©鹿角フェフ・じゅん・マイクロマガジン社／「マイノグーラ」製作委員会
Suppose you’ve seen your fair share of anime that are even sort of battle-adjacent. In that case, there’s a pretty good chance you can think of more than a few moments where one of our protagonists shows off how powerful they are by soloing an entire group of other fighters—if not more or less an entire army—by themselves. Some err cartoonish, others brutal slaughter. And this week, Mynoghra feels like it wants so badly to achieve something closer to the latter, though stopping just short of reaching, say, Berserk or Vinland Saga levels of carnage. Atou literally held up the body of her enemy, and told him before she killed him how she was going to kill everyone precious to him. I just got back from EVO, so to use a comparison that’s in the front of my brain: Atou did to those soldiers what MenaRD did to Kakeru in Street Fighter 6. And typically, I’m all about horror and this kind of thing. So why then did this whole sequence feel so sauceless? I think it’s because it just wasn’t fun to actually watch. Or to be more specific, the spectacle wasn’t there.
A big part of what makes sequences like these work so well is that they’re dynamic, exciting, and just plain cool. They can usually achieve these kinds of things through elements like well-choreographed movement, visual flair, hype music, and so on. And this week, Mynoghra had none of that. Sure, we got an indulgently villainous monologue from Atou—which, admittedly, was cool. But that energy was utterly unmatched in what was unfolding onscreen. For one, Atou’s attacks all came from tentacles that feel, visually, like they were thrown in without much consideration for cool action shots. An easy thing Mynoghra could’ve done that maybe would’ve helped make up for this was, frankly, buckets and buckets of blood. When in doubt, gore works. Big, bold, over-the-top levels of gore. Plus, the grisly slaughter would add to the bit where Atou threatened to kill that one soldier’s loved ones because now it feels less like the empty threat we all know it is—after all, we, the audience, know enough to know that she’s not planning on leaving her home base any time soon.
Speaking of her leaving, wow. I’m used to contrivances in anime, sure, but Atou looked directly at the camera and practically said, “We’re in the world of the game except when we’re not.” On one hand, I get it. It’s the only way for Takuto to not stampede his way into achieving his goals faster than he already is, and to keep some level of mystery and excitement. But on the other hand, this is so obviously the world’s flimsiest excuse. And I think it feels that way because so far, the only times things don’t work the way they do in the game are when it’s convenient for the plot—say, the soldiers attacking.
On a practical level, I understand why this couldn’t strictly be the world of the game, but this feels like such a low-effort way to get around the inconveniences of Takuto knowing all the scenarios that it wraps around as a terrible excuse. It’s almost funny that the show nonetheless earnestly tries to sell this to the audience. But then again, this is the same show where just last week (and verified this week) Werdel bought Atou’s whole “hehe we’re totally not launching an evil empire in here” song and dance. I thought for sure she must’ve put him under a spell, but it would seem that’s not the case. He is (was), in fact, just that gullible. And the anime isn’t even playing his gullibility as a joke, which is uh, quite a choice. Given what happened this week, I speculate it’s because the show doesn’t realize how profoundly gullible they made Werdel, which is incredible.
I think it’s safe to say at this point that the writing is heavily flawed, particularly in its justification of how and why things happen. At least twice now, we’ve seen it unironically use excuses that are on par with “my dog ate my homework” and, I can’t emphasize this enough, playing those excuses straight. I guess if there’s a silver lining, if it keeps doing this, then this show might become unintentionally hilarious. And unfortunately, at this stage, unless things get moving more quickly, that might be its best bet for making it more enjoyable for me. Because once again, I’ve finished this week’s episode not looking particularly forward to seeing what happens next. And with a show with as much promise as this one, it’s all the more disappointing to feel week after week after week.
Rating:
Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.
Episodes 1-3
Episode 4
Episode 5