Akame ga KILL!

Episode 13

Late in episode 12 a new potential threat – a humanoid kind of Danger Beast – was introduced, so the expectation was that episode 13 would heavily focus on fighting said threat. In actuality, though, the new threat gets talked about much more than actually figured into the action. As a result, this is, comparatively speaking, one of the more low-key episodes of the series to date.

It certainly starts out more promising, with an isolated farmhouse being terrorized by said creatures, with messy results. Esdeath and her forces are asked by the Prime Minister to capture a couple of the beasties for study, so they do in a relatively minor action scene. All well and good, but after that nothing else in an action sense materializes. Instead what we get is a lot of humor and character exploration. Granted, this is entertaining in its own right, as we get to see some amusing insight into fire guy's family life and how Tatsumi totally blows a grand exercise in being cool when someone points out that his fly was open throughout. (The latter leads to the kind of good-natured ribbing amongst the Night Raid members that one would expect from a bunch of tight-knit friends in such a situation.) Tatsumi also tries to forge a brotherly connection with Susanoo – presumably to replace the one he lost with Balut – and gets Lubbock's backstory, too. (He was a rich kid who got enchanted with Najenda and basically followed her wherever she went, even as far as joining her in Night Raid.) While trying to sort out the mystery of where the new Danger Beasts came from and who might be behind them, Esdeath also sets aside time to pine more over Tatsumi, and Tatsumi discovers, to his utter dismay, that his fateful earlier encounter with Esdeath was not going to be his last one.

On the plus side, the insight gained here does round out the cast a bit more, as it fills in some of the gaps in the character backstories and some of the humor is funny. On the minus side, though, the episode accomplishes little else beyond setting up a bit more for later episodes. As has been the series' tradition to date, it aims to place its ugly content alongside funny, even sweet moments, such as fire guy's descriptions about how he's not a good person at all for what he's done and how the segues almost immediately into the visit by his wife and daughter and the sparkly scene that results – so yes, in one moment, he's talking about burning someone even as he begged that he was innocent and in the next he's being goofy over how he forgot his lunch. Of course, that is no less jarring then Kurome, a girl once shown sitting on a veritable pile of corpses that she had a hand in creating, making goofy faces of her own, but tolerating that degree of blatant tonal dissonance is all part and parcel of appreciating this series.

So for the most part the episode fritters away its time on frivolities, although it throws out a few tantalizing suggestions about what might be coming next. What is the previously-seen cloaked figure really up to? And how will Tatsumi get out of his fateful second meeting with Esdeath? Perhaps we will get more next episode than this one offers.

Rating: B-

Akame ga KILL! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.