© Kanata Yanagino, OVERLAP/Faraway Paladin Production Committee
Faraway Paladin episode 4 takes the time to do what this series does best: show that William is a good guy with a good heart.
A big focus of this episode is Ru’s training. Will has decided to make Ru his idol, and they begin training to help him get up to speed. Another note I will make is that I find the choice of thane as the title to be an… odd choice. I would never claim to be an expert on the various European cultures that used the title thane historically, but I have always thought that there was some measure of land management involved. Most feudal titles are like that (such as calling someone “my baron” without a baronet). But there may be uses of the term to mean just a close retainer, a knight, or something similar. That was the intention… or perhaps it wasn’t? Maybe Will will give Ru a part of Torch Town to manage and he’s trying to train him to be able to protect that land. I find this odd and perhaps I’m alone in this.
However, Ru was trained by Will and Menel. I love these sequences. After all, who doesn’t love a good training video? It’s just a nice bonding time between the boys and Ru’s innocence is fun to watch. As someone who has loved a lot of fantasy media over the years, it was nice to see a dwarf warrior in a mentor role for once. Typically, Dwarves are older and harsh mentor-type characters, since they tend to live a long time and their beards make them look older so it makes sense to put them in that role. We rarely see a depiction of a relatively inexperienced dwarf, and it’s a small but interesting twist on an old formula.
After that, Will and Ru entered the dungeon together. There are some interesting practicalities, specifically the multiple light source element. However, I question the wisdom of going in on my own without any support, supplies, etc. This is one of those times when you have to let the realism slide but it makes me lost interest a bit. There’s a reason the classic dungeon crawling adventures of the 1970s often involved large parties, followed by scores of hired servants/servants supported by food, carriages, beast of burden, etc
I’m curious to see how this works. Delve still works.
Rating:
Grant is a cohost on the Blade Thief Podcast and the Super Senpai Podcast.
Faraway Paladin: Lord of Rust Mountain is now streaming on Crunchyroll.