#BreakBlade ep4: I think I found my fave character for this series. It’s the coward! #anime

Goodbye True.  Hello young, psychotic, bloodlust filled pilots.  At least the old man treated this like a sport, or a really dangerous hunting expedition with his buddies.  These newer pilots (aside from Rygart and True’s prized pupil, Narvi) treat it like really hot, unprotected sex.

It’s an anime staple (it seems especially in mecha) for there to be a young talented girl, but this show is surprisingly full of them.  Last time, Cleo showed some real talent, but got captured.  So it seems she is replaced with Nike (I’m calling her Nike, like the shoe… or god.  I don’t care how they mispronounce it.), who looks to be her antithesis.  She is talented, but unlike Cleo is quite comfortable being aggressive and killing.  No “hidden” talent here, she let it all hang out.

I suppose it’s a good thing True didn’t get to see who killed him.  I don’t know how I’d take being murdered by a bloodlust filled little girl.  Then again, he’s dead so I suppose no one will be worse off for it.

I much more enjoyed seeing (now confirmed as Baldr’s son) Giirge.  Before I just thought he was an antisocial (in the very true sense, not the overused, misused sense) asshole and murderer with some talent.  Now I see that he’s a bit more than the usual psychopath. It was interesting to see that his confidence and skills only come out under extremely controlled circumstances.  The open battle apparently is his hell, but to the exact extreme of that is the fact that he’s a one-man ambush.  That’s insane!

I don’t know if Rygart was confused, scared or amazed.  I was definitely amazed.  Though I wonder if he’s bit off more than his big mouth can chew, taking Athens’ elite corps and personally dueling with the series’ god of war, Borcuse.  I’d hate to see him taken down in this duel, even though he’s a very unlikable character.  He’s at least a unique one, and that makes him likable to me.

The rest of the episode panned out pretty well. Rygart got plenty of screentime and focus, but I guess he was just outshone a bit by the scale of the battle and the other pilots.  Don’t get me wrong, seeing him charge into battle this time, piercing opponents over and over again was exciting and exhilarating, it’s just that seeing the tactic honed doesn’t make it any more exciting than the first time.

The combat in the series overall just keeps getting better and better.  And all this high quality carnage just looks beautiful.  The downtime in the show was also used nicely, and it didn’t make me feel like I could fix some coffee while they waxed about philosophy and the state of the world.  I suppose Rygart and Baldr’s conversation was the highlight.  Baldr really shouldn’t ask anyone else to kill his son.  It really is his own problem to fix, despite the horrible nature of filicide.

Overall, I can’t wait to finish this. I’m glad this show seemed to push aside the very Gundam SEED-like focus on friends meeting on the opposing sides of the battlefield. This feels like a much more interesting and dynamic ensemble feature. I don’t find many of the characters terribly interesting, but there’s a good enough core to keep me invested. It works as a whole and I hope to leave this series with a very satisfying feeling.

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