English Dub Review: The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar “The Lion That Devours the Tiger”

“Having an idea is one thing, but executing it is another.”

Overview (Spoilers!)

Sigrun reflects on the day she met Yuuto (finally!). She bested him easily in a fight, berating him for his nonexistent combat abilities. Now, she regrets how rude she was to him (Why though??? It’s not like she was wrong).

The next morning, the epic battle between the Wolf Clan and the Lightning Clan begins! After sparring with Lightning Clan warrior Thjalif, Run duels Steinthor; it’s clear she is no match for him. Steinthor takes out numerous Wolf Clan soldiers with brute force alone, and Yuuto decides to retreat.

Steinthor discovers that Wolf Clan warrior Scarfior (a guy we’ve only seen briefly at strategy meetings up until now) is actually a better fighter than Run, but Scarfior refuses to engage him. Steinthor orders his men to follow the Wolf Clan, but they are distracted by collecting the valuable iron arrows that litter the battlefield. Thjalif convinces Steinthor that he should rest, and that Lightning Clan warrior Vingerhor (who?) should pursue the Wolf Clan instead.

Later, Thjalif informs Steinthor that Scarfior killed Vingerhor in battle. Oops. Steinthor is really upset about this, because Ving is his biological brother, apparently.

The next day, Steinthor follows the Wolf Clan army to a riverbed. A combination of Scarfior, Run, Felicia, and some other random warriors we’ve never heard of an attempt to take Steinthor down, only to discover that they’re no match for his crazy strength. But the whole battle was just a ploy to get him to the riverbed—at the right moment, Linnea releases a dam and washes Steinthor away (but have no fear! he’s not dead yet).

Our Take 

When Yuuto tells Linnea, “Having an idea is one thing, but executing it is another,” I actually laughed out loud. Why? Because it describes this show so perfectly: a good idea that’s executed disastrously.

Positives first, because there sure aren’t many of them: The military tactics used in this episode are pretty cool. The idea of using expensive weapons so that the enemy will focus on collecting them rather than pursuing the other army? Genius. And the river trick is really clever, too.

Also, I’m so glad we got to see Run and Yuuto’s first meeting. If you’ve been following my reviews of this show until now, you’ll remember that I desperately wanted Yuuto to display some flaws, for the people of Yggdrasil to prove that they’re better than him at some things. And let me tell you—watching Run crush him in battle was super satisfying.

My excitement was short-lived, though, because we don’t get to see what happens after their fight. Sigrun declares that the Wolf Clan “can’t even use [Yuuto] on the battlefield as an infantry soldier,” and then we cut to her bathing in the river. If Run thought Yuuto was so useless, why did the Wolf Clan keep him around? What changed her mind? I need to know!

The rest of this episode falls prey to a common folly on this show: in a show dedicated to talking about the battle, the battles are brief and not very interesting. Run, Scarfior, Thjalif, and Steinthor are four of the greatest, most epic warriors in Yggdrasil, but all of their fights just consist of… hitting their weapons against other people’s weapons. Parrying each other’s attacks. Okay. Was a fight choreographer not in the budget? When a show spends so much time talking about battle tactics, I want the battles to be a lot more interesting than people just hitting stuff!

I’m also baffled by the battle between Run and Steinthor. She parries his hammer with her sword a few times and then declares she can’t possibly beat him. How does she know? She barely even tried to fight him! And just from watching him hit a couple people, Yuuto determines that Steinthor’s strength is “enough to lift mountains”? What? The same thing happens later, when seven whole people determine they can’t beat Steinthor… after like one attack. Surely they aren’t exhausted after fighting for a grand total of one minute.

The show can’t bother to be consistent in its lore, either. Yuuto claims that, while Steinthor’s an idiot, there’s more going on in his head than meets the eye. Felicia agrees that the Lightning Clan are known for their strategists. What? Since when? Just last episode everyone was saying that the Lightning Clan is famous for rushing into battle without a plan, and using brute force to secure their victory… which is exactly what Steinthor does this episode! Where are these famous Lightning Clan strategies, huh? And come to think of it, the last episode we learned that Steinthor is able to produce incredible morale in his men. We sure didn’t get to see any of that this week.

