrad cuts Wolfram off before Wolfram can reveal any juicy details to Yuuri. Or to us, the viewers.
Back home at BPC, Gwendel is ordering around a bunch of guards and being appropriately manly and scary. Oh hey look, the animators actually remembered to draw Gwendel with broad shoulders. Normally he just looks like an amorphous green blob. Anyway. He reports to Gunter, who is standing alone in a study-like room and looking out a window, making sad eyes. WOE AND ANGST.
Because of the cursed crown which fell on his head, he is unable to be near His Majesty in His Majesty's time of need. WOE AND ANGST. The World's Tiniest Violin plays in the background as Gunter bemoans his fate, and tries to talk up Stoffel as being a Big Scary Threat for Yuuri to be up against. ("He stole the Dragon Stone, which is a totally important symbol of our country even though for some reason we kept it locked in a basement! And his ineffective ninjas tried to kidnap Yuuri in broad daylight! Clearly the man is a CRIMINAL MASTERMIND! Woe, poor Yuuri!")
Then - ta-da! Anissina appears and vows to remove the cursed crown from Gunter's head. Gunter readily agrees to submit to her machinations. Gwendel realizes that the worst-case scenarios is suddenly unfolding right before his eyes. Comical Sound Effect at the end of Anissina's theme music is still stupid.
Cut! Yuuri and company arrive at "the town." Yuuri helpfully informs us viewers that "the criminals" are hiding in this town, which I suppose must have been information revealed to them by the Failure Ninja captured in the previous episode. Yuuri, Conrad, and Wolfram walk through the town's marketplace, totally unnoticed by the townspeople, LOLwhut. They pass by a costume salesman hawking a "Maou Transformation Set" (a cape and crown) and pitching it with the catchphrase, "You'll be the Demon King from now on!" ("Kyou Kara Maou!" Heeeee!)
They pass by more vendors hawking Maou Candy, Maou Manju, and Maou Bread. Yuuri buys some bread and is disappointed to find that it's nothing special, just bread with black food coloring. However, this does give the animators an excuse to draw Yuuri wrapping his mouth around something at least vaguely phallic-looking.
Yuuri calls the Maou-themed stuff "pirated goods," but Conrad says that they can just overlook it because people are so happy to be welcoming the new Maou. Pirated goods? Really? Does Yuuri have the phrase "Maou" copyrighted, or what? Shinou would probably like to have a word with him about that.
Conrad tells Wolfram and Yuuri to wait while he asks around town. Conrad leaves. Moments later, a small child wearing the Maou cosplay set and brandishing a toy Morgif shows up out of nowhere and TOTALLY PWNS YUURI.
Oh my god, Yuuri. Pwned by a six-year-old. And in front of your fiancé, too. Way to be smooth, slick.
Conrad shows up MOMENTS LATER with a random townsperson in a styling pink shirt and green sweater-tied-around-his-neck. The townspeople have informed Conrad that the thieves are indeed hiding out here! Wow. That took, like, ten seconds. Yuuri observes that Conrad is very friendly with the townspeople. Wolfram makes an angry-pouty face and says "Yeah, you're right" in a clearly disapproving voice.
Brief cut to Anissina, Gwendel, and Gunter. Anissina has strapped Gunter to a giant spinning machine and declares that she will separate the crown from him using "centrifugal force." Um, lady? I'm pretty sure that centrifugal force doesn't actually work that way.
Centrifugal force: UR DOIN IT WRONG.
Next, Anissina attempts to suck the crown off Gunter's head using a giant vacuum. Still no go.
Finally, she orders Gwendel to wash Gunter's hair using a shampoo that will supposedly make Gunter's hair super-slick so that the crown will come right off. Except that the crown isn't attached to his hair, it's attached to his skull. Well, whatever. Either way, this gives the animators an excuse to show us a scene in which Gwendel shampoos Gunter's hair while Gunter moans orgasmically.
Stupid Comical Sound Effect is still stupid.
Back to the town. Conrad dumps Yuuri and Wolfram in a cafe and tells them to stay put while he pokes around some more. Yuuri isn't happy about this, and wants to be more useful. But Conrad tells him to stay put.
Conrad leaves, but Yuuri just paces around the cafe restlessly, moaning like Morgif. Wolfram tells him, in so many words, to shut up and sit down. But Yuuri won't have that. He wants to help with the investigation! So he works on convincing Wolfram to let him go. "Wolfram, you're with me! As long as Wolfram is with me, even if we're attacked by suspicious strangers, we'll be fine!" His ego stroked, Wolfram begins to cave. Yuuri presses on. "I swear that I won't leave your side! So please, please, pretty-please?!"
