Assassins Pride

Episode 9

Episode 9 sees the series bringing to a conclusion its Shangarta arc, hence maintaining the three-episodes-per-novel pace that the adaptation has been going at so far. For the most part this has been an adequate pacing, though in several places I might have wished for the setting and circumstances to be fleshed out more. This problem is also evident in this episode, which feels like it's bringing things to a firm resolution a bit too quickly.

That's far from the only problem that this episode has, but let's look at its better points first. The full truth about Kufa has finally come out: he's a half-lancanthrope, though whether that nature was something he was born with or resulted from some kind of experimentation isn't clear from both his explanation and the connected flashback. What is clear is that Kufa and Rosetti knew each other well enough that young Rose referred to him as “big brother;” I'm presuming this means that they were fellow orphans raised as siblings, but nothing confirms or denies that they might be blood-related. This also reveals that Blossom was the man who took Kufa in as a child and that Kufa may have been the one responsible for Rosetti becoming a half-lancanthrope herself. That's probably the juiciest revelation. She doesn't realize it because Kufa has manipulated her memories – and since she doesn't know it, she doesn't have lancanthrope urges, either.

That is some wonky worldbuilding. I have seen at least one other place (in manga) where a vampire character is able to lead a normal human life after being divested of her memories of being a vampire, but the set-up and circumstances in that situation were both quite a bit different and quite a bit more conducive to the stunt working. Here it seems like a cop-out explanation. I am also dubious that, in a setting where mana signatures can be detected enough to classify individuals into classes, that Rosetti would be able to unwittingly hide a half-lancanthrope nature. But whatever; this series has commonly bent or ignored rules to accommodate itself before. And all of this is without getting into Blossom's unclear motives for wanting to marry Rosetti off so quickly; if the spider was pushing him to do it, then why? Blossom's wife being alive was a shocker, as I fully had the impression that a corpse was hanging in those webs, not a living person (even if she was in some kind of suspended animation.)

As for the action scenes involving the fight where Kufa and Rosetti faced off against the giant spider. . . well, at least the production staff tried to make them interesting. The problem is that the animation support isn't up to the task and whoever choreographed the fight did not have a good sense of battle flow. (This is far from the first time that this has been an issue in this series.) At least Melida does finally get to kiss Kufa, and the one thing I have to continue to applaud the series about is that she is progressively becoming a stronger, more take-charge character; that kiss is all on her initiative. Kufa had better watch out or he'll wind up completely wrapped around her finger.

So there's something to look forward to, at least.

Rating:

Assassins Pride is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE.