Rage of Bahamut Genesis

Episode 5

There are some anime episodes where a lot happens in the end, but it takes a while to really get going in the right direction. Episode 5 of Rage of Bahamut Genesis is not one of those. Building on last week's cliffhanger, we start out immediately with gods and angels fighting against Amira's attempt to steal the God Key. Flash forward to Azazel and Cerberus gloating over her capture and Kaisar, and Favaro and Rita's reactions, straight into a rescue mission. Rage of Bahamut Genesis rarely likes to pull punches, but this week was especially brutal. There was no moment for a breather; even the theme song was delayed to the five-minute mark to accommodate all the action.

In the process, Bahamut did something it already does best: combine different types of storytelling for maximum impact. In the middle of Favaro and Rita's journey to rescue their partners, the show piled on some worldbuilding about the divisions between angels and demons, the limits of gods' powers, and how their world is mapped out. The Orléans Knights make their first reappearance in a few episodes, establishing more continuity and raising more questions (are they good or bad, why are they fighting, and what's with the Joan of Arc references anyway?) None of this felt like dull, any more than last week's backstory-building did. It was weaved so seamlessly into building intensity and forward motion in the plot. We have gods and a servant of Lucifer involved now! The stakes are raised, and with them, the excitement.

One of the downsides of spending so much time in the realm of gods and demons is the visuals take a serious nosedive, though. MAPPA doesn't seem quite ready to handle the blue-purple haze of Azazel's ship and especially not the bright yellows and whites of the gods' realms. The former did improve a bit this episode from previous ones, but the light beams of the gods' attacks were as blinding as ever. Maybe they look different on Japanese viewers' TV sets than on my MacBook, but it's seriously washed-out, to the point that it's difficult to tell what's going on in those scenes at all. I hope they add a little more contrast next time we go there in future episodes!

It also felt like Bahamut wasted some story potential this week. When Bacchus told Favaro and Rita where to go to rescue Favaro, using lines like "I'll take you only that far," it sounded like set-up for a multi-episode arc. I expected to spend at least another episode or two traversing through badlands filled with scary monsters and unscrupulous people. Instead, this was all resolved within the space of a few minutes, and they were able to battle Azazel's group and rescue Kaisar and Amina in no time. Of course, the aftermath of that sets up for some interesting conflict in the next episode—but why couldn't we have spent more time on this dilemma?

The series burns through some compelling interpersonal conflicts, too. Favaro gets over his reticence in rescuing Kaisar and working with Rita remarkably quickly. The episode points this out as a joke, and while it isn't inconsistent with Favaro's wacky, impulsive personality, it still wasn't explored enough to be completely believable. These dudes have a long and painful history together. It's even more surprising how quickly Kaisar goes along with Favaro's rescue. He snaps out of his fight with him as soon as Rita arrives, and then goes along for the ride for the rest of the episode. Presumably this'll bubble up next week, since there's a mountain of unresolved conflict there, but they left it hanging a little too easily.

The more I think about this, the more I realize that Bahamut has been doing this for quite a while. It sets up some pretty big, meaty stuff that any other story would chew on for about two or three times as long as it takes Bahamut to burn through it. This is part of why Bahamut's been such an engaging show in these early episodes, constantly keeping us on our toes and moving the plot forward, while its fantasy-adventure brethren are still finding their feet. At the time, it's hard not to wonder when the other shoe is going to drop. In comparing it to similar series this season like GARO and Yona of the Dawn, Rage of Bahamut feels a little too much like the hare to their tortoises—starting out strong, but destined to run out of steam when its writers run out of ideas. After all, the source material of a mobile card game can only provide so many ideas on its own.

Then again, last week showed us that Rage of Bahamut is able to take time aside to spend on backstory and character development when it wants. (We got a return to that this week, with another short glimpse of Kaisar's backstory.) As much fun as the swashbuckling battles and colorful worldbuilding can be, these parts are the most creatively-directed and emotionally-compelling, and the best signs that Bahamut has more potential than your typical fantasy-adventure romp. So I can't get too pessimistic about this hare's chances in the race. Even a rushed, imperfect Bahamut episode is way more fun and gripping than a great episode of most other shows this season. Rage of Bahamut Genesis clearly has a lot of cards in its hand, and just needs to figure out when to play them and when to keep them close. It was just whipping them out too fast this time.

Rating: B+

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.