It works.
Wolfram caves.
Next we are treated to a brief montage during which Really Heroic Music plays as Yuuri accomplishes the arduous task of... walking around town and talking to people. GO YUURI. Well, hey, this is the Maou that just got pwned by a six-year-old, so we'll give him whatever credit we can, hmmm? Wolfram runs after Yuuri and yells at him angrily, forbidding him from talking to any girls or "pretty-faced men." Meanwhile, NINAJS STALK THEM from the rooftops.
Cut back to the castle! For THIS SCENE, which I can do no justice to in words. Thankfully, here are some small screencapss, clickable for bigger versions:
Hookay, back to the town. Yuuri and Wolfram are resting by a fountain. Wolfram turns into Captain Exposition and reveals a bunch of really important plot details, namely:
Watching Wolfram tell this tale about Conrad, Yuuri gets that googly-eyed look on his face. "You really do care about Conrad," he starts to say, but Wolfram cuts him off angrily. "No! You're wrong! He's not like us!"
"Because his father was a human?"
"Yes. I lived together with him when I was a child. I trusted him from the bottom of my heart. But... The brother that I believed in so much, his father was a human! You have NO IDEA what it felt like to find that out!"
OMG FLASHBACK!
Yuuri replies calmly, "But you're siblings, aren't you? I have an older brother too. He annoys me sometimes, but... I can't imagine life without him."
(Huh. I thought that Yuuri was pretty much living a life without his brother right now anyway, both on Earth and of course when he's transported to Shin Makoku... but whatever.)
Yuuri says some more fluffy words. Touching music plays. Wolfram looks up at the sky and reminisces about how he heard that when he was first born, Conrad held him in his arms and carried him around carefully and lovingly. But Wolfram finally snaps out of his reverie and angrily declares, "But the past is the past! I hate him now! I hate his GUTS!"
So, anyway. Yuuri and Wolfram continue their investigation. Conrad returns to the cafe and finds them GONE. Panic time. He runs around searching for them, finds them... And seconds later they are all ATTACKED BY NINJAS.
Clearly these ninjas are a lot more competent than the first batch that Stoffel sent to BPC, because they manage to knock out Yuuri and spirit him off right away. Conrad and Wolfram give chase during a Very Badly Animated Chase Scene, but ultimately the ninjas win. OH NOES.
Reaction shots:
Conrad dramatically screams "YUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIII!"
Gwendel punches a table, makes a manly angry face, and vows to go after Yuuri.
Gunter goes to. [Spoiler]So we're finally going to see Totally Badass Gunter in the next episode, right?
Anissina looks vaguely grim and determined, even though she's not going to do anything useful.
The maids look scared. The maids are useless and lame.
The episode ends with Stoffel looming dramatically over an unconscious Yuuri while scary music plays. Stoffel laughs evilly. (*sigh*) He's just not very evil, though, is he?
I'm sorry, but in light of the villains that we know are coming later on the series, Stoffel is just kind of... lame.
Hee hee! During the ending credits, a sped-up version of the Badly Animated Chase Scene is shown. On 2x speed it doesn't look so badly animated after all!
Thoughty McThought Thoughts
Man, this whole "rewatch" thing is just constantly reminding me of how BAD the animation is. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. But, par for the course for Studio Deen, so what can you do?
I'm not entirely surprised, however, to find that the animators lavished more love and care on the scene were Yuuri bites a vaguely phallic loaf of bread than they did on the entire climatic fight/chase scene at the end.
Anyway, while I'm not a big fan of the Stoffel arc, it does establish some much-needed story meat: Basically, introducing us to Conrad's past, giving us our first glimpses of Wolfram's childhood, properly introducing Julia, etc.
Wolfram's stated reasons for his "hatred" (not very convincing hatred, though) of Conrad are still shallow and unconvincing. So far his only offered reason is that he was unduly shocked to find out that Conrad had a human father... Therefore... he hates Conrad. I guess. Because the shock was just SO TERRIBLE and he TRUSTED CONRAD SO MUCH, WOE! Then again, I probably shouldn't snark at that too much. It's childish logic, yes, but at the time Wolfram was a child, so things that may not shock or hurt a rational adult can still be pretty scarring at that age. That, and Wolfram is still a selfish little brat at this point in the story, and just barely beginning to develop into a more mature person. So we can cut him some leeway for having what are ultimately incredibly stupid reasons for holding a grudge against his formerly-beloved brother.
