English Dub Review: Lord of Vermillion: The Crimson King “Excruciating Sadness Can Be Cured by Other Anguish”

Word vomit: the anime.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Chihiro and the Heroic Lineage try to negotiate with the Guardian State to become allies. Chihiro has a plan to save the world without destroying Tokyo, by having everyone team up against the forces of Chaos and stop them from hurting people. A tentative peace is formed between The Church and the Guardian State.

That night, at the bar, Isshin and Marie are discussing the current state of affairs. Isshin is distrustful of Chihiro because he was convicted of killing his own father, but Marie reveals information that proves Chihiro was not as guilty as previously thought.

Later, at the Church, Yuri reveals information about the Chaos Foundation’s plan to cause another Great Collapse. Shouko is suspicious, but everyone else agrees that Yuri is on their side now. Later, Chihiro and Yuri share an intimate moment with each other in the flower garden, and Chihiro has nightmares about killing his father.

While investigating the Foundation’s recently acquired properties in the city, Marie gets into a fight with a mysterious Foundation member wielding Death as a familiar. Marie is swiftly defeated and floats on back to the church before dissolving away in Isshin’s arms. Shouki suspects that Yuri was responsible for her death, having been the one who encouraged her to investigate in the first place. Just then, Grumman and the other Foundation members show up to take Yuri back. Yuri initially resists, but scorned by the other members of the Church, she submits to her father’s wishes.

Our Take:

It’s another big death this time around on Lord of Vermillion. Marie’s passing is another one of those moments that I’m guessing was supposed to be big and emotional but completely misses its mark. Again, just like with the untimely death of Inuki, the trouble is that we haven’t had the quality time to develop a connection with the character. Yes, Marie is a “Good guy”, but she’s been so stiff and uninteresting since she stepped on the scene that I sometimes forgot she even existed. The show can’t expect the viewer to just go along for the ride without putting in the legwork to flesh these characters out as actual people. And, given the way this story is going, I bet they could murder the entire cast in one go and the audience wouldn’t respond with anything more than eyebrow raise and an exasperated yawn.

If you’re looking for entertainment, you certainly won’t find it here. With the emotional core of this episode falling flat on its ass, there isn’t much to do except watch our cast regurgitate tired sentimentalities at each other until the episode’s runtime finishes out. Very little combat takes place, and most of the dialogue is exposition mixed in with a little bit of edgy backstory.

Underlying all of this is the problem that this show has some serious functional problems with conveying information. I’ve been watching this series for eight weeks, and it feels like I need a set of cliff notes to understand what’s going on. This isn’t just a problem with storytelling, but an issue with basic communication ability. It feels as if there are scenes missing from each episode, wherein essential character development takes place.

This is an ugly episode. One that goes over-the-top with Chihiro’s grimdark backstory without properly establishing the tone and character foundation to take us to such a dark place. As always, things feel rushed and uninspired, with a main character’s death leaving little to no impact on the audience at all. This show continues to fail to attract an audience (As demonstrated by the distinct lack of voices in the comments section for each episode) and its because each episode reeks of mediocrity, and the viewers can smell it a mile away. Don’t come into this week’s showing expecting anything more than an episode that somehow manages to be too much and too little at the same time.