Saturday, February 20, 2016

GATE S2 - Episode 7: A Humorous Complication

Last episode, the politics of the Empire took a turn for the worse, and with Zolzal taking the lead, conflict with Japan will only increase. This episode 7 of GATE, Dangerous Sisters, shall be the proper beginning of that conflict, though with amusingly humorous scenes between Lelei and her sister. Spoilers ahead, intentional or otherwise.




Zolzal immediately approves of the dishonorable tactics his new generals came up with, with Pina yelling out her concerns about morality. Then she encountered the other brother, Diablo, who was running away to gather other nations to remove Zolzal.

Finally, we could see Pina again, voicing her concerns of the war as usual. Besides that, again these first scenes compare the barbaric and deceitful way of doing war by the fantasy world, compared to Japan. Let the propaganda begin again.


It seems the politicking only gets that far. The rest is pretty much all fun and laughs. We return to Rondel, where Itami, the girls, the master magician, and Lelei's sister were chilling out.

See, more references on how our current civilization is much better... how Japan is better. But anyway, the laughs were when Lelei's sister yelled around about how she will be doomed when book prices go down, as she painstakingly copies them in her spare time. Usual comically crazy stuff.

But after that, the history of the world was explained to us, that actually all elves came from the Gate, and humans were the newcomers. The Gate became dormant again, until now. Fascinating tale, though it doesn't explain why their technology remained stagnant for at least a thousand years--Rory's age.


Then, more laughs were played during the scene at the restaurant, when Lelei's sister finally broke down (after ridiculous scenes and some usual innuendos) and smashed one bowl full of something that looked like pumpkin soup.

Weird culture, I know. And even weirder was that, after that, it became an all-out duel between sisters.


The battle was clunky at best, sadly. It was just not that... fluid and natural to me, for some reason. The animation was just not that great if compared to the fights of the last two episodes. This one, while quite fantastical in scale as usual, was just not that epic, for lack of vocabulary. It does show the amount of rivalry between them, which was nice as well.



With the battle ending in a tie, suddenly there was a man with a crossbow who wanted to eliminate Lelei, perhaps due to envy, though considering the dirty tricks the Empire will be using, an assassination attempt may also be possible.

The sudden assassin was suddenly stabbed by a captain, who trusted Itami to work together to protect a citizen of the Empire, Lelei. However, Itami said that they were going to run. Where, and why, we shall find out next episode.


Meanwhile, Tyuule the warrior bunny also made political moves to further entrench Zolzal's dictatorship. Again, how wil this new government continue, we shall see.

This episode was all-around funny and light, save for a couple of important developments in the politics, which gives us promise of a more complex story. Sure, the nationalism and propaganda and innuendos still continue, but I do hope the story will make us turn  blind eye on those.


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GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri is originally a light novel by Takumi Yanai, and adapted into anime by A-1 Pictures.

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