Yuuri is so obviously the Shoujo Heroine who is going to heal Wolfram's scars and reunite the brothers by reigniting their bonds of love. I don't consider that a spoiler. It's so painfully obvious (and clichéd), the writing is right there on the wall. Still, this IS Kyou Kara Maou, so even though we can predict where the story is going, it's still going to be a fun ride.
I can forgive The Crown for being a totally unexplained and utterly disposable plot device because it brought us pointless but awesome lulz. So that's all right.
Next up to bat is chasingphantoms with episode 11!
Hey kids! Need to download the episode? Check this out!
So, anyway. As you can tell from the episode title, things are about to get ominous.
We start with a repeat of episode 09's ending scene. Raven tells Stoffel that there's no turning back, that he can only walk forward toward "the glory." Stoffel stares down at his rather small army, which I think is supposed to be big and scary, but is actually rather... small. Only four guys on horseback? Oh come on. Well, maybe they're uber-l33t magic users. I dunno.
Vaguely ominous music plays as the title of the episode appears.
Next, Yuuri/Conrad/Wolfram/Wolfram's guards are preparing to leave the castle in the middle of the night. Still ominous music playing. Yuuri is back in his "disguise" because they're riding into town, and if his identity is discovered, it will cause a commotion.
So apparently the townspeople are SO STUPID that they WON'T NOTICE if some mysterious red-headed kid is riding the Maou's horse and accompanied by the Maou's fiancé, said fiancé’s l33t guard, a bunch of other l33t guards, and freakin' Conrad. Okay. Nothing suspicious about that, nope. And Wolfram's pretty pretty face isn't going to cause a commotion anyway, I guess. (*sigh*) I am baffled by this logic, but whatever.
Anyway, Gwendel says that he's going to stay behind at Blood Pledge Castle and prepare for the worst-case scenario. He tells Conrad to prepare, too.
Barely Disguised Maou and Company move out. A skeleton spies on them and flies away.
Meanwhile, Stoffel is sitting around, brooding, and not doing a very convincing job of being a villain. Raven walks in on him, and is soon joined by the flying skeleton that was spying on the Barely Disguised Maou. The flying skeleton drops two twigs, which Raven tells Stoffel means that the Maou has left his castle.
Wait, two twigs? I thought that Raven could talk to the skeletons. He did so in the previous episode. What's with the unnecessarily complex Super Sekrit Code Signals all of a sudden?
Next! Yuuri and his Totally Inconspicuous Cohort are riding toward town. The weather is great, the atmosphere is peaceful, and Yuuri's in good spirits. Wolfram asks how he can be so calm. Yuuri answers that since "the thief is Stoffel's man" (wait I thought they hadn't determined that yet?) and since Stoffel is Wolfram/Conrad/Gwendel's uncle, then things can't be THAT bad, right?
Wolfram replies angrily, "He's not any uncle of mine!"
Conrad reprimands him. "Wolfram!"
Wolfram responds with some appropriately vague anger. "You ought to know what kind of person he is! He--! He--!"
But of course Conrad cuts Wolfram off before Wolfram can reveal any juicy details to Yuuri. Or to us, the viewers.
Back home at BPC, Gwendel is ordering around a bunch of guards and being appropriately manly and scary. Oh hey look, the animators actually remembered to draw Gwendel with broad shoulders. Normally he just looks like an amorphous green blob. Anyway. He reports to Gunter, who is standing alone in a study-like room and looking out a window, making sad eyes. WOE AND ANGST.
Because of the cursed crown which fell on his head, he is unable to be near His Majesty in His Majesty's time of need. WOE AND ANGST. The World's Tiniest Violin plays in the background as Gunter bemoans his fate, and tries to talk up Stoffel as being a Big Scary Threat for Yuuri to be up against. ("He stole the Dragon Stone, which is a totally important symbol of our country even though for some reason we kept it locked in a basement! And his ineffective ninjas tried to kidnap Yuuri in broad daylight! Clearly the man is a CRIMINAL MASTERMIND! Woe, poor Yuuri!")
Then - ta-da! Anissina appears and vows to remove the cursed crown from Gunter's head. Gunter readily agrees to submit to her machinations. Gwendel realizes that the worst-case scenarios is suddenly unfolding right before his eyes. Comical Sound Effect at the end of Anissina's theme music is still stupid.
