English Dub Review: Drifters “Baba Yetu”

We’re closing in on the final act, so let’s do this.

The plot picks up immediately after episode 9’s ending when Black King attempts to recruit one of the six Great Dragons, the Bronze Dragon, into joining his army. However, he’s met with contempt and refusal by the latter for subjugating his dragon brethren as “beasts of burden” in his miliary forces. When the Black King is seen openly exchanging words with the “Bronze Dragon”. He’s not at all put off by the sheer “Kaiju”-sized scale of this creature.

As the Bronze Dragon begins attacking him in response to an insult, the Black King hits him with some sort of wave of intensely painful tumors all over its body which leaves Hijikata disturbed but Rasputin explains to him how his powers work with what he describes as “The Replication of Life itself”. In other words, He’s able to replicate living cells and if the cells reach uncontrolled levels in their reproduction, it can lead to cancerous growth!

That’s terrifying and when you think about it, it also kinda reminds me of how Deadpool’s Healing powers work since his are fueled by uncontrolled cell growth that regenerates yet clash with his cancer cells putting him in arguably a constant state of pain and giving him a reason to wear a full body suit.

By using his ability to replicate the cells of any life form, the Black King tortures the Bronze Dragon by causing his body to suffer from cancerous growth bending the creature to its will.

After a random scene where the Black Kings multiplies wheat for the Monsters for Crops, Rasputin presents the completion of a simple alphabet and a syncretic religion that mixes “Varuna, Egyptian and Celtic” mythos” using an Egyptian eye as their symbol for the monster-races of the Black King for them to learn and help establish a unified, multiracial community, and “cast humanity to the dust” as per the Black King’s wishes.

After 4 episodes in, we finally see what the “Virgin” from episode 6 is up to. Apparently, he’s become the “auditor” of the castle Toyo’s crew invaded and it’s revealed that his name is Mills.

Hilariously Mills is mildly annoyed that the very people who spared his life are still making virgin-jokes but is informed by one of the Elves that a “frilly carriage” has shown up and when Mills recognizes who it is, He’s very quick to tell the Elf children to “run for cover” knowing what kind of lecherous person he is. (insert Nambla joke here.)

Mills greets and informs Saint Germain and his subordinates and explains that so far the Drifters are currently working on explosive & firearms which shocks Germain to his core and demands to meet them.

We finally cut to Galdoka where the Dwarves are fully replenished and now look more like Vikings which is quite a coincidence since the Dwarves in the Lord of the Rings Franchise often resembled Vikings design-wise too.

It leads to a number of fun scenes, From Yoichi being drunk off his ass, to Oda requesting that the Dwarves begin forging muskets using Toyo’s rifle as a template to use for their army in future battles.

Meanwhile, we discover that Joan has awakened from her coma after her fight with Toyo in episode 7, is informed by Anastasia that her longtime comrade Gilles de Rais is dead. Joan of course in response to this, vows to avenge her fallen comrade by killing Toyo, to which Anastasia vows to assist her once she fully recovers “When the time is right”.

We then cut back to the Bronze Dragon who is under extreme torture from the Black King’s Cell replication who’s army is cutting off chunks of the Bronze Dragons tumored skin to use as forging material for weapons & armor and constantly healing his body with each time a chunk is removed only growing tumors in its place and after a sharp-tongued remark towards the Dragon, The Black King walks away and one of the guards notices a piece of him crumbling off his body in which he tells him to keep it a secret. (Is this implying that his powers are secretly detrimental?)

We then cut to one of Easy’s random Portals where Yoshitsune welcomes what looks like a Samurai clad in Green Armor and covered in blood on parts of his body with Easy bragging in about fighting Murasaki saying “No way Am I gonna lose to that Jackass!”

Back to Galdoka, the Dwarves successfully replicate a Musket and estimate given their skilled blacksmith abilities that they’re able to make “ten at muskets at a day most” which surprises Oda with a sinister grin. The focus shifts with Toyo training in Melee combat with them and sharing their philosophies in hand-to-hand which earns Toyo’s respect since the way the Dwarves fight is similar to the “Jigen” fighting style and expresses he never had the time to pursue it due to how little time he was given to train and only learned the “Taisha-style”. There’s a great commonality that brings a smile to my face when one of the Dwarves says to him “However wide the gulf is between my world and yours, in battle, we are one.” and Toyo says in response “though in looks they may differ, every land has its warriors”. 🙂

It’s a deep & philosophical moment that comes to a comedically abrupt halt when our main protagonists encounter Count Saint-Germain and his two subordinates for the first time to meet with the Drifters, sending his aides to test Toyo to see if they are worthy to form an alliance with.

Saint-Germain reveals to Olminu that not only is he a Drifter himself, but so was Hitler! I guess that kinda makes sense, true Hitler was an unrepentant monster and a genocidal maniac but even he saw use in his own people compared to The Black King who thinks humanity as a whole is a lost cause.

Saint Germain who owns a 3rd of the Orte empire wants to sell the Orte empire as a whole to the Drifters predicting that at some point, the Empire will eventually be destroyed by other warring countries.

In order to preserve what’s left of it, Saint-Germain recommends that the Drifters to “Topple and seize” Orte as their territory while the Empire “still holds power” and before we can get an answer on whether or not our main protagonists will say yes, it cuts to black with a “to be continued”.

Overview.

When I first heard the title of the episode, I had to research its significance and apparently Baba Yetu is the “lord’s prayer in Swahili” but I don’t understand why it’s this episode’s title.

It’s quite hypocritical of the Black King to say he wants to unify all the monster races, then when The Bronze Dragon bends to his will, he doesn’t undo what he did to him and proceeds to use him as his own personal bronze stockpile for weapons & armor. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to do that when you claim to unify the monster races.

It’s been years since I reached this point of the Manga So let me make sure I’m crystal fucking clear on what this episode just revealed. Aside from Hitler being a “Drifter” and not an “End”. The majority of people native to this fantasy world don’t understand or recognize the menace of the Ends invasion, so they don’t assist the Octobrists (founded by another Drifter who knows they’re a legit threat btw.) in their war for survival against the Ends?

In a way this kinda teaches us that sometimes even Murasaki makes mistakes whenever he forcibly drags random historical figures to this fantasy world, We get the impression that he only considers the value of their skills on the battlefield but doesn’t research or think about how morally bankrupt that particular person is?

I’m sure Murasaki only cared about results in his battle against Easy but did he blindly expect a monster like Hitler to lead a kingdom with his twisted influence to combat the Ends? Judging from how long the Orte have been around, It seems they didn’t care about the Ends as a threat either.

With two episodes left of this season, let’s see what their answer is in episode 11 and what this will lead towards.