Overview (Spoilers Below):
Rumors start to spread about Natsuko, which leads the people of the Last Town to turn on her.
Our Take:
Just when we thought things could go a lot smoother for Natsuko and the others, depression and death always come around to shit on their parade. The shocking ending of last week’s episode was no exception, as QJ made the ultimate sacrifice to destroy the Void ship. This moment heavily altered Tsuruyama’s intended narrative, in which QJ survived the war. However, it also immensely damaged Natsuko’s confidence in ensuring the survival of the Nine Soldiers.
Amidst her fangirl-ish and stubborn personality, Natsuko has endured multiple trials, which have forced her to confront the true adversary known as fate throughout the season. She previously learned to put more faith in her allies after being overly confident that she could fix everything. However, like the episode’s title, her actions have done nothing but create more disarray in A Tale of Perishing. In addition to her guilt over QJ’s death, Natsuko also faces the consequences of her newfound ability, as the Voids can now make some creatures based on her drawings, even her scribbled ones. This causes the townspeople to turn against their supposed “hero”, which doesn’t bode well for Luke and his mentality.
“Chaos” seems to be the appropriate term for me to describe this intense and unsurprisingly compelling climax, further emphasizing its themes of grief and fate. Through Mitsue Yamazaki’s direction and the episode’s tense third act, this seemingly harmless isekai anime involving a protagonist protecting a fantasy world still delivers by putting some ambitious stakes and effort into its tried-and-true formula. With only a couple of episodes left in the season, things have already gone from bad to worse, and I’m not just talking about the world being reverted to its intended depressing state.