Cut! Yuuri and company arrive at "the town." Yuuri helpfully informs us viewers that "the criminals" are hiding in this town, which I suppose must have been information revealed to them by the Failure Ninja captured in the previous episode. Yuuri, Conrad, and Wolfram walk through the town's marketplace, totally unnoticed by the townspeople, LOLwhut. They pass by a costume salesman hawking a "Maou Transformation Set" (a cape and crown) and pitching it with the catchphrase, "You'll be the Demon King from now on!" ("Kyou Kara Maou!" Heeeee!)
They pass by more vendors hawking Maou Candy, Maou Manju, and Maou Bread. Yuuri buys some bread and is disappointed to find that it's nothing special, just bread with black food coloring. However, this does give the animators an excuse to draw Yuuri wrapping his mouth around something at least vaguely phallic-looking.
Yuuri calls the Maou-themed stuff "pirated goods," but Conrad says that they can just overlook it because people are so happy to be welcoming the new Maou. Pirated goods? Really? Does Yuuri have the phrase "Maou" copyrighted, or what? Shinou would probably like to have a word with him about that.
Conrad tells Wolfram and Yuuri to wait while he asks around town. Conrad leaves. Moments later, a small child wearing the Maou cosplay set and brandishing a toy Morgif shows up out of nowhere and TOTALLY PWNS YUURI.
Oh my god, Yuuri. Pwned by a six-year-old. And in front of your fiancé, too. Way to be smooth, slick.
Conrad shows up MOMENTS LATER with a random townsperson in a styling pink shirt and green sweater-tied-around-his-neck. The townspeople have informed Conrad that the thieves are indeed hiding out here! Wow. That took, like, ten seconds. Yuuri observes that Conrad is very friendly with the townspeople. Wolfram makes an angry-pouty face and says "Yeah, you're right" in a clearly disapproving voice.
Brief cut to Anissina, Gwendel, and Gunter. Anissina has strapped Gunter to a giant spinning machine and declares that she will separate the crown from him using "centrifugal force." Um, lady? I'm pretty sure that centrifugal force doesn't actually work that way.
Centrifugal force: UR DOIN IT WRONG.
Next, Anissina attempts to suck the crown off Gunter's head using a giant vacuum. Still no go.
Finally, she orders Gwendel to wash Gunter's hair using a shampoo that will supposedly make Gunter's hair super-slick so that the crown will come right off. Except that the crown isn't attached to his hair, it's attached to his skull. Well, whatever. Either way, this gives the animators an excuse to show us a scene in which Gwendel shampoos Gunter's hair while Gunter moans orgasmically.
Stupid Comical Sound Effect is still stupid.
Back to the town. Conrad dumps Yuuri and Wolfram in a cafe and tells them to stay put while he pokes around some more. Yuuri isn't happy about this, and wants to be more useful. But Conrad tells him to stay put.
Conrad leaves, but Yuuri just paces around the cafe restlessly, moaning like Morgif. Wolfram tells him, in so many words, to shut up and sit down. But Yuuri won't have that. He wants to help with the investigation! So he works on convincing Wolfram to let him go. "Wolfram, you're with me! As long as Wolfram is with me, even if we're attacked by suspicious strangers, we'll be fine!" His ego stroked, Wolfram begins to cave. Yuuri presses on. "I swear that I won't leave your side! So please, please, pretty-please?!"
It works.
Wolfram caves.
Next we are treated to a brief montage during which Really Heroic Music plays as Yuuri accomplishes the arduous task of... walking around town and talking to people. GO YUURI. Well, hey, this is the Maou that just got pwned by a six-year-old, so we'll give him whatever credit we can, hmmm? Wolfram runs after Yuuri and yells at him angrily, forbidding him from talking to any girls or "pretty-faced men." Meanwhile, NINAJS STALK THEM from the rooftops.
Cut back to the castle! For THIS SCENE, which I can do no justice to in words. Thankfully, here are some small screencapss, clickable for bigger versions:
Hookay, back to the town. Yuuri and Wolfram are resting by a fountain. Wolfram turns into Captain Exposition and reveals a bunch of really important plot details, namely:
- There was a war twenty years ago. A really huge bloody terrible war in which many died.
- The war was TOTALLY NOT CELI'S FAULT - she was against the war - but Stoffel incited it anyway.
- Stoffel justified the war because "the humans were causing unrest." He was drunk with his own military power. He would never have become regent if he hadn't been the Maou's brother.
