Übel Blatt

Episode 6

At least this episode of Übel Blatt is more-or-less coherent, which is probably the highest praise I can offer the show at this point. Köinzell's epic revenge plan finally reaches its first target, as he faces off against Landgrave Schtemwölech, former friend and colleague of Köinzell's previous incarnation, Ascheriit. First, though, Köinzell must slaughter hideously malformed minion Fargo, who excitedly whips out his enlarged fleshy appendage from beneath his grimy cloak. As we saw at the closing of last week's episode, Fargo has bound the bodies of kidnapped Miruel-Mirael girls to his own frame to harness the power of their fairy blood and produce murder-tentacles to order. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.

Geranpen's still hanging around, inexplicably not dead, despite “big bro” Fargo penetrating him through the heart with one of his fairy meatsticks. Mostly, Geranpen still exists to wail and cry, though he does switch sides – again – to aid Köinzell, providing him another sword after his weapon breaks. It seems Köinzell can't use his “Black Sword” technique indoors because he needs moonlight to power it. That's one way of justifying setting the entire narrative at night-time, if our hero can't even properly function in daylight. Inside Schtemwölech's castle, it's incredibly dark, to the point I don't think we've ever seen any burning torches or any kind of lamp. Where do the light sources come from? Does everyone navigate using infra-red in this show or something?

Schtemwölech's waiting for Köinzell in his Torture Dungeon, where a busty young elf girl is being simultaneously crucified and violated by tentacles. The camera really likes to linger on her suggestively-posed body. Oh, and beneath the iron grill floor are hundreds of skulls because, of course there are. Köinzell bloodily chops up some evil priests before confronting the first of his seven nemeses. It exemplifies what a deluded, edgy fourteen-year-old boy thinks constitutes “drama,” and in a better production, this could have been over-the-top fun. Here, it comes across as lurid and attention-seeking, because Übel Blatt has little else to show for itself other than edgy schlock. It's like a waiter asking, “Would you like a side order of edge, dripping with edge sauce, to go with your freshly grilled edge?”

The production's bargain-basement presentation hamstrings Köinzell's and Schtemwölech's climactic fight. There's minimal animation here – it's all quick cuts, panning shots, shaky cam, and choppy editing. Lots of blood, though. During their confrontation, Schtemwölech finally starts to understand who Köinzell really is – he recognizes Ascheriit's fighting style in the boy's moves. His main concerns are not only how Köinzell now looks like a demi-human, having somehow changed his race, but how he is still young. We learn Schtemwölech has drunk his own Kool-Aid, truly believing himself heroic and deserving of his position as ruler over his domain and therefore thinks immortality is his right. He wants Köinzell's body to experiment on it, enunciating the incredible command, “Bring out the Flesh Curse!”. I'm not really sure what the Flesh Curse does, but it seems to be some kind of wriggly insecty thing that's incredibly nasty and probably does uncomfortably edgy and demeaning things to one's body.

Talking about demeaning things, Schtemwölech employs an army of moaning, weeping elf girls fitted with mind-control helmets to do his bidding, and to fight Köinzell. This upsets Köinzell further, because we know he empathises with others' pain, and their suffering pierces his heart, so he doesn't want to fight them. He does anyway, eventually somehow mutating into a heretofore previously unseen angelic/monstrous form, cackling like a madman all the while. We probably aren't meant to know what's happening here, though it's hard to tell. The consequence of cutting the entire first volume of the manga from this adaptation (as discussed last week) has meant that anime-only viewers are left bereft of vast amounts of introductory material. How are we supposed to know what is meant to be mysterious or not? There's every possibility that any question the viewer has may never be answered, because it was covered in excised manga chapters. With a foundation built on such unstable shifting sands, is it any wonder this entire adaptation threatens to collapse in on itself?

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