Chained Soldier Season 2

Episode 9

You just know that Chained Soldier is going to be pushing some boundaries when it opens with a content warning for assault. Given that the entire gimmick of Yuki's Rewards plays very fast and loose with the concept of consent, it feels pretty ominous for the show to begin with a warning of, “Okay, but seriously, this time it's going to get a little sketchy.” True to its word, that is exactly how “A Commander's Resolve” gets started. Kuusetsu has dropped in on Yuki, and she will not be satisfied until she can learn if that lovemaking she was peeping on last week feels as good as it looks. Whether or not Yuki wants to be her partner in this grand experiment is not something that she is remotely concerned about.

Despite the kinky elements of shame and resistance that run through all of Chained Soldier's steamiest scenes, the thing that makes Yuki's Rewards fun and not off-putting is that we're all supposed to understand that everyone is getting off, at the end of the day. For one, all of the girls who use Yuki as their Slave are fully aware of the bargain they've struck, even if some of the women aren't fully aware of just how nasty Yuki's “needs” are going to get. Even then, the show doesn't exactly play coy about how much the girls all end up enjoying themselves, eventually. Even in the case of Ren, who is putting on a big show of how pissed she is to have been made a dog for Yuki to pet and coddle, we all know that she loved those sexy tummy rubs. It's the tacit understanding that comes with the whole slave roleplay conceit.

Yuki's encounter with Kuusetsu is different, and to its credit, Chained Soldier does frame this act of actually non-consensual sex a villainous one. Yes, the show manages to sneak some nudity and lascivious shots of spit-covered tongues in there, which toes the line of good taste, but I think the whole scene is over and done with before we can truly go anywhere too horrible. Mira arrives to rescue Yuki and whoop Kuusetu's ass, which is really just another angle of this show's fetishization of bad-bitches who get shit done. I'm not going to complain, nor am I going to pretend like I don't see the appeal in having a sexy biker-badass swoop in and drop-kick the equally monster-lady who is trying to steal your virtue.

I have to commend the episode for delivering what is probably the best action sequence of the season, too. It's still filled with too much clutter and too many shoddily-boarded edits to be truly great spectacle, but it's a damn sight better than the weak excuses for action we've been served up so far. This is partly because it's more interesting to have Mira and Kuusetsu battle it out in broad daylight, in a setting that isn't just a random forest clearing or rock quarry. It also helps that the two women have visually interesting power sets. Mira's clones provide some fun choreography opportunities, and I'm always down for the magical monster-summoning gimmick that Kuusetsu gets to play around with.

Honestly, though, my favorite aspect of the episode is just how dark we got at the very end. Sure, Yuki's attack in the opening was dire, but we could figure that things would work out sooner or later, since there was still a whole episode of smash-em-ups left to get through. When Kuusetsu opened up her hideous, writhing maw of a stomach and devoured Mira whole, though, I was genuinely shocked. It's been so long since Chained Soldier has taken its own story this seriously, and I'd forgotten what it felt like for the plot to have actual stakes. If you'd told me that the back half of the season would basically be the show's perverted take on Dragon Ball Z's Cell Saga, then I would have been raring to go from minute one. For as much as Kuusetsu represents Yuki and Co.'s worst nightmare, I don't think I've ever been so excited to see where Chained Soldier goes next.

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Chained Soldier Season 2 is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.