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Snow White with the Red Hair
Episode 9

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 9 of
Snow White with the Red Hair ?
Community score: 4.0

“It may be true that Love is blind,” wrote Joseph C. Lincoln in his 1917 novel Extricating Obadiah, “it seems equally true that all the rest of creation has its eyes wide open to watch the sightless god upon his way.” Although he wasn't specifically discussing it, what with the whole 100 year gap and all, Lincoln nicely summed up the romance plot of Snow White with the Red Hair, especially since Prince Raj helped to plant the idea that Shirayuki is Zen's fiancée. In recent episodes Zen assigned Obi to be Shirayuki's personal guard, something the mysterious ninja-like young man seemed ambivalent about. This week, however, he proves his worth...and discovers that Zen never doubted that he would.

We begin the new material of this episode (after the obligatory flashback to the most traumatic part of last week's Atri fiasco) with Shirayuki still recovering from her encounter with hard liquor. Obi finds her in a meditative state that quickly deteriorates into a tizzy – somehow Shirayuki's inebriated mind has decided that she needs to go check on the soldiers she treated at the fort right now, and only her lack of equestrian skills is stopping her. Thank goodness for that, since she's hardly sober, as her rapid descent into depression at the thought that she can't ride a horse proves. Obi very carefully coaxes her into dropping her (insane) plan by revealing that he's already been to check on everyone: that's where he went, apparently, when Zen complained that he was gone for longer than he was supposed to be. This, along with the fact that he never treats Shirayuki like a drunken mess or a stupid child, really solidifies him as a good guy underneath his nonchalance. He makes a good show of just hanging around for his own, mysterious reasons, and he may claim that he just enjoys observing other people, but his actions and the seriousness with which he takes his role as Shirayuki's guard reveal him to be more invested in his job than he likes to let on. He may also be one of the only anime characters not to gripe about how heavy the passed-out girl he's carrying is, which probably says more about the show than the character, but is still nice to notice.

If Shirayuki was the bookend character last week, Zen fills that role in this episode. Like Shirayuki's role in episode 8, he feels a little underused and almost extraneous (more in the beginning), but bringing things back around to him in the final moments of the episode make him feel more relevant than she did. In fact, it almost feels as if he's the primary protagonist of this story rather than Shirayuki, despite the fact that the series is named after her, even if a more folklorically accurate title would be Donkeyskin with the Red Hair. Zen's crowning moment this week, after his mad dash around the palace grounds in search of Shirayuki and Obi, comes at the very end, when he shows that he has had trust and faith in Obi from day one, something that Obi clearly was not expecting. It's the episode's strongest moments, and one of the scenes that helps to show what makes this series so endearing; there's a tenderness and a sense of trust in most of the main characters' interactions with each other that just makes the story nice, even when that trust is occasionally betrayed. It also makes Izana even more worth keeping an eye on, because he seems to temper his interactions with a healthy dose of suspicion and to generally keep himself apart from everyone, his younger brother included. I really hope we get to meet the king and queen of Clarines at some point, because I'd love to see Izana interact with his parents; I feel like it would fill in some of the missing pieces of his character.

Animation-wise this is not the best episode of the show we've seen thus far, although in part that could be because Obi's near-lack of eyebrows makes him look a little odder the longer you stare at him. But there are some scenes where the perspective is definitely off, along with a weird fixation on Zen's thighs in several scenes. There isn't much dynamic motion this week, although the one scene where Obi flies into action looks better than most of the rest of the episode.

There's a slow build to Snow White with the Red Hair that leads me to believe that we won't necessarily have a grand finale to this first cour. But again that's something that makes this story enjoyable – it looks at the little details of life and the human interactions rather than the politics of the kingdom or plans of conquest. And of course, there's that pesky little sightless god flitting about Shirayuki and Zen. I think a lot of us are counted in that number of those watching him go upon his way, and it looks like we may be rewarded for our efforts before too long.

Rating: B

Snow White with the Red Hair is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rebecca Silverman is ANN's senior manga critic.


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