Akame ga Kill! – 07

Behold. The face of a man who knows what to do in a crisis.

Suma got the first death, but this episode wasn’t too bad of a follow up. Plus it’s time for the anime to show off Bulat’s sheer manliness. Because constantly showing off his abs through his clothing just wasn’t enough for this show.

I could be wrong, but this probably isn’t the best way to deal with crying females.

Ah, yes. The aftermath of Sheele’s death. All things considered, the rest of Night Raid seems to be taking it okay. A few of the characters are visibly more upset than others (to no one’s surprise, this includes Tatsumi), but for the most part, they’re holding it together. Akame’s interaction with Tatsumi probably described the situation best. Sure, they’d like to mourn, but they’re part of a war and can’t let it affect them too much or their mission will suffer for it. People in the team have more than likely died even before Tatsumi got there, but it clearly hasn’t affected Night Raid too much on the surface. That’s probably a good enough plot reason to just move on from the character death (…plus with the death count this series has, it would take FOREVER for both sides to get anything done if there was a mourning chapter/episode every time someone significant died).

Instead, there’s now the threat of Esdeath’s plot (or maybe it’s the prime minister’s, it’s not really that important) to bring out Night Raid from hiding. So they’ve learned to send Relic/Teigu/(I guess subs are now calling them) Imperial Arm users against Night Raid, since that seems to be the most effective method. Tatsumi is kind of out of luck, since he struggles against them, but shounen shows are all about power ups, so he’ll probably be fine. Plus this gives the rest of Night Raid a chance to show off their powers.

I guess they’re still kind of pairing Tatsumi up with a different Night Raid member every episode. We haven’t seen a lot of Bulat’s fighting other than that one time he made it rain blood in the forest, so here’s a chance to learn more about him. Plus, they showed more of his back story and how he actually left the Capital’s side to begin with. There weren’t many surprises there, since the plot already revealed that Bulat used to work on that side, and it’s a well known fact now that the Capital is just a terrible, terrible place all around. However, the circumstances surrounding the antagonist characters might have been a bit more unforeseen.

Well, if it wasn’t obvious before the reveal at the end of the episode from Nakata Jouji’s voice (… and maybe the fact that Liver’s moustache and hair combination is pretty distinct), somehow Bulat’s old general flipped sides and now works for the same Empire that betrayed him in the first place. …Though it didn’t seem like they were trying to keep it a huge secret, so maybe “reveal” isn’t the best word. Anyways, there’s definitely a story behind that. But more interestingly, it seems like Akame ga Kill has recently been trying to humanize the villains a bit more. At the start of the anime, pretty much everyone that Night Raid killed had it coming, but now the people showing up have a bit more dimension to their character. …Or at least, most of the ones who aren’t killed in one hit. Daidara was offed pretty easily and he had no backstory or real characterization to speak of. The shota character seems like he’s a jerk for the hell of it too, though he’s not quite dead yet. The playing field for the show is levelling (or at least, in terms of Night Raid’s power level to the Capital’s), so the antagonists are going to be sticking around for longer than a small section of an episode, giving them a better chance to be more well rounded.

There was less angst than one might have expected, considering how long it took Tatsumi to truly get over his friends’ deaths, but maybe this is a sign that he’s grown up a bit. Punching himself might have been a bit extreme, but it seemed like a good way to show how his mentality is changing. The scene also felt necessary too, to prove that Sheele isn’t entirely forgotten despite the fact that the plot isn’t going to bother stopping to mourn her. Though I’m okay with the plot not slowing down, since there’s more important things to get to in the plot. Like the other character deaths! Isn’t this anime fun? (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ …Though there were a few things off with the logic of the episode. Like how no one questioned why Tatsumi was talking to himself (or to Bulat, I guess) on the ship’s deck for a long period of time, how no one overheard him talking about some rather suspicious things to himself any of the other times he was alone, or how Daidara just kind of handed him a weapon. Maybe the antagonists aren’t so bad after all. Tatsumi’s sword (that he did not find suspicious at all) wasn’t even rigged as a trap or anything. The Capital needs to step up their game if they really want to go down as the biggest asshats in history.

Anyways, next episode. Srs bsns and whatnot.

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.