English Dub Review: Scarlet Nexus “Brothers”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After their mother goes back to her own time, Yuito and Kasane are dismayed that the Kunad Gate isn’t gone. Kagero postulates that it’s because there’s another entanglement involving Karin, who he thinks went back in time and killed the original founder of Suoh and assumed his mask-wearing identity. Yuito meets secretly with his brother, ex-Police Chief Kaito, and tells him that they don’t have to harvest his super brain—there’s another way to rule. Finally, Fubuki arranges a ceasefire between Suoh and Seiran in order to deal with Kunad Gate, and Yuito is no longer a wanted man.

Our Take:

Funimation has remained pretty steady in their schedule of releasing new dubbed Scarlet Nexus episodes each week, and now we’ve got another one, Brothers, in which everything sort of hits the fan and a new slate is set for Yuito and his pals. It’s about what you’d expect from the series at this point: monotonous, chaotic, and a little bit twisty.

Apparently, even though Wakana thought that her return to her own time would make everything better, it didn’t. There’s still a major entanglement that is keeping the Kunad Gate afloat. Kagero thinks he knows what it might be—supposedly Karin went back in time, killed Yakumo, the founding father of New Himuka, and then wore his mask and took his place. It’s the latest insane explanation in a series full of them, and it was at this point that my brain kind of broke. The show goes on to talk about if that would make Karin and Yuito related (thankfully, the answer is seemingly no), and how this effects the group’s plans.

In order to remedy the Kunad Gate once and for all, Yuito and Kasane still need to get rid of those pesky entanglements, so they decide to track down Karin and bring him to the Vector Zone or whatever it’s called to help right his timeline or something—the show just seems to be pulling thing’s out of its ass at this point. But they don’t know where Karin is right now, so they decide to meet with Yuito’s brother Kaito. The only problem is that Kaito wants to kill Yuito and harvest his brain, and also he’s under house arrest and can’t be contacted through fancy mind methods.

Eventually Yuito agrees to meet with Kaito in secret, which is pretty dumb, and of course Kaito pulls a gun on him. But wonder of wonders, exmachina of exmachinas, the sky is flooded with Others and the two of them have to fight them off together. Yuito demonstrates that his vision for the future is different than Yakumo’s or his father’s or anyone else’s when he saves Kaito instead of escaping. It’s actually kind of a good use of show don’t tell, and I like the way the show decided to bring about Kaito’s change of heart—but it still felt way too fast and Kaito and Yuito’s relationship has had like, zero development up to this point, so the whole ‘about to shoot you’ one minute switch to ‘I’m ready to die and let you be the future leader’ was major whiplash.

This wouldn’t be Scarlet Nexus without a last second change-up, so just when Kaito and Yuito are about to be overwhelmed, backup arrives in the form of Yuito’s squad along with Major General Fubuki, who reveals that he’s brokered a peace between the two factions so that the Kunad Gate can be dealt with. Oh, and Yuito and his friends are no longer fugitives, at least for the time being. It signals a big shift in the show and I’m hoping that next week’s episode will help smooth things out a bit as we head toward the finale.