Shangri-La Frontier Season 2

Episode 40

Who thought Sunraku would get his curse removed? I figured something was going to happen with the cliffhanger of last week's episode, but the payoff being that Sunraku's curse is now even STRONGER than it was is hilarious to me. I don't know why Psyger didn't get some curse or mark compared to the other two, but I think you needed to fulfill some specific criteria to be recognized in such a way. Still, it's nice that our crew was rewarded for their efforts with a boatload of things that probably won't matter much in this season, but will be there to foreshadow events in the future. I think the biggest questions will be how Arthur and the other guilds will react, considering this was a random chance encounter for those involved.

This is a transition episode, but I respect that the series is trying to move us along without wasting much time. They even joke about skipping a mini-boss fight by framing it through Emul, who passed out in the middle of the fight and has no recollection of how the fight went. This was probably one of my favorite jokes in the entire show and honestly, this episode was just plain funny. Of course, they must balance that out with a bunch of ominous foreshadowing regarding a new subclass that Sunraku unlocked. I love the atmosphere of the fortuneteller sage using the tarot cards to translate that unique skill. I love moments like that in the show where they seem to combine specific aesthetics with gameplay mechanics. We're now at the port town ready to gear up for our next unique encounter on the open sea, and I'm very much looking forward to new colorful characters that they are bound to run into.

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