Drifters – 06 – 09

Finally a Jean done right unlike some anime

I apologize for missing for a month. My school was busy with the end of the term tests and Christmas preparation (I’m a teacher in case you haven’t noticed). It seems that they finished the Elves Arc while I was missing, so I’ll focus on the elves and other minor things that were revealed at Elves Arc and the beginning of Dwarves Arc.

Of course, being an arc about Elves, the ones who developed the most in these 8 episodes are not the main characters but the elves. Comparing them from episode 1 with episode 9, there are vast differences both in the Elves’ personalities and appearances. Physically, they are cleaner and brighter than how they were before. They were drawn/animated as races with tired expressions on their faces all the time – basically the same as the dwarves’ expressions now but more ikemen due to the physical attributes of elves. Some of the elves also wore ragged clothes that show the status as serfs. Personality-wise, the elves were also passive, even more so than the dwarves. If we see their surroundings, the elves have more chances to escape/rebel against Orte Empire. They were free to roam the mainland as they please and were not kept in a fortress or camp. Yet they didn’t even try to lift their finger to rebel against their lord, probably due to the lack of leader and their broken spirit. To make it short, the elves were just so broken down there is nothing but negativity surrounding them.

THIS IS (ELVES) SPARTAAAAA

So seeing the elves fighting as professionals make me feel a bit proud of them. They have changed a lot from how they were before. I mean, who would have thought they would be able to do battle cry? Nobody would expect them to be able to do that in the first episode! I was even more impressed with Shana/Sharra/whatever-his-name-is’ attitude when they were asked to aid Toyohisa to rescue the dwarves. It was expected for the elves to refuse, but his actions and words were pretty surprising. I expected the Drifters to give the Elves some words yada yada. Instead, the Elves themselves decided to help Toyohisa out of their free will, and the ones who give the words are their own kinds. This shows how much the Elves have grown up. They have become stronger physically and wiser mentally, just like how Elves are supposed to be. They are still afraid to do the new things (as it can be seen in episode 9), but they’ll grow up even greater than how they are now.

Instant ship

As for the Drifters, there is little progress in their character… Except Yoichi. Though it is not fully revealed, but it is obvious that Yoichi had some moral conflicts during his time in Japan. It seems that his previous lord told him to kill those who have surrender, and it slowly turned him into some murder machine or something. Oh well, his moral conflicts were eased thanks to Toyohisa anyway, so it’s all good. It seems that Toyohisa’s pure personality will become a pivotal point that will be very useful later on in the future.

When the things you eat every day is getting smarter than you

It’s too bad that the same thing cannot be said about Jean d’Arc and the Ends. Jean’s intentions to save France was pure, but it led to her downfall due to the superstitions during that time. Although someone did understand her, he wasn’t able to follow Jean to the current world physically. It seems that the man is some sort of dead spirit, and his keen desire to follow Jean is the reason for his existence in that world? Hence the stone body? I don’t know since it wasn’t fully explained yet, but how Jean was chosen as the End makes it more obvious how and why the Ends are chosen; the Ends are the ones who died feeling betrayed by the world, and they will destroy the world because of that. They are the opposite of Drifters who are supposed to bring good change in that world. Intense hatred for mankind is also a requirement for Ends it seems, because the Black King definitely hates humans to the point where he wants to replace humans with monsters. I wonder what’s the story behind that? Was he a Drifter? Is he the founder of Orte who was supposed to be dead? Hmmm questions and more questions.

Overall, Drifters still managed to charm its way into the audience’s heart even though it’s in the middle of the series already. It’s not surprising since it has managed to stay consistent from the beginning until now. The plot is still simple yet implicitly complex, and the characters did not go through BAM sudden shift in personality. In fact, the characters are progressing toward a positive direction. The biggest point has got to be the animation though. Sure, I’m starting to see some weird faces and heads, but that usually happens when there are lots of characters in one scene. Besides that, the animation and have been pretty good, especially the close-up or still scenes. At least, they are not so bad to the point where the characters look like jokes. Speaking about jokes, the jokes are starting to sound funny to me, but maybe it’s just me lowering my standard to Drifters’. Hey, the expressions are actually funny.

Preview: I don’t even know, so many POV already but I’m guessing that the focus will be the dwarves?

Spoken like a true Asian

About anaaga

Have read 418 BL manga and continuing.