Thunderbolt Fantasy

Episode 5

At the beginning of this episode, our party spends the evening talking about how Shā Wú Shēng, the murderous lace aficionado who currently possesses the GPS flute, is probably the baddest killer sword guy in the world. He's so badass that they'll probably lose someone trying to take him out as a group, which isn't optimal considering that they all possess one of the necessary HM moves to bypass the obstacles en route to Seven Sins Tower. Lǐn Xuě Yā (aka Guǐ Niǎo), the team Gandalf and guy who pissed him off in the first place, needs to think of a way out of this situation. Unfortunately, Juǎn Cán Yún, our Lancer of perpetual horniness, still thinks that he can take on Captain Super Murder, to the shock and indifference of his companions. (Demon sorceress Xíng Hài suggests rigging Juǎn's body up to explode when he's inevitably killed, but he isn't too keen on the idea for some reason.) Dān Fěi insists on accompanying him, since she feels responsible for losing the sword's handle in the first place. This flags Shāng Bù Huàn's protector instincts, and he quietly excuses himself to deal with Shā Wú Shēng alone.

So Shāng Bù Huàn (Saber) crashes Shā Wú Shēng's (Assassin's) dinner, and they chat for a while about how awesome they both are. It's here that mysterious stranger Saber finally reveals where he's from – Xī Yōu, a country long cut off from this nation of Dōng Lí by the Wasteland of Spirits. This is obviously important, but we don't know what it means yet. Assassin admits that this sounds super sketchy, but he also kind of believes it because Saber is crazy good at swords. Assassin has never seen Saber use a sword, but he can tell he's crazy good just from the way he sits. If Saber had been sitting even a little bit different, Assassin would have already killed him like twelve times over. In fact, these two are so good at swords that this casual conversation was already a fight of sitting positions, that's how cool and good at swords these guys are. Assassin asks Saber if he ever thought they weren't going to fight, and Saber admits they had to, and Assassin is like ha ha I knew it, and then they start fighting.

But before they can really get into it, vape wizard Lǐn Xuě Yā appears to break up their fun. He announces that he's come up with a brilliant solution to their problem - Shā Wú Shēng will just join the merry band up to the point when they need the GPS flute, and then he can have his revenge on Lǐn Xuě Yā! Shā Wú Shēng gets to keep his leverage over Lǐn Xuě Yā, the party keeps moving forward on their quest, and as an added bonus, Lǐn Xuě Yā has plenty of time to mull over how to get out of this! Assassin agrees for some reason, even though he just admitted that Lǐn Xuě Yā is a master of getting out of stuff, so you should never listen to his BS. For a cold-hearted killer, Shā Wú Shēng's greatest weakness may be his endless curiosity about other people's BS. And with the addition of Blue-Boy Stabbity Stab, the merry band is now complete.

Now that party acquisition is over, the story looks ready to get down to business with the real antagonists. This episode confirms a suspicion I voiced earlier – that Shāng Bù Huàn was brought into the party for a specific reason. Lǐn Xuě Yā won't tell him why, so he's probably not going to like it. I'm betting it has something to do with his sword skills and origins across the Wasteland of Spirits. We also don't learn the nature of Shā Wú Shēng's beef with Lǐn Xuě Yā, but the party has fallen into the habit of not divulging common information to those not in the know. Everyone but Shāng Bù Huàn, Dān Fěi, and maybe Juǎn Cán Yún knows Lǐn Xuě Yā's deal, they just haven't divulged it, so by extension, the audience doesn't know either. Mysteries upon mysteries!

Fortunately, the moment-to-moment in Thunderbolt Fantasy is so compelling that I don't mind this transparent narrative denial. Thunderbolt Fantasy is starting to juggle a surprising amount of plot for how tight and propulsive the show feels. There's all the competing beefs with our favorite wizard jerk, whatever Shāng Bù Huàn and the villain's secrets could be, etc. They've been hinting that Lǐn Xuě Yā isn't actually a good guy, but considering how many friends he has, I suspect that this reveal will be more on the level of “he's actually a pretty big jerk” (we know) than “he's secretly the real bad guy.” But no matter which way the story shakes out at this point, I have faith that Thunderbolt Fantasy will remain an engrossing, satisfying blast. At the very least, we're about to get some Lancer/Assassin character interactions, and those are bound to be special.

Grade: A

Thunderbolt Fantasy is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.