Katt: Kemono no Souja Erin is still, no doubt, my favourite currently airing series. With the erratic subbing, I’d fall behind and then watch like four episodes at a time…but I’m all caught up now and–sigh–Crunchyroll has licensed the subs on this one. Thankfully, Static-Subs is continuing last I heard, though because CR’s subs will be out faster I will probably just watch them even though they aren’t as good. Life’s complicated. The point of all of this, though, is that I want to make a better effort to blog KnSE regularly! It deserves it.

Katt’s thoughts on what has happened since episode 30:

Some characters shift to the background while others are introduced and gain importance. Erin is consistently my favourite, of course, because she is still totally my hero. I have a lot of love for the boys Tomura and Ial, too–Tomura, I can’t for the life of me explain why because he isn’t all that important, but his presence always makes me smile. Then there’s Ial who proves himself to be both a really competant character and nice guy time and again. (I noticed that some commenters on recent episodes want Erin to hook up with Ial, hahaha!) Esal also gets a lot of points from me because she is really living up to her John-replacement status as Erin’s mentor.

And then there are the new guys. Namely, Kirik and Shiron. A lot of people foresaw that the new teacher would be a bad guy, and it’s still a little vague, but they are most likely right. From what I’ve gathered he has some kind of tie with the Saigamul, as well as with Damiya. Is this a sign that he is playing both sides, or is it Damiya who is the ultimate traitor to the queen? The new student is a more lighthearted character introduction. She has a rather frustrating I-have-to-be-the-best attitude when she’s introduced, but through just a bit of time observing Erin, she grows a lot. I just kind of dislike her motives for going to Kazalm; yes, prove yourself–but does she even care about the beast-lords? If she doesn’t now, she had better grow to care for them! (I’m kind of doubtful that she’ll have much significance beyond episode 37, though.)

The encounter that Erin has with Nason–a.k.a. the Mist man who was supposedly engaged to Soyon–gives us a long-awaited explanation for Soyon’s final action when she controlled the tohdas. Apparently there was a peoples who had the power to bond and communicate with beasts, specifically beast-lords, though they overused their powers, which led to a slaughter of tohdas and people. Because of this, the Beast-Lord Imperatives were put in place to avoid such an incident again. Erin, of course, had no idea of such a tale and so was breaking the rules without understanding the severity of the consequences that could possibly arise. Upon learning of the ‘Great Crime’, however, she doesn’t change her ways. She continues onwards to test how far her bond with Lilan can go…

So after Lilan learns to fly, Erin learns how to tame that skill in the way that people ride horses. She goes even further than that, using her harp to soothe a wild beast-lord that arrives at Kazalm, proving her ability to connect with beast-lords even stronger than she thought imaginable. The wild beast-lord and Lilan hit it off, if you get what I’m sayin’, and in due time Lilan gives birth to a baby, which Erin manages to help deliver when the birthing process is complicated. With each new feat she manages, Erin amazes everyone around her, but also tests Nason’s warning that she must stop communicating with beasts immediately.

The last thing that I really should touch upon are the political matters. I am pretty bad at this stuff, but I’ll give the bit of background that really has to be known before I jump into episode 39…..’kay so the royal family is messed uuuup. With the grand duke bed-ridden, his power is out of his hands and really left to Shunan who doesn’t seem to have all that much control on things. Saigamul plots seem to be more and more of a threat, such as a poisoning attempt that was made on Semiya, and we as viewers are left to wonder about Damiya’s stance in this whole state of affairs. I’ve already brought up questions surrounding Kirik, a character we suspect of being a Saigamul, and there are just about as many doubts surrounding Damiya…and then some.

And as a final note before I move on, the queen has become more of a genuine character in this series as opposed to just an elusive figure. She has a very naive personality because of being cooped up in the castle all of her life, so with her venturing out to see the newborn beast-lord, there is bound to be trouble. Her heart is in the right place, I am sure, especially when she mentions her dislike of the mute whistles. It’s implied that she doesn’t really know the roots of things like the Beast-Lord Imperatives or just how strong the division of the court and the military is.

Onto episode 39…

While I should be placing more importance on blogging new series like Fairy Tail, I couldn’t wait another episode before writing up a Kemono no Souja Erin post. I knew that that would be the case as soon as I saw the preview at the end of episode 38. This episode…it’s a dramatic one with a feeling of helplessness that hasn’t been felt since Soyon’s execution. Erin’s personal battles, the political struggle, and the history of the ‘Great Crime’ all converge and cause an incident that I can’t neglect blogging. I am going to do my best to make sense of it all.

This entire situation comes about because of the conflict that is seemingly between supporters of the queen and supporters of the grand duke. At this point, I think it’s safe to say that the grand duke and his sons (though Nugan is a little questionable) have no influence on the attempts on the queen’s life. In this case, it is made blatantly obvious that Damiya is ultimately the one trying to have the queen assassinated, though why is still a mystery. He seems to have an odd idealization of the first queen, who had control of the beast-lords, as Erin does now. When characters refer to ‘those who would use Erin for her powers’, they are inadvertently saying, “Don’t let Damiya see!!”

When Erin, the other teachers, and the students happen to see the tohda attack on the Royal Yacht, they are all in shock. No one can doubt that Erin has the most emotional reaction to this situation thanks to its similarities to her mother being surrounded by tohdas before her execution, a long eight years earlier. Nonetheless, it is Erin who reacts quickest and resolves to use Lilan to drive the tohdas away. The person to try to stop her? The mysterious Kirik, who at first comes off as a good guy by telling Erin to stop for her own sake, so that no one finds out about her communication with the beast-lords–but when we get a snippet of inner monologue, we learn that Kirik is actually in on this assassination plan. Right now, his loyalty lies strongest with Damiya, though I wonder if he is a character who will be able to be swayed to good in the future.

Erin’s plan backfires horribly when the ‘Great Crime’ repeats itself on a smaller scale, with Lilan becoming blood-crazed and massacring the tohda despite Erin’s cries that she stop. The feelings of helplessness in this scene are so powerful…Erin can only hold on tightly and let Lilan kill them all, the students and teachers can do nothing but gape, and even the usually-influential Ial is left powerless. Worst of all, Damiya wakes up just as Lilan finishes her tohda-killing spree and witnesses the end, immediately likening it to the stories he has heard of the country’s founding. He will want to use Erin’s “control” over the beast-lords even more than he already has, and I dread to find out in what ways.

Katt’s rating for Kemono no Souja Erin episode 39: 10/10
Katt’s anticipation for Kemono no Souja Erin episode 40: 8/10

The aftermath of the tragedy (?) and some interaction between Ial and Erin. It should be good, as every episode is, though nothing special. Not after an episode like this one.

Tags: Blood+, Erin, Kemono no Souja Erin, Kemono no Souja Erin Episode 39, Lilan, nooooooooooooo

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