Review: Onyx Equinox “Jaws of The Jaguar”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After the gods’ bet is made, Tezcatlipoca summons Yaotl his champion with an order to assist Quetzalcoatl’s champion. Then the episode returns to Yaotl dragging Izel out of the water, and upon waking up Izel is scared of him and once told of his task denies it and would rather die. Yatol annoyed pushes Izel to accept his destiny to close the gates of the underworld while noting that upon his remarks about Nelli that Izel has some fight in him. When the giant jaguar pushes him to complete his task Izel runs in the opposite direction. Izel falls down after the ground cracks beneath him, he encounters a monster in the water then he escapes and finds a talking dagger near a carved pilled. The monster attacks from above and Izel runs for his life.

Once he gives blood to the talking dagger it transforms and with it he’s able to wound the monster. However, he loses the dagger as it drops into the water as Yatol finds them however he can’t help because of the stone. Izel activates the gate of the underworld pulling on a mechanism. He manages to escape the guardian and run to the gate and use it to kill the guardian who gets cleaved in two. Afterward, he returns home and grieves a bit before refusing the help of the old lady he offered food to and being shunned by the rest of the city for his blue eyes, the mark of the underworld. Izel upon seeing Yatol again asks if the gods can bring his sister back to life and the jaguar replies that the gods can do anything.

Our Take:

The opening for the anime is nicely animated, and we get brief glimpses of the whole cast. While there aren’t any lyrics to the song, the music does convey that it’s going to be an epic journey. It’s also the first glimpse we see of a possible antagonist.

The structure of the episode played out alright with Yatol being the character to connect the two scenes together. Speaking of Yatol, the remark of him being the one punished by essentially babysitting Izel was amusing to watch as he reminds me of a dad 100% done with Izel’s behavior that he literally picks him up with his mouth. Furthermore, despite being a big jaguar he still has a weakness and that appears to be the obsidian that composes the gate of the underworld. Obsidian is toxic to the gods so it’s natural that it’ll have an effect on the emissary of Tezcatlipoca who derives his power from his god.

Then there’s the fight with the guardian of the gate and the guardian is the stuff from nightmares and a really good design. Even though Izel runs away the majority of the fight, he does manage to kill two birds with one stone by closing the first gate and killing its guardian in the process. Running away is not a bad tactic, and it fits his cowardly character especially with how he wounds the guardian with his eyes closed. However, I hope that Izel actually learns some combat skills, because that tactic will get boring to watch after another episode or two. Furthermore, it’s pretty ironic the second Yatol says that he can’t outrun his destiny, Izel literally runs away to prevent himself from becoming monster food.

Now Izel’s grief in this episode shows how much his sister meant the world to him as the empty house brings his grief to an explosive point. That scene when he’s in their house worked well with the brief scenes of them together living their lives in that house. Another example is when Yatol remarks about how her love of Izel made him weak and how Izel gets angry at his insults. Izel’s grief is good and what later drives him to accept the quest in the hope that he might be able to bring his sister back to life.

Overall the episode was good with the humor and action to get the duo on the first steps in their quest. There also underlying hints from the gods and the opening of someone operating in the shadows of this situation. I look forward to seeing more of how the duo continues their quest.