English Dub Review: Utawarerumono Mask of Truth “Feelings That Won’t Return”

Overview

Kuon wakes up back home in Tuskur, with no memory of how she got there. Remembering, though, won’t help her save Haku…

Our Take

While this was a storyline that hasn’t been explored until recently, I have some level of respect for Kurou as a character. Everyone is babying Kuon but Kurou schools her about the cold hard reality of the world she’s living in. He respected her as an individual and what she went through, including all of the love and suffering that her journey included. Everyone else cared deeply for her, and Kurou did as well, but they put their love for her above the love she found for her friends and Haku

As there are two sides to her plan, she still wants to help her friends but now realizes the best way is to head an army. I don’t see her as an enemy of Oshtor’s army in practice instead being against the fake princess army and giving Oshtor gives her a way better chance as he was vastly outnumbered from my anime-only perspective.

Overall, this was paced much better than the rest, even if the pacing of the second half felt too brisk, and looked a lot better even if the character designs were off and it was stiff in movement but it was animated this time despite constant corner cutting. On a narrative scale, there is still the possibility of conflict, but hopefully, that can be resolved in a token surrender and/or agreement to pay reparations at future date for the earlier invasion of Haku’s side. In other words a “highly conditional surrender”. Of course that all remains to be seen in later storylines.