Combatants Will Be Dispatched!

Episode 11

“In which our hero kicks a person in the balls so hard they die.”

This, the penultimate episode of Combatants Will Be Dispatched!, is centered around one of the core running jokes of this series: the fact that Six and Alice are eviler than the demons they are facing. However, what sets this episode apart is that it explores how each of the other characters responds to this fact—in turn giving us greater insights into the kind of people they are.

Snow, who is promised money from Alice, is more than willing to twist her morals—after all, in her worldview, money is power. You can't afford to be moral unless you're rich. She even comes up with an evil plan to kill the enemies in their sleep. She's still not sunk to Six and Alice's level, however, as they plan to let the demons conquer the ruins and then attack them when they've let their guard down.

Rose, on the other hand, knows what's going on is morally wrong, but her general innocence, dubious long-term memory, and the promise of all the food she can eat are more than enough to distract her from her uneasiness.

Ironically, it is Grimm—i.e., the high priestess of the god of undeath and disaster—who is most against Six and Alice's evil plan. While her god may seem evil by default, Grimm most certainly does not see it that way. She regards herself as a good, moral person (despite how she acts when her jealousy takes over). Though, notably, while she does object to the plan, she doesn't do anything more to stop it from playing out as intended.

On the demon's side of things, Heine is shocked that the goody-goody humans are once again eviler than her kind. Like Grimm, we've come to learn over the series that Heine isn't actually evil in any significant way. She treats her enemies with respect and is more concerned with stopping the desertification of the planet than waging war with the humans. Moreover, we see in this episode that she truly cares for her companions and is against the general extermination of humanity—though she's understandably down for the extermination of one specific human, should the chance appear.

Russel, on the other hand, is much closer to the levels of villainy we'd expect from a demon general. Unlike fellow chimera Rose who's driven by hunger, Russel is motivated by the desire to kill every human out there—and with the ancient weapon at the heart of the ruins, he has acquired the power to do so. He's also duplicitous enough to trick Six into letting him activate and pilot the ancient weapon—leaving us with the end-of-episode cliffhanger.

As comically entertaining as this episode is, it also nonchalantly drops a major revelation: Six and his squad really are the “bad guys” from an objective viewpoint. Heine and Russel's main goal is to get the ancient weapon and destroy the Sand King, which in turn should stop the desertification of the planet and remove the root of the conflict between the humans and demons. Now, of course, Russel is primed to go on a human-killing rampage once this task is complete, but it looks like Heine would try to stop him (and him, being in love with her, would almost certainly acquiesce).

So really, to save the world, Six and company should stay put and do nothing. The desertification threatens nearly all life on the planet. By defeating Russel now, they risk losing the war to win the battle. Of course, none of them notice the big picture—which should make it all the more hilarious if and when they finally do.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• For as evil as Six is in comparison to the standard inhabitant of the fantasy world, he's still relatively compassionate. I mean, just look how he panics when he realizes he accidentally killed a kid.

• I'm one of those people who loves it when magic systems have set rules, so learning that there is a vocal component to Grimm's curses makes all of her shouting much more understandable.

• Snow really hates Heine, it seems. While the others are shocked at Six ripping off Heine's bra, Snow has an evil grin plastered across her face.

• Is anyone else disappointed that the ancient weapon wasn't the Destroyer from KONOSUBA?

Combatants Will Be Dispatched! is currently streaming on Funimation.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.