Tearmoon Empire

Episode 6

The main drawback to last week's episode of Tearmoon Empire was that it was all set up for the big sword-fighting tournament (and the bento shenanigans included therein); there wasn't much else to the thing. Thankfully, “The Sword Fighting Tournament: Prince Abel's Fight” provides some of that satisfying payoff, both in the form of those aforementioned bento shenanigans and with the titular sword fights that Abel gets into. It's a fun time, all around.

Much of the joy came from the many ridiculous faces that Mia made throughout her mission to act as Abel's personal cheerleader and lunch provider, especially when they had anything to do with the goofy-ass horse bread she is so hell-bent on making this week. I also appreciated that Keithwood got some more time to play the funny straight man to the episode's antics, as he finds himself in the middle of that classic riddle, “How Many High Society Ladies Does It Take to Make a Sandwich?” The answer, he discovers, is “At least five, depending on how terrible they are at even the most basic culinary skills, plus one beleaguered butler to keep everything from going topsy-turvy.”

The actual sword-fighting tournament also makes for a good development in the story, giving Mia the chance to spend some more time with all of her new pals, cheer on Abel in her borderline villainous way, and watch the young Prince wallop his douchey older brother in the tournament's prelims. Abel and Mia's relationship might be a bit one-note at the moment — pretty much every major scene they share falls into the whole “Provide Abel more opportunities to find his confidence and act real princely for his crush” routine — but it's cute to see unfold, nonetheless. My guess is that, after the last episode's somewhat confusing attempt to reconcile Mia's “true” age with her physical age, the show is basically going to ask us to pretend that Mia is essentially just another kid like her peers. That's probably for the best.

The only major downside to this fun excursion is the swordfights themselves. Normally, I wouldn't have any expectations at all for a fantasy comedy like this to pull out the stops for major action scenes. Still, the spectacle of Mia and Sion's dance from a couple of weeks ago at least set the precedent for Tearmoon Empire's ability to look genuinely good when it wants to. On top of that, the story of this arc is centered square on a literal fighting tournament, so you'd think the show would put even a tiny bit of extra pizazz on the proceedings to sell the drama.

Alas, what we get here mostly just comes across as being just barely functional enough to keep the story moving along to the next cute picnic scene or what have you. It's far from terrible, but it definitely gives the parts of the episode that we're supposedly meant to really care about the air of filler, which is unfortunate. Ah well, it isn't like if Jujutsu Kaisen phoned in a major fight scene, or anything. This is still a fun and heartwarming sitcom, through and through, which is all anyone can ask from Tearmoon Empire at the end of the day.

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Tearmoon Empire is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.