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Rage of Bahamut Genesis
Episode 4

by Rose Bridges,

The adventures of Favaro Leone, Kaisar Lidfort and Amira continue, this time on the high seas! Favaro finds out—after Bacchus neglected to tell him—that the only route to Helheim is over the water. So he and Amira set out to a port town to find a boat, without much help from the clueless townspeople. But find one they do, and that's where the adventure begins. Along the way, we hear more about what made our heroes who they are, and the main plot finally revs up its engine at episode's end.

Favaro finds a ship captained by Amon, an old friend of his father. Once they set sail, we learn more from Amon about Favaro's father's past as head of their band of thieves years ago. We also find some important keys to Amira's character, when Favaro finds out that she doesn't even know what a "father" is. Considering what else we know about her backstory, there's clearly more to her ignorance than just that, and hopefully we'll get more clues to her past in future episodes. Finally, this segment tells us why Kaisar resents Favaro so much, and what their relationship used to be like. All in all, it does a lot to endear these characters more to the audience and flesh them out—especially Kaisar—without taking too much time away from the episode's plot. The scenes with Amon telling Favaro about his dad are intercut with Kaisar sharing his past with Rita, highlighting the similarities and connections between our two main dudes (a thread that runs through this whole episode).

Speaking of Kaisar, he's been pulled into the story more directly here than in previous weeks, as his pursuit of Favaro lands him and Rita on a ship directly behind Favaro's and Amira's. Both characters' plans go haywire as Kaisar's ship is taken by pirates, while Favaro's is attacked first by a giant crab, then by Amon, who reveals he's secretly a demon and that he plans to nab Favaro and Amira for their bounties. Both manage to trounce their rivals, only to be snatched up at the last minute by a bigger foe, the mysterious king-like antagonist, Azazel, who we've previously seen plotting in his pink-and-purple alternate dimension. He captures Amira—and, by mistake, Kaisar—as Favaro looks on in awe.

The "giant crab" brings up one major plus of this show that makes it so engaging: how well it balances the sublime and the ridiculous. Rage of Bahamut Genesis is far from the weirdest show this season, but it has a lot of strange curveballs to throw its audience. The giant crab may be one of the strangest, but last week's deceitful zombies were nothing to sneeze at, either. Yet, in spite of all the spectacle, Rage of Bahamut manages to keep its narrative momentum and cohesion afloat. It's never unnecessarily strange, so the eye-popping surprises just end up pulling us further into the story. The crab is not only an interesting obstacle for Favaro, Amira and Amon to overcome, it also reveals to Amon that Amira is a demon when she uses her powers to defeat it, and serves as a deus ex machina to swallow up Amon when Favaro punts him off the ship. That's a lot for one weird creature dragged in out of left field for one episode to accomplish.

Even as early as episode 4, it feels like we're cutting into the meat of the story. I expected a longer period of Favaro, Amira and Kaisar (and now, Rita) racing around having episodic swashbuckling adventures, with Azazel and his cronies looming over them and chatting ominously once an episode. Nope! Already, two of our three main characters have been captured, presumably setting Favaro up for a rescue mission next week. There's already some serious momentum here, far more than any of the other fantasy-adventure shows this season.

As far as the technical stuff goes, the animation isn't quite up to the level of the previous three weeks, but the rest of the visual design almost makes up for it. The shifts in cinematography throughout the episode—from the saturated rainbow of the marketplace, to the hazy blues and greys of the high seas, to the faded-photograph filters of Kaisar's flashbacks—are inspiring, showing that Rage of Bahamut has the potential to surpass MAPPA's previous visual triumph Terror in Resonance. The one weak link is in Azazel and Cerberus' (the dog girl's) scenes, where the saturation and contrast is a bit too much. Pink and purple are two of my favorite colors, but I don't like being blinded by them. Hopefully, the show can get that under control if we're going to be spending more time with these characters in their world. The music continues as before, with the addition of a fun western-style tune when Favaro defeats Amon.

Rage of Bahamut Genesis has a knack for combining swashbuckling spectacle with engaging, emotionally-effective plots and characters, and this week's episode is no exception. Let's hope it can keep up the pace as it moves into the main story.

Rating: A

Rage of Bahamut Genesis is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rose is a graduate student in musicology, who has written about anime and many other topics for LGBT site Autostraddle.com and her own blog. She tweets at @composerose.


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