The Faraway Paladin

Episode 4

Kind of hard to believe we are only on episode four, because it sure seems like A Lot™ is happening. While the past three episodes felt very meticulous and careful in their development of the characters and the world they inhabit, this episode cut the brakes and sent us roaring into all kinds of new things. Will meets two gods this episode, and finds himself fighting one and blessed by another within moments of each other, and that can (at least initially) come across as something of a shock.

It's clear from the show's title and early buildup that the divine would be an important component to the story. However, Stagnate's apparent defeat at the hands of Will felt too soon to me. Since it is Gracefeel's power that makes this possible, it works out fine, but it just seems to come too quickly given how long we spent watching Will train on his other abilities. It also feels like a disproportionally large ramp-up in power/scale in the space of a single episode; it wasn't that long ago that skeletons were something of a challenge, but now Will can dismantle hordes of them and their godlike creator on his own.

The sequence in the realm between life and death was easily the highlight of the episode for me. There's a lot of great imagery here, and Will's conversation with the goddess about what he has learned is really good stuff. I like the little details like the goddess walking across the surface of the water while Will is sunk down to his thighs in it, a subtle visual flourish that demonstrates the distance between the two. Will putting to words the strong found family theme across these initial episodes is great too, and exactly what we'd want after the buildup to get to this point.

I'm really pleased with Will as a character and his development, but I'm curious if the narrative is going to continue with this escalation of power/high fantasy vibes because the scale of everything just went up very fast.

Rating:

Grant is the cohost on the Blade Licking Thieves podcast and Super Senpai Podcast.

The Faraway Paladin is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.