- Conrad lost "Julia" during the war.
- Who was Julia? Not Conrad's girlfriend, but somebody who was "very precious" to him.
- Conrad fought ruthlessly during the war, but nearly died anyway.
- During the war, Conrad earned the name "The Ruthenberg Patriot."
Watching Wolfram tell this tale about Conrad, Yuuri gets that googly-eyed look on his face. "You really do care about Conrad," he starts to say, but Wolfram cuts him off angrily. "No! You're wrong! He's not like us!"
"Because his father was a human?"
"Yes. I lived together with him when I was a child. I trusted him from the bottom of my heart. But... The brother that I believed in so much, his father was a human! You have NO IDEA what it felt like to find that out!"
OMG FLASHBACK!
Yuuri replies calmly, "But you're siblings, aren't you? I have an older brother too. He annoys me sometimes, but... I can't imagine life without him."
(Huh. I thought that Yuuri was pretty much living a life without his brother right now anyway, both on Earth and of course when he's transported to Shin Makoku... but whatever.)
Yuuri says some more fluffy words. Touching music plays. Wolfram looks up at the sky and reminisces about how he heard that when he was first born, Conrad held him in his arms and carried him around carefully and lovingly. But Wolfram finally snaps out of his reverie and angrily declares, "But the past is the past! I hate him now! I hate his GUTS!"
So, anyway. Yuuri and Wolfram continue their investigation. Conrad returns to the cafe and finds them GONE. Panic time. He runs around searching for them, finds them... And seconds later they are all ATTACKED BY NINJAS.
Clearly these ninjas are a lot more competent than the first batch that Stoffel sent to BPC, because they manage to knock out Yuuri and spirit him off right away. Conrad and Wolfram give chase during a Very Badly Animated Chase Scene, but ultimately the ninjas win. OH NOES.
Reaction shots:
Conrad dramatically screams "YUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIII!"
Gwendel punches a table, makes a manly angry face, and vows to go after Yuuri.
Gunter goes to. [Spoiler]So we're finally going to see Totally Badass Gunter in the next episode, right?
Anissina looks vaguely grim and determined, even though she's not going to do anything useful.
The maids look scared. The maids are useless and lame.
The episode ends with Stoffel looming dramatically over an unconscious Yuuri while scary music plays. Stoffel laughs evilly. (*sigh*) He's just not very evil, though, is he?
I'm sorry, but in light of the villains that we know are coming later on the series, Stoffel is just kind of... lame.
Hee hee! During the ending credits, a sped-up version of the Badly Animated Chase Scene is shown. On 2x speed it doesn't look so badly animated after all!
Thoughty McThought Thoughts
Man, this whole "rewatch" thing is just constantly reminding me of how BAD the animation is. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh. But, par for the course for Studio Deen, so what can you do?
I'm not entirely surprised, however, to find that the animators lavished more love and care on the scene were Yuuri bites a vaguely phallic loaf of bread than they did on the entire climatic fight/chase scene at the end.
Anyway, while I'm not a big fan of the Stoffel arc, it does establish some much-needed story meat: Basically, introducing us to Conrad's past, giving us our first glimpses of Wolfram's childhood, properly introducing Julia, etc.
Wolfram's stated reasons for his "hatred" (not very convincing hatred, though) of Conrad are still shallow and unconvincing. So far his only offered reason is that he was unduly shocked to find out that Conrad had a human father... Therefore... he hates Conrad. I guess. Because the shock was just SO TERRIBLE and he TRUSTED CONRAD SO MUCH, WOE! Then again, I probably shouldn't snark at that too much. It's childish logic, yes, but at the time Wolfram was a child, so things that may not shock or hurt a rational adult can still be pretty scarring at that age. That, and Wolfram is still a selfish little brat at this point in the story, and just barely beginning to develop into a more mature person. So we can cut him some leeway for having what are ultimately incredibly stupid reasons for holding a grudge against his formerly-beloved brother.
Yuuri is so obviously the Shoujo Heroine who is going to heal Wolfram's scars and reunite the brothers by reigniting their bonds of love. I don't consider that a spoiler. It's so painfully obvious (and clichéd), the writing is right there on the wall. Still, this IS Kyou Kara Maou, so even though we can predict where the story is going, it's still going to be a fun ride.
I can forgive The Crown for being a totally unexplained and utterly disposable plot device because it brought us pointless but awesome lulz. So that's all right.
Next up to bat is chasingphantoms with episode 11!