#I understand that every human being is the champion god-king protagonist of their own story;

[itsadamnbeehive]

picky eater rant lol

[vanquishedvaliant]

My immediate reaction to finale of Shingeki no Bahamut; Virgin Soul is very mixed.

TLDR: Shingeki no Bahamut 1-23 was a great anime that had strong, diverse core themes, character development, and narrative, and Episode 24 did not tell the story that had been set up. It is superficially enjoyable but a mess of narrative structure that fails to achieve meaningful resolution of these core themes and characters that it developed throughout its run.

I think it’s difficult for me to criticize it fully yet. Plenty of people are very upset about the ending (justifiably so) but I’m not much sure that feeling is extent of how I see it. 

There’s much that Virgin Soul has done very well on, and delivered in full. Last week we had an absolute stunning resolution of Alessand’s character arc that hit just about every note it needed to without leaving anything out.**

**(Except for maybe Cerberus’ indifference or disgust in his ambitions which would have been hilarious)

So because of that it’s not the kind of ending that I want to be mad at and say was simply terrible. It concludes the sequential events that it needed to, but it just feels like many final episodes do where it does not fully appreciate the weight or meaning of what was being resolved. 

Some of the core themes and events that were closed on were not the same ones we’ve been building on throughout the series. Others are completely disregarded and abandoned, and others pop out of nowhere brand new. I’ll go through some specific examples;

Let me preface this next bit; This nor any other of my critique is NOT about the subjective appeal of ChariNina; It is about the narrative structure and delivery of it.

So Nina goes to help Charioce, and they have their happy ending (with punitive fairytale disabilities) as they dance on the balcony. That’s great!

What’s not great!; Nina is never forced to reconcile the fact that Charioce has done evil for his goals. Charioce is never held accountable to the people, or to Nina, for his actions. Because of this, neither of them receive the full impact of their character development and the relationship cannot be elevated beyond a superficial prince / princess romance.

I am concerned how the tension of their relationship is tied to Favaro’s sacrifice of Amira; a completely dissonant and irrelevant comparison that draws strange connections. Favaro and Amira was a story about falling in love gradually despite resisting it, their natural connection to each other, and ultimately, that they make the difficult choice to be separated in order to achieve the goals that they desire.

Nina’s story has not been about protecting Charioce, or about saving his life. It’s been about what a man can be held accountable for. It has always even in the shows eyes itself been told about how someone can be individually kind but brutal on scale; how he can do horrendous, monstrous things as a tyrant in order to achieve his goals. And how you are able to live with the fact that someone you love has done so much wrong. Nina is not ever forced to make a choice about this; She makes a choice whether she is going to let him die, or help him.

Charioce’s story is about doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal, even at the cost of doing immeasurable evil and harm, to your people, to yourself, to those that trust you. He was willing to give his own life for this plan. Narratively speaking, to receive a resolution for this, Charioce’s plan cannot be allowed to go right. There needs to be another element to his plan to make it succeed.

That element is NOT unconditional, forgiving love of a naive horny teenager. Nina joining hands with Charioce to share the load of Dromos does not resolve this. What would resolve this is Dromos is not even to defeat Bahamut on it’s own. His plan needs to fall short of success, something else must push it the final way. Even if this IS Nina, he needs to FAIL FIRST, so that she can come in and provide him a crucial missing element to his Pyrrhic, evil strategy.

And finally, he needs to be held accountable for his actions, but SNBVS Episode 24 does not address this at all. We get one line for Charioce says he will submit to judgement if he survives, and then nothing. He’s still the king. We get a line about demon slavery ending, but despite the fact that a city-levelling revolutionary army was raised against him, led by the saint of the gods, SPECIFICALLY AGAINST HIM. He is still the king.

They overthrow Slavery, but not Charioce? He’s not imprisoned. He’s not dethroned. He’s not executed. He keeps being king, blind on his throne. Hailed as a hero, despite the fact that the kingdom revolted against him. And not even once in any way does this man ever have to reconsider any other option than his at-all-costs plan. Wonderful.

Next, straight up 100% Kaisars death should not have been at the end of an episode, because Kaisar is a primary fucking character and did not receive the correct weight in presentation that he needs. Ideologically, the way that he died makes sense- he’s jumped in front of someone he disagrees with several times, so this has all been foreshadowed- but the fact that we have to bridge the end of an episode with the *punch* of his death, with the mourning of his passing makes the note fall flat. 

The fact that it isn’t revealed that Rita zombifies him until the closing seconds of the episode is also just, a huge dick move, as the gang eats stew happily without him. This isn’t a satisfying resolution of Kaisar and Rita’s relationship. This is cheap, dragging it out to the end. We don’t get to see her make an agonizing decision to raise him, like we should have.

This feast which, of course, Sofiel is present? And Bacchus is in love with her? That is completely ridiculous and torches both of their entire character arcs. Even as a throwaway line the implication threatens the nature of their (platonic) relationship of Sofiel learning why Bacchus did what he did and for what reasons. Bacchus does not ever do one single thing in the entirety of the series of benefit to Sofiel. He resists and fails her every time. Their story is about understanding, about their attitude towards humans. And the extreme lengths they are willing to go to to aid and fight for the humans they care about- that is to say, the humans that they love. The only possible connection made to the direct comparison between them that she herself makes earlier.

And yet... Jeanne is living in the land of the gods. And Sofiel is not even shown with her. Sofiel “I will give you my life” “I understand why Bacchus followed a human woman down to earth” “Why he fights for man” “You saved my life and I have a debt to repay” Sofiel. Doesn’t pay her respects to Mugaro’s grave, isn’t there with Jeanne. As stated earlier in subjectivity, this is not a ship appeal. I’m not asking for the show to ‘go some extra mile’ for ships and imply they are living together or something; But Sofiel and Jeanne’s relationship, and Sofiel’s connection to Mugaro was an important arc that needed to be touched on.

Then, Favaro does not get any chance to react to Kaisar’s death other than a single gasp. ??????

Then Favaro is unconscious for the fight (?) with Bahamut, just advising Nina. ??????

But we still see him ride off into the sunset as the protagonist, despite the fact that he was completely excluded from the resolution of the primary part of the plot, which was the MOST relevant to him out of anything to happen so far!

There are a dozen other minor issues, a handful of things that were going through the motions, and maybe a tiny few things that were done well. But as a whole, “Run, Nina, Run” is a by-the-numbers chronological finale that fails to capture any of the heart and Soul that it championed so strongly throughout it’s running length.