Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra

Episode 6

It took a moment—a six week long moment—but finally this week, I left an episode of Mynoghra thinking that it was actually a solid episode, all things considered, and that I'm actually interested in seeing what happens next week. Was the whole episode great, start to finish? No, but there's finally some actual movement being made in the story, and we saw an interesting, if bite-sized, character arc in this episode. I'll take what I can get.

Starting with the twins, this series has had its fair share of darker moments thus far (last week especially), but learning about how they were starving to the extent that they had to eat their mother was, I think, the first time something in this series actually hit with full force. Which is a bit surprising—the idea that they had to eat their mother is so over-the-top dark it almost feels hokey. Still, the fact that it was able to land anyway, I think, has a lot of it has to do with the fact that last week, for example, Atou felt so unserious throughout the whole scuffle with the soldiers, and the battle itself was so visually uninteresting despite what's otherwise being painted as a slaughter. The spectacle simply wasn't able to match the idea. But this week, while it's not to say the visuals were any better, the moment didn't call for as much visual flair. So it was still able to hold on to most or all of its gravity in spite of the still-unimpressive visuals.

I really hope Mynoghra continues down this darker path it's been going down for the past two episodes now. Especially given that our protagonists are supposed to be the baddies in their world, I think it suits this series. I love a series where our protagonist (or protagonists, plural, in this case) is the villain, and they love and embrace that. Incidentally, I was interested to learn recently that before directing Mynoghra, Yūji Yanase also just directed I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History. In case the title itself doesn't make it obvious, it's another series whose protagonist is the villain in her (game) world, and she relishes in that. So that's neat.

We learned this very episode that to Takuto, to be evil means to be selfish and to do as he pleases. Which, admittedly, isn't completely satisfying as an answer—at least not at this stage, where we've barely seen Takuto do anything aside from decide which buildings he's going to build first. Like, okay, it means to be selfish and that you're going to do what you want, but it begs the question of what Takuto wants—something we, the audience, don't really know yet. I guess only time will tell.

As that's concluding, we're starting to see more substantial discussions about what comes next for Mynoghra. Namely, how mana is the resource they need to be focusing on the most. And a strategic way of potentially getting more (amongst other benefits) could be invading the remote city of Dragontan. So at long last, the story is actually moving forward. While it's later than I would've liked, the mid-point isn't a terrible place for this series to finally start pivoting into exploration and the political consequences of potentially making themselves known by the surrounding cities. As I've been saying from the start, I think there's a lot of potential interest to be mined in the political intrigue, and it looks like the stage is, at long last, starting to get set for exactly that. For the first time since this series began, I'm actually curious to see where we go from here next week. Hopefully this series can keep building on that momentum.

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Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.