Heroic Legend of Arslan

Episode 12

This week on The Heroic Legend of Arslan, we meet an interesting new female character. So far, Farangis has done all the heavy lifting in terms of badass ladies, but no longer, because now we also have Alfreed. She's the daughter of the chief of the Zot Clan, who Hermes comes across in his quest to track down Arslan. When the Zots don't allow him access to their land immediately, Hermes slaughters the chief. This results in an all-out battle between the startled Zots and Hermes's men. The latter side wins, killing everyone except for Alfreed, now emboldened by vengeance. Even then, she only survives because Narsus happens to come across the group.

That doesn't mean Afreed can't handle herself in a fight, and she certainly doesn't act like just another maiden to be rescued. She doesn't warm to Narsus at first, and doesn't seem to care about the larger conflict at all. Alfreed just wants to avenge her father. She ends up following Narsus because joining Arslan's team seems the best plan for now. She's also developing a slight crush on Narsus too, or at least that was what I got from her intense focus on their ten-year age difference. That could go in some annoying places if it becomes the entire focus of her character going forward, but for now, I'm glad to see this this little firecracker added to the group.

However, I do have a problem with something else about her: her character design. In a world where most of the characters have naturalistic hair colors, Alfreed has blazing pink hair. She doesn't even look like the other Zot characters! Her whole design just screams "IMPORTANT CHARACTER COMING THROUGH!" in that silly way so common to anime—like when a group of sad children all looks gray and faceless except for the one kid with technicolor pigtails. I appreciate that The Heroic Legend of Arslan is usually the kind of show to make these things more ambiguous. Gieve has pink hair too, but at least it seems to fit his role as a flamboyant musician. Alfreed's doesn't make sense on any level. I'm not sure if that's how she looked in the OVAs or as described in the novels, but this adaptation has its own art style, and there's no reason she couldn't have been matched better to the TV show's aesthetic.

Visually, there's also more bad animation that stands out too strong. There's some unfortunate CGI during a moment where the camera gives us a horse's-eye-view on the rolling horizon. There's stilted animation when Narsus and Hermes are about to fight, as we see them just floating away. These animation mistakes become less and less excusable when they build up like this. Of course, these problems also become more noticeable when the episode itself drags like a sack of lead.

The battle between Hermes's forces and the Zots/Narsus takes up way too much time for accomplishing so little plot-wise (adding Alfreed to the group). The rest of the episode has more potential, but is still mostly taken up with repetitive battles. The most interesting things happen in brief discussions, like Elam and Arslan discussing "legendary cities" beyond a vast southwestern desert. (Considering that Pars is supposed to be Fantasy Persia, I wonder if this is their version of the Arabian Desert or maybe even the Sahara?) We also check in on Lusitania, where they've divided into three factions: the king, who is quickly losing his people's support; Guiscard, who the people rally around but hasn't quite separated from his brother yet; and Bodin the fanatical priest, who has his knights. Guiscard makes a clever ploy to alienate Bodin and drive his army out of the city, which creates another group to wander around gunning for Arslan. They're supposedly headed for Maryam, but I'm still sure nothing good will come of this.

Mostly, this episode is transitional, setting the characters up for further conflicts. Arslan and Friends have arrived in Peshawar, where they defeat some important Hermes allies after Xandes's group attacks. Daryun proves just how loyal he is to Arslan and Arslan alone, something the audience should already know. It moves the story forward, but only in small ways. There's not much excitement here.

Given the pace of recent episodes, I'm not surprised that The Heroic Legend of Arslan is stagnating a little. I just hope it doesn't stay that way. There are too many unanswered questions and unresolved conflicts to get mired in tepid subplots and bridges between better stuff. It's time to make like all the armies in this episode and get moving.

Rating: B-

Heroic Legend of Arslan is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rose is a musicologist who studies film music. She writes about anime and many other topics on Autostraddle.com, her blog and her Twitter.