In The Master of Ragnorak & Blesser of Einherjar, plotlines are usually like that: they get brought up and then dropped immediately, never to be seen again. Remember when Al was going to use her super assassin skills to take out some Lightning Clan guards? I guess the writers forgot about that because it sure didn’t happen here. Come to think of it, why didn’t she participate in the fight against Steinthor? And now that we’re already going down this route, what happened to Ingrid? We haven’t seen her since episode one. What happened to the deal that Steinthor made with Alexis, huh? And, uh, will we ever follow up about the slaves Yuuto bought? Are they okay?

Not to mention that, for the past two weeks, the intro has featured two exciting-looking female characters who have yet to show up. Who are they? What’s up with them? And what’s up with the intro segment where Mitsuki becomes blonde? I have no idea what it means.

Of course, it’s also extremely frustrating that this episode suddenly decides Run isn’t actually the Wolf Clan’s greatest warrior, especially when she’s beating out by some guy we didn’t know anything about until now. What’s his excuse for the Wolf Clan putting Run in the spotlight instead of him? Why it’s that she’s hotter than he is. Talk about belittling the achievements of women. Run is my favorite character and clearly a capable warrior, and I don’t like seeing other characters claim that her only value lies in her looks.

In general, “The Lion That Devours the Tiger” is chock-full of brand-new characters who show up out of the blue. There’s Scarfior, the four Brisingamen who fight Steinthor at the end, and of course, Steinthor’s advisors Thjalif and Vingerhor. I’m especially annoyed that we’re forced to sit through Steinthor’s anguish at Vingerhor’s death—after all, when we know literally nothing about Ving or his relationship with his brother, his death stirs zero emotion in me. I mean, come on. If you want me to care about your characters, you have to give me some information about them.

At several points in this lackluster episode, new terms were introduced as well—and they were never explained, so I haven’t the faintest idea what they could mean. Thjalif is a Managarmr (yes, I did spell that right). Run is an Ivaldi. The four new characters at the end are Brisingamen. Several characters are Einherjar. But what does any of this mean? Maybe it would help if I’d brought more knowledge of Norse mythology to the table, but this stuff isn’t exactly common knowledge. If you want me to understand what you’re talking about, you have to explain what your terms!

The animation in this episode also leaves a little to be desired. After spending a few weeks reviewing Free!, I have a hard time getting excited about the obviously inferior water animation in The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar. And at several points in this episode, characters express strong emotion in their dialogue—but none of it shows on their faces, which are perfectly neutral except for moving lips. My favorite example of lazy animation is a conversation between Yuuto and Scarfior, where the camera is focused entirely on the back of Yuuto’s head. We don’t see any lips move at all, and it’s very difficult to tell whether Yuuto or Scarfior is the one talking. Lastly, I know Vingerhor is Steinthor’s brother, but does he have to look exactly like him? It’s such a boring character design.

You may think that I am frustrated by all the plot holes and missteps I outlined above, and you would be correct. But I have not yet gotten to the worst part of this episode. The ultimate sin. The reason I hate it above all other episodes of this show.

The title card after the commercial break spoils the whole twist of the episode.

That’s right. The card that’s usually dedicated to explaining one of Yuuto’s military tactics explains the river ruse before Yuuto employs it, making it super obvious what’s going to happen. There’s no excuse for so catastrophically spoiling the best part of the episode. Absolutely none.

And of course, the river sequence is also frustrating because Linnea gets praised for her totally awesome work with the dam, but we never actually get to, you know, see her do any of that cool stuff. And I’m mad that she tells Yuuto “You’re a genius!” for the dam idea when he outright told her he stole the idea from someone else. (Especially when Yuuto says he used to be like Steinthor and take credit for things he didn’t work for, but he’s apparently better now. Say what? He doesn’t seem better about it to me.)

I’ll leave you with my personal favorite line from the episode: on the phone with Mitsuki, Yuuto promises that he’ll soon have better resources that will help him figure out how to return home. He says, “Once the Wolf Clan is more powerful, I’ll be able to do more. Like I’ll be able to research and stuff.” I don’t know why a more powerful Wolf Clan means that Yuuto will be able to, like, research and stuff. Maybe if he conquers other clans they’ll have better, uh, magical libraries than the Wolf Clan does? But I sincerely hope Yuuto returns home soon—because then this show can finally end.