English Dub Review: To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts “Two Oaths”
Overview:
Schaal and Hank reunite.
Our Take:
We see Hank’s struggle this time around, how he feels that perhaps he isn’t out doing the right thing. He feels immense guilt for losing control and destroying the town, and is now shaken up by his former comrade’s words. Although he held to his creed and made sure to put all his friends down while they were still human, he was still killing them. Having lost control and become a beast himself, does he really have the right to pretend to be righteous?
However, Schaal insists that he’s doing the right thing, and stays by his side. She even fights the Garm alongside him. Having killed her father as a monster, she knows that she’d much rather have remembered her kind father as a human than a rampaging monster that would have destroyed her home. Even though Hank’s actions are morally gray, they are the right thing to do when considering the alternative. It’s not extermination like the military wants, but to allow their souls to rest.
Altogether, it’s thematically significant, and it builds up on a lot of the information that was already previously introduced. It’s not like this information was out of nowhere, there is significant planting and payoff. However, for the duration of the episode, I didn’t find it very engaging? Usually I enjoy stories like these, where people are at their lowest point and come to some sort of realization, especially if that realization is through another person giving them hope. This should be exactly my kind of thing, but for some reason, I couldn’t really get excited about it.
Perhaps it’s an issue that I mentioned earlier in the season: the anime is condensed in a way the manga isn’t. While I haven’t read the manga, I remember it taking its time compared to the anime, which lasts only a single cour and so has a lot of plot to cover in just under 15 episodes. Schaal and Hank’s journey together would likely feel a lot longer, and so their dynamic would grow more gradually. Likewise, Hank’s departure and Schaal’s time spent with the military would feel longer as well, and so Hank’s absence would be deeper and more motivated. Here, it’s only an episode or two that they’re apart, and then we see that Hank is good and well again. It doesn’t feel as impactful or motivated.
Of course, that’s not the fault of the story itself, but an unfortunate consequence of the medium and the pacing of anime cours as a whole.
