Shangri-La Frontier

Episode 4

This episode mostly acted as a bit of a breather from all the intense action in the first couple of episodes while also giving us a fair bit of foreshadowing and exposition for potential things to come. It's nice to see Sunraku outside the video game and get an idea of what his average real life looks like, even if it is just playing other trash games. We get a little more detail about how his experience in garbage, buggy games translates to a higher-than-average skill level in well-coded games like Frontier. Much of it comes down to these games being based on virtual reality. It's like his mental specs carry over from his experiences in the real world to the game, so playing in a buggy game can be the equivalent of wearing heavy weights that Sunraku can shake off when he plays Frontier.

Still, despite being a breather episode, the staff didn't skimp on the animation quality at all. Simple side fights that are mostly there to establish other characters are animated better than most other things that are airing right now.

Despite pulling back from intensity, this episode gave us more of that real-world gaming culture that I liked so much from the earlier episodes. Sunraku is operating how a typical gamer in his situation would. He goes online to check forums, compares his experiences with what's readily available online, and tries to plan a route accordingly based on real-world situations, like moving to a larger town after realizing that many people will probably log onto the game during summer break. This is also an organic way to deliver exposition and foreshadowing to the audience because we learn things at Sunraku's pace. However, it's good to know that gaming culture can come back to bite him in the butt, as seen when a player got a screenshot of him running around with his new rabbit companion. That will spread on the internet like wildfire and probably make him a target in more ways than one.

Overall, it was a pretty solid episode that planted seeds for more exciting things to come.

Rating:

Shangri-La Frontier is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.