Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin

Episode 7

With the last couple of episodes feeling a bit too video-game-like for their own good, I was ready to see the show go back to the relatively low stakes that made the early episodes work. Instead, this week's episode escalates things further, as we see Sakuna returning to the Lofty Realm, a time skip, and some dramatic twists that all threaten to shake up the status quo. While it's not quite what I was expecting, it all manages to work and makes for not only one of the show's strongest episodes in a while but some pretty strong set-up for what's to come.

Having reaped a successful harvest, Sakuna decides to take the fruits of her labor back to the Lofty Realm and offer some of the rice she made to the top goddess, Kamuhitsuki. While Sakuna assumes this offering should be enough to earn her a ticket back to her previously cushy lifestyle, Kamuhitsuki is none too impressed and it's clear Sakuna still has a lot of work to do. In the meantime, Sakuna catches up with her friend Kokorowa who doesn't seem as happy to see Sakuna as Sakuna is to see her. We learn that in the time Sakuna was gone, she managed to take her old position and everything that came with it, which makes things pretty awkward. Although the Sakuna of the first episode probably would have thrown a fit over this, she ends up taking this fairly well for the most part. Her experiences on the island have well and truly changed her and as much as she complains about how hard everything was there she also acknowledges that those hardships made things all the more satisfying when she was able to taste the results of her efforts.

Before long, Kamuhitsuki decides to visit Sakuna and asks her to compare the quality of the rice between her offering and the ones that her mother used to give. When Sakuna tastes how much better her mother's rice is, she learns that it stems from the many years her mother spent cultivating the rice compared to the one year that Sakuna did. Now fully understanding the scope of how much harder she needs to work, Sakuna returns to the island and gets to work on the next harvest. Quite a few harvests, as we see several years pass by on the island, and when the time of the fourth harvest arrives, the quality has improved enough that Kamuhitsuki is willing to consider giving Sakuna a new assignment back in the Lofty Realm. Even with the show's commitment to showing how time-consuming the process of growing rice could be, I didn't think it would commit to having so much time pass (which does make it weird that the kids somehow don't seem to have aged at all in that time, but I'll chalk that one up to video game logic.) It does help the lesson here stick better and cement how much Sakuna has grown from the lazy goddess she used to be.

However, while Sakuna might be on track to earn her spot back amongst the gods, Kokorowa seems none too thrilled about the prospect. In truth she's always resented Sakuna on some level for her laziness and haughty attitude (and given how dismissive Sakuna was earlier in the episode when she brought up all the work she needed to do it's at least easy to sympathize with) so part of her fears that Sakuna returning means that all the hard work she put into earn her old spot could get taken away. At the same time though, she also acknowledges that Sakuna has an inner strength that she seems to lack, and that only seems to further fuel her resentment, which makes things pretty ominous when a demon appears before she offers some rice seeds. It's a welcome twist, since as much as I've enjoyed the show's relatively chill vibes, I haven't been super attached to anyone in the cast, so Kokorowa's hidden jealousy has immediately made her the most interesting character in the show for me and I'm curious to see just how far she ends up taking things in her desire to one-up Sakuna. It could certainly make for some pretty spicy drama as we head into the back half of the show, and while I'm not expecting anything too wild from all this, it does provide a clear enough direction for where things could go, so I'm eager to see exactly how it all ends up playing out.

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