Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin

Episode 6

Aside from last week's brief (and frankly, still weird) stint with aliens, the show has done a pretty good job of hiding its video game origins and has managed to more or less stand on its own two feet. While that last part is still true, it was only a matter of time before we reached a scenario that felt too much like it was ripped straight from the original game—and we've finally hit that point. This week's episode can be summed up as an extended boss encounter—and while it's certainly not bad, it didn't exactly leave me with a ton to latch onto.

With the fall season approaching, Sakuna and the others are finally ready to start harvesting the rice fields but before they can, they discover that something from the volcano seems to be poisoning the fields. Sakuna goes with the Ashigumo to investigate and discovers a monster poisoning the area using the corpses of the Ashigumo's brethren as a boss fight ensues. It's fine for what it is—and it's pretty well-animated—but it's not a very compelling fight on its own and feels like one of those things that probably would have been much more exciting to play rather than watch. The most we get out of it is learning more about how the Ashigumo used to work together with Sakuna's parents to protect the land—and while it's nice to learn a little more about them, it's not enough to carry this whole thing on its own.

Fortunately, that encounter only makes up the first half of the episode and, when they realize they're outmatched, Sakuna and the Ashigumo are forced to retreat. Sakuna realizes she's going to need more power to defeat the monster but rather than level grinding for a few new attack skills (which she does bring up as an option), Tama recommends that she leans into her powers as harvest goddess and increase her strength by harvesting the rice fields. While you'd think that would sound a lot more boring than a giant monster fight, I was a lot more interested in this segment since I felt like I was at least learning something from it. If nothing else, it at least gave me a bit more appreciation for rice farming since it did hammer how extensive of a process it is. Things do eventually circle back around to the boss fight as Sakuna decides to fight the monster in the Ashigumo's place—but her deciding to do it because she wants to spare him the pain of harming his loved ones does at least showcase that Sakuna has become a bit less selfish since coming to the island. It makes for a nice bit of character development.

Beyond that though, there isn't much else to this one. The end of the fight looked pretty good—and it's nice that it seems like the Ashigumo will stick around as more of a long-term party member—but this is the most the show has ever felt like a video game and the episode suffered a little for it. Still, considering how well the show has otherwise avoided coming off as a let's play, I'm willing to write this one off as an outlier, and hopefully, things will pick back up again next week.

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Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.