English Dub Review: Chronos Ruler “Process and Reality”

This isn’t even my final form.

Overview (Spoilers)

Victo snaps out of his hesitation, launching a scatter of cards at Aiks. It isn’t a vital hit, though, so the damage is temporary. As Aiks is about to eat him, Victo regresses even further into his fugue. Now he is bound not only by the ghosts of his family, but by others. Koyuki and her teacher from the first episode, and the gambler from the second. His failures from the past surround him, reminding him of how selfish he is. He breaks free by smashing his own mother’s face in. Except, it isn’t really his mother. In reality, he just punched Aiks in the feeding organ at full force. Aiks vomits up all the time he’s been eating, causing the town to age at an accelerated rate. He vanishes, and Kiri advises Victo to go see his family while he still can. Victo arrives to see his mother continuing her drawing, recovering from her earlier illness. The two share a moment where she explains the true meaning of Victo’s name and how he needed to trust in others in order to be a victor. She then hands him the family pen. She knew all along that this man was the future of her son, and never let on. As time returns to his mother, causing her to vanish, he apologizes to her for breaking her heart so often.

That’s when Aiks arrives. Enraged by the callous nature of the voracious horolog, Victo punches him out of the building. Blaze and Mina arrive to back him up, and the fight kicks into gear. Aiks reveals a new weapon: wings that dissolve anything in touch. Though it is a tough fight initially, the team manages to find a way to modulate their powers to get through his wings. Injured, Aiks decides its time to reveal his true form, a strangely angelic, all white body loaded with clock eyes that can fire extremely destructive blasts. One of those blasts heads right for Victo, and his card shield isn’t enough to stop it!

Our Take

Well, they pulled out all the stops on this episode. Short of using their amazing CG and directing from the first few episodes (seriously, when are they going to do that again?) the animation here used every ounce of skill the team had. Not just the battle, which used very few shortcuts, but the scene between Victo and his mother was…. bravissima. Her hands moving to touch his face, the tears, the slowly dissolving landscape. This was movie quality animation here, and they worked very hard to make sure it looked good. When we do get to the battle, it’s loaded with fast-paced, teamwork-heavy action. We even get to see Kiri surfing on Mina’s wind burst to attack Aiks, which was really fun to see. As you can see above, the art is incredible in this episode, and the animators gave the ruined town a twisted, creepy edge once the battle begins. Even then, the characters maintain their own sense of personality, cracking wise with each other as they fight. Blaze’s face morphs to retort to a verbal slight from Kiri, and it’s a great sight gag.

The voice acting for Victo (Jerry Jewell) is great here. The character is going through a complicated upheaval in his emotions, and Jewell keeps up. The feelings were genuine from the guilty hesitation up to the tearful apologies. Even then, he doesn’t go overboard. That keeps it from getting melodramatic and makes it more intense when Aiks returns.

I do have a couple issues with the writing, though. Jea Pon’s bad habit of illogical bait-and-switch rears its ugly head again. His entire childhood, Victo was told to be a victor. Given that he was a child prodigy, he figured that his bath to being that is in trusting in and improving his own abilities. He shuns his family and becomes a loner. In this episode, his mother reveals that the entire time, she felt that being a victor meant trusting in those around you. Never bothered to tell her kid that. All those years, and he thought she meant to go it alone. This is the same thing as telling a child “Yeah, go stick your hand in the fireplace” and once they’ve ignited on fire, you tell them “well, I meant to wait for when it goes out.” The other half of the message is vital to the well being of the recipient, and the opposite is intended. It only makes sense for this to happen in a world where episodes three to nine exist.

The other thing is how Victo’s mother just knew it was him. I get it, he looks just like the kid form, but how prevalent is time manipulation in their universe that she would feel like it’s logical to assume someone is your child from the future? How many people know about the Chronos Ruler organization existence? It seems like it is a secret, so having her just assume time travel is a thing is a bit of a stretch.