English Dub Review: The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar “Proof of a Great Ruler”

I miss you, Ruler from Magical Girl Raising Project.

Overview (Spoilers!)

The first scene is literally just the last scene of episode 10 again. Thanks for the recap, I guess. Glad I could watch Scarfior’s ridiculous death scene again? For a second I thought he actually survived the fall and had come back to help Run, but nah. Just recap.

Steinthor pummels Run into the ground until his second-in-command appears (I’m gonna be honest, this character is so uninteresting I just can’t be asked to remember his name) and tells him that the Panther Clan is attacking the Wolf Clan. Run declares that she’s not going to let Steinthor join them.

Felicia suggests that the Wolf Clan should retreat, but Yuuto refuses. A bloody battle ensues. Yuuto heads to the front lines and delivers a short speech to boost his men’s morale, and of course, it works wonders. Loptr also speaks to his men, offering a reward for anyone who takes out Yuuto, but it doesn’t have the same effect.

Meanwhile, Steinthor and Run are still going at it. Steinthor tries again to join his army, but Run uses a new technique that Yuuto taught her. Steinthor knocks her sword into the air and moves in for the killing blow, but Run catches her sword and stabs Steinthor in the stomach. Cries and cheers reach them from the battlefield—the Wolf Clan is winning. Steinthor orders his men to retreat, expressing his newfound respect for Run. Run finds Scarfior, who is just barely breathing.

Although the battle is over, Loptr attacks Yuuto. Felicia tries to protect her patriarch, but Loptr throws her to the ground. In a flashback, we learn that Yuuto has been studying swordplay with Scarfior, because he doesn’t want anyone to die for him ever again. Loptr knocks Yuuto’s sword out of his hand, but Yuuto tackles Loptr to the ground, where Loptr’s head smashes against a rock.

But Sigyn isn’t done yet—she sings a spell that makes Yuuto disappear. As Loptr escapes, Felicia cries over Yuuto’s smartphone, which he gave her before he left. Back in Japan, Mitsuki just happens to be walking by Yuuto’s house when she notices a bright light coming from his window. She runs inside to find Yuuto!

Our Take

God, the battle scenes in this show are boring.

The biggest problem with them, which I’ve alluded to many times before, is that all the soldiers in this show look the same. They have the same face and the same armor, no matter which clan they’re from. Aside from the fact that this is a lazy character design (especially when you compare them to the leads, who all look unique), it makes the battle scenes incredibly confusing. Near the beginning of the episode, we’re supposed to understand that the Panther Clan is destroying the Wolf Clan in combat, but I couldn’t tell that, because I didn’t know which soldiers belonged to which army. And later, when the tides of battle turn in the Wolf Clan’s favor? That’s right—I still couldn’t tell the two groups apart. It’s so unnecessarily confusing. Incidentally, why are there no women in these armies? I would say it’s because women weren’t allowed to be warriors in this historical time period—but that’s obviously not true in Yggdrasil, because Run, Felicia, and Al have all demonstrated that they’re very skilled at combat. Why is the second-best warrior in the kingdom a woman, but there are no women in the general army? It just doesn’t make sense.

At least the Steinthor/Run fight features some exciting beats in this episode. When Run tries out her new technique, her sword scrapes against Steinthor’s spinning hammer, and the visual—and accompanying music—make for a pretty epic couple of seconds. And I do like that Steinthor seemed to respect Run’s strength in the end, even if the writers felt the need to qualify her strength by making sure we know she was only able to beat Steinthor with Yuuto’s help (Why can’t they just let Run be good at something?!). Of course, the overall fight between those two is super repetitive—Steinthor thinks he’s bested Run, he tries to leave, and she gets up to fight again, over and over (and the flashback at the beginning isn’t helping it feel fresh). Again and again, Steinthor uses the same line (some variation on “Things are finally starting to get interesting!”), even though his catchphrase felt tired and overused before this episode even began.

The animation of Steinthor’s anatomy during this scene is sometimes a little wonky, and Daman Mills’s voice acting goes from awkward diction to overdramatic screaming. So, no, I’m not very fond of Steinthor, thanks for asking. But in Mills’s defense, the voice acting in this episode is sloppier than usual in general. At one point, Bryn Apprill (voice of Felicia) clearly says “calvary men” instead of “cavalrymen.” Everyone makes mistakes, but there’s really no excuse for not doing another take.

It’s not like me to speak well of this show, but the idea that Yuuto could turn the battle around with a morale-boosting speech is actually kind of sweet. After all his “cheating” inventions and strategies, I like that the last gift he gives the Wolf Clan is just his love, support, and belief in them. It’s almost heartwarming to watch how much they care about him. I just wish the speech itself were a little more inspiring because it’s pretty short and not all that interesting. Plus, we’re forced to sit through a flashback in which Yuuto explains his plan to Felicia (wasn’t it enough to just… show him doing it?) and then, as if that flashback didn’t hit us over the head, Chris rewords Yuuto’s explanation and rehashes it again. Lord. These writers don’t trust their viewers’ intelligence at all—although if fans have stuck with the show this far, I doubt they’re the sharpest crayons in the box anyway.

It is gratifying to finally see Yuuto in combat. It’s so like him to lose a swordfight and then just… throw himself at his opponent. To the very end, Yuuto is a tactician playing to his own strengths. But the writers missed a huge opportunity by not giving any closure to Loptr and Felicia’s relationship. It really would have been fascinating to see Felicia contemplate what duty she has to a murderous brother, and how she feels about his willingness to kill her, but nah. Who cares about that, right? We have generic battles to watch.

It’s things like this, though, that makes me really sad about what this show could have been. If the characters were a little more developed—if the uncomfortable fanservice and weird slave plotlines were taken out—if the twists and turns weren’t so unoriginal—maybe Yuuto could have been a really likable character, with a really fun and compelling story. Unfortunately, despite hitting the right notes a couple of times, this episode is boring. I don’t really care whether the Wolf Clan wins, because this show has failed to make me care about them. The best thing I can say about “Proof of a Great Ruler” is that, for the first time ever, an episode of this show is slavery- and titty jiggle-free. Yay?