©餅月望・TOブックス／ティアムーン帝国物語製作委員会2023
This may sound very condescending, but I promise I’m just being a little sarcastic when I say it’s almost as endearing as the Tearmoon Empire wants us to focus on the Remno Revolution storyline that Karen and Co. was entangled. This week’s episode is filled with tense political standoffs, contemplative inner monologues, epic speeches, and even some dramatic drama. sword fight between two rival princes. The show is so concerned with selling the dramatic drama between the confrontation between Prince Abel and Prince Sion that it almost forgets to include any jokes at all, other than some of Karen’s usual misunderstandings and a one-liner. A rather humorous revelation about the origin of the Princess’s luxurious shampoo.
Now, to be fair to Tearmoon Empire, it’s not like the show hasn’t made an effort to get us to this surprisingly serious penultimate episode of the season. There have been many foreshadowings of puppeteers working to stoke the flames of war and rebellion across the kingdoms of this land, something that Karen herself begins to find out towards the end of the episode, and we We don’t lack time either. to build the conflicting personalities and leadership styles of Abel and Sion. Between all the things we’ve seen the cast go through as children and the flashbacks (or should they be flashbacks?) to the days of Karen’s execution, you can’t say that the series hasn’t defined Get why it’s perfect. it makes sense that Abel and Sion would clash the way they did this week.
Yet for all that—and this is where a bit of childish sarcasm comes in—I can’t help but feel that Tearmoon Empire is going overboard whenever it drops jokes in favor of simple fantasy films. Most likely, this was a much less important issue in the original novels as my main issue had to do with the anime’s presentation skills. Simply put, the crew at Studio Silver Link was not capable of portraying the more serious elements of this story with the heft and drama required. This episode looks its absolute best during the Princes’ sword fight, which for the most part…works perfectly. However, there are cuts right before and after this fight that go beyond the superficial and fall into truly laughably terrible territory (I’m thinking specifically of the moment Dion jumps in to stop the guys boys killing each other, although there are other examples I could easily cite).
I’m sure I said before that I don’t need Tearmoon Empire to have production levels of ufotable joints or anything, but that also means it’s much harder to ignore when the show isn’t up to standard of it, because we had to set the bar relatively low. This wasn’t a terrible episode by any means. Still, it’s certainly an underwhelming watch, and it’s a shame that a series as promising as this would end its season with what’s easily its weakest material to date.
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James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which you can also find on Twitterhis blog and his podcast.
Tearmoon Empire is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
