Arata – The Legend Episode 12
What They Say:
Kadowaki shows up yet again in the midst of Arata’s battle with Yorunami. He tells Arata that he became a Sho for the sake of “fighting for submission,” but Arata doesn’t agree. Regardless, Kadowaki attacks, wielding his Hayagami. The beliefs of Arata and Kadowaki, after crossing two worlds, are about to clash!
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The arrival of Kadowaki is something that certainly ramps up the tension across the board, but it’s also something that obviously affects Hinohara as well. Though we’ve seen him grow a bit and overcome some of his issues related to his bullying, there’s still a lot of this ingrained in him. And like many bullies, Kaodwaki knows what he needs to say in order to tweak him, since so much of it is projection in his own twisted view now backed up by even more power and a growing hatred towards Hinohara. Everything that Kadowaki does basically fuels himself even further with what he wants to do in taking down Hinohara and it twists him all the more with each step. It’s not so much that Hinohara is uninteresting, as he does have some good things to work with here it’s that Kadowaki is able to be expressive and chew up the scenery well enough to engage the viewer.
Kadowaki’s intensity is something that is great to see in general, especially since it does take some time before Hinohara can screw up enough courage and will to stand his ground and really fight him. There’s the brief look back at what was in this world that he’s experienced and the supportive words of those that he calls friends and allies here, and that helps to at least put him on the right path. But it’s not something that’s enough of course, which is good since you don’t want it to be too easy, and we see some amusing but expected changes as Yorunami makes a shift in his plans and puts Hinohara in a positive place, calling him out as a Sho now and setting him on the path to rulership should things actually survive long enough.
Like a lot of season enders of this nature, it’s a lot of back and forth between the two young men as they rally themselves to fight and do what’s needed. It works well enough as they each have a lot going for them with their power levels and what they’ve discovered since coming there, but you also know that Hinohara is going to have a lot more going for him in that young male power fantasy mold. And when it comes to light, beautifully so, it hits all the usual notes as it progresses from there. It may not break new ground, but it’s brings the episode and the season to a decent close as we see the growth and evolution of Hinohara through everything. Considering where he was at the start of the series, and that it wasn’t a quick flip once he got to this land, he definitely grew throughout it and has changed into the young man he is now, which in some ways is light years ahead of far too many other series.
In Summary:
With so much more material in the manga to be adapted, I won’t be surprised if another season gets the green light at some point. I will say that I probably won’t be watching it though. This season of the series is one that I will say that I enjoyed in a lot of ways a good deal of the time because of the way Hinohara was presented, something we don’t see often in anime anymore, and there is some definite growth to be had in the character as well. But the show didn’t do a good job of really defining the world, the journey and the other characters in a way to make them interesting. What salvaged the last half was bringing in a tormenter from his own world simply because the ones of this world don’t have much personality behind them. I really liked the dynamic between Hinohara and Kadowaki and that made these last few episodes largely a good bit of fun, even with the problems it does have. There’s plenty of potential here, but I suspect the problems I have with it will only worsen and make me regret seeing more of it. But what we get here is a decent, tight little package in many way that has some closure to it, making it an easy jump on and jump off series.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.