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EP. REVIEW: The Executioner and Her Way of Life

Come to think of it, is it ever stated how long the Isecutioners have been in the business? If Orwell's the one who leaked isekai summoning to the Noblesse, then isekai kiddos shouldn't have been popping up again in their world any later than like 50 or 60 years ago.

My issue, I guess, is that if Orwell really isn't the big-bad of the season, and this show doesn't end up getting a number of additional seasons, it feels like they've spent an incredibly inordinate amount of time on a relatively petty villain.

I can't recall when the detail was pushed in the LN, but at minimum the lead up to the events in episode 5 would paint that this isn't actually as big of a wedge between Menou and the Church as you'd get the impression of from the anime. spoiler[The wedge here ends up mostly between Menou and Orwell, not Menou and the Church. Orwell is the leader of one of the local Faust branches, and not one of the leaders of the Faust's headquarters. The lesson Menou takes from all this is to not trust the local Faust so readily, but that was a schism that predated these events.

Executioners are an independent branch within the Church, and the LN does make clear that most of the branches involved in managing territory do not appreciate the presence of Executioners operating within their jurisdiction. This is because Executioners can readily carry out their duties outside the authority of the local Faust and they can request material aid from the local Faust. Most local branches hate the Executioners using up their limited resources (especially if they feel they get nothing in return), so are more often than not uncooperative, frequently force Executioners to go through hoops to get any kind of material assistance, or even completely unsupportive by making up excuses to justify not providing support. This is probably why Menou is depicted relatively poor, as material aid for her work is limited.

Menou had a positive relationship with Orwell prior to this, because Orwell and her branch were extremely cooperative with Menou's work now and in the past and readily provided material assistance when needed. This combined with Orwell's past deeds and combined with how she treats Menou helps to make Menou have faith in Orwell as someone looking out for the public.]

But halfway through the season I know it's obviously too soon for the plot to be hitting its climax, so there's something else, some other shoe to drop, soon to come. My issue, I guess, is that if Orwell really isn't the big-bad of the season, and this show doesn't end up getting a number of additional seasons, it feels like they've spent an incredibly inordinate amount of time on a relatively petty villain. It makes sense for a longer story being told to have this much being fleshed out. But in a single or two cour series, this seems like such a weak development that it should have been relegated to a much smaller chunk, not stretched into what is now coming up on episode 6.

sudden but inevitable betrayal

• I'm still not in love with the Automaton designs in the show. The fact that they look like living blood golems is neat, but the execution gives them a more plastic-y look than I imagine was intended. The angel that Orwell summons is at least cooler than the generic suit of armor from the train episode.

DRosencraft wrote:

But halfway through the season I know it's obviously too soon for the plot to be hitting its climax, so there's something else, some other shoe to drop, soon to come. My issue, I guess, is that if Orwell really isn't the big-bad of the season, and this show doesn't end up getting a number of additional seasons, it feels like they've spent an incredibly inordinate amount of time on a relatively petty villain. It makes sense for a longer story being told to have this much being fleshed out. But in a single or two cour series, this seems like such a weak development that it should have been relegated to a much smaller chunk, not stretched into what is now coming up on episode 6.

Light Novel adaptations usually cover 3 or 4 volumes in a cour, but this one is only doing two. We are still within the first volume of the novels,

The most disappointing part of the straightforwardness of this episode is that the moral ambiguity

Hence, what I led off with - it's fine if they're expecting this is going to get the time to fully develop the entire story as an anime. But we generally know that's a rarity, hence why you don't normally attempt 1:1 adaptations of source material. This all would set up well as a written story with all the mystery elements, etc, knowing that the publication horizon is so far out for a written story. But when you have an anime that you're likely only getting 12 or 13 episodes to tell your story, 24 if you're lucky, more if you're really lucky. If the anime ultimately goes that long, it's fine. At the moment, it's setting up to be a poor decision by the anime team.

The most disappointing part of the straightforwardness of this episode is that the moral ambiguity of Menou's mission coupled with the trope-subverting first episode twist had my hopes up for a less paint-by-numbers show. Sigh.

Exploring the moral complexity of "is it evil to kill one person to save plenty?" is much harder than simple morality of "bad guy is bad" and far less popular, especially when it involves killing the typical audience self insert character.