Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra

Episode 7

It took a while, plenty of set-up, but we're finally at a point with Mynoghra where we're getting to the meat of the series: negotiations, business, compromise, politics—whichever word you want to use to describe the society of Mynoghra itself interacting with other societies and making a mark on its world. It was always the obvious place for this series to land; it just took longer than expected. Still, better late than never. Even so, that's not to say this was a thrilling episode that left me on the edge of my seat this whole time. It was all right—which is higher praise than I've given most episodes of Mynoghra—but there's still a certain dryness to this series that it just can't seem to shake, even when the story is picking up. Hopefully, it can maintain the momentum it's got in the past few weeks and overcome that in time.

In any case, I liked the part where Takuto and Atou talked about being evil, but enjoying peace—even if it barely lasted all of five seconds, and they didn't dwell on it as much as I would've preferred. I know not everyone will agree with me on this, but I love an anime (or any piece of fictional media in general, really) where our protagonist(s) isn't necessarily the good guy—or at the very least, whether or not they're “the good guy” is something that's framed as a moral gray zone within the series' universe. And I love this all the more when they embrace that and go full chaos—say, your Light Yagami-esque characters. We haven't seen that happen in Mynoghra, at least not much. There was that scene with Atou and the soldiers a few episodes ago, but that was pretty much it. But also, since they've had so few experiences with the outside world, we haven't had a lot of opportunities for Takuto or Atou to engage in this self-aware and indulgent type of villainy, even if they wanted to. One of the biggest hopes I have for this series is that we see them embrace their evil role even further.

And while I'm talking about things that I liked in this episode that I wish more attention were given to, I liked Takuto's point about how he hadn't given much consideration to the cultures and personalities of other societies in the realm of the game, as the game itself never really paid much attention to that. Forced into the circumstances he's in, it's now a new element that he's going to have to take into consideration. The anime already gave Takuto an excuse to not foresee everything that's going to happen (the terrible, “teehee we're in the game except when we're not” nonsense), but it's nice having something else to mix things up that doesn't feel like such an obvious excuse.

In any case, the main success for the Kingdom of Mynoghra in this episode was their successful negotiation for the Dragon Vein mine. Although by the end of the episode, we're left wondering if it's thanks to Takuto and Atou's negotiating skills, or if the otherwise innocuous-seeming Pepe is three steps ahead of everyone else. And while neither Takuto nor Atou seem fresh to the negotiation table, that the anime planted the idea that it could've been Pepe makes me think that probably played a larger role than Mynoghra is letting on so far.

Overall, I'm liking the general direction Mynoghra is moving in now a lot more than I liked the first half of the series, which is to say, I've been liking the past couple episodes just, at all. Even if this weren't tucked away in a season loaded with mega hits, Mynoghra's still not exactly anime of the season contender material. Still, we've finally turned a corner where I'm thinking that if the show continues like this, then it might live up to the potential it was brimming with at its start.

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Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.