Nanbaka

Episode 18

Nanbaka used to have a serious pacing problem. It's one of the major reasons I picked it for my worst anime of the fall season. So it's remarkable how much it's turned this around in this second half. Nanbaka hasn't been free of missteps, especially in the early part of this arc, but the Building 5 arc has been a tremendous success by the show's usual standards. It's kept me engaged and on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Episode 18 is largely set-up for the conflict to come. It moves the Building 13 inmates and their allies much closer to the confrontation, but it ends before they get there. We do get a reveal for who's behind this, and if you thought this was connected to Enki in some way, congratulations! I was wrong in my specific prediction though, since he appears to be a fully willing participant in this coup or whatever it is. (The show isn't quite clear on what the group's goals are yet.) It turns out that Samon was a pretty unreliable narrator.

In his focus episode, Samon described his older brother as an honorable man. He had a strong set of ideals about discipline, highly respected by inmates and guards alike for how he upheld his principles, but his actual inmates have a very different story. Liang and Upa followed him from the Chinese prison where Enki used to work, so they're very familiar with how he operates. They describe him as an extremely cruel guard, known for his ruthless beatings. That doesn't mean he couldn't be "disciplined" about when he doled out beatings, of course, so it doesn't directly go against Samon's account, but it complicates the picture considerably. Maybe the other guards looked up to him, and it's clear his younger brother did. However, the inmates were more afraid of Eniki than respectful toward him for good reason. Given all this new information, it's not hard to see a physically abusive guard escalating to outright murdering an inmate.

Episode 18 does a lot to build on Samon's character from his focus episode, despite the fact that Samon doesn't spend a lot of time onscreen. He confronts Enki and his co-conspirators, then gets imprisoned alongside Hajime. Still, we learn a lot about what makes the monkey tick, mostly from other characters. Even Liang and Upa's story tells us a lot about what kind of younger brother he was, revealing the insecurities he held from living in Enki's shadow. He bought into a lie about his brother to justify those feelings.

Samon's own confrontation with Inori and Ruka (the "kappa" former guard who's now an inmate) furthers this with more backstory, as we learn what's behind Samon's weird resentment of Hajime. The Building 13 guard was the one who subdued Enki on the day he killed an inmate. This was supposed to be Samon's task, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. This earned Hajime a promotion and gave Samon his cowardly reputation. I'd be uneasy about someone after that too, but he's going to have to get over it, since they're locked in the same cell. Samon and Hajime will likely have to team up to save themselves.

Frankly, Samon will have to get over a lot of his hang-ups. Hajime tells him, while they languish in separate cells, that Samon must kill his brother if need be. They both know that Samon couldn't attack him the first time, after building his brother up so much in his head. But can he do it now? Has the truth become obvious enough to get him over a lifetime of brotherly admiration and insecurity? I guess we'll see next week!

The inmates have to do some unusual teaming-up of their own. Getting Liang and Upa to go along with the investigation isn't too difficult, since their tensest relationship is with Rock, who's currently unconscious in the hospital. We might see more conflict on Uno's end, as the Building 3 card experts join their team. Uno drives most of the comedy this episode, which I largely found unconvincing. I generally have trouble with Nanbaka's style of comedy. Still, even between the jokes, the tense atmosphere and plotting held throughout the whole episode, building throughout with each cascading revelation. By the end, you felt actual dread as they turned each new corner.

That's very impressive for a show that often has difficulty committing to anything "serious." The mood, the pacing, and especially the character drama were surprisingly pitch-perfect. Nanbaka has moved from a show that I slogged through every week to one I genuinely anticipate and enjoy. I doubt I'll be picking it as my worst this season, unless it suddenly goes off the rails. It's truly turned itself around, becoming a surprisingly compelling little prison dramedy.

Rating: A-

Nanbaka is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a music Ph.D. student who loves overanalyzing anime soundtracks. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.