Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond

Episode 5

Klaus' loyal butler Gilbert is one of the more low-key characters in this largely bombastic show. While Zapp's getting blown up and screaming about his ding-a-ling, Gilbert is in the background, quietly serving tea. With a presence this subdued, I imagine that many viewers hadn't thought of him as a combat-ready character until this point.

Gilbert Franke Altstein (get it?) is a member of the von Reinherz family's corps of combat butlers. The fact that the von Reinherzes have control over such an organization says a lot about the family, which has spawned Klaus as their third-eldest son. (I'd certainly like to know more! Give us Klaus's backstory already, dammit.) It also turns out that Gilbert himself is a legend even within their esteemed ranks. He is getting on in years, however, and his old bones aren't what they used to be. So when a sudden monster assault leaves his spinal cord shattered, the higher-ups at the corps send over a young butler to assist him. This newcomer, Philip Lenore, is enthusiastic and competent, but he's also naïve about the intricate dangers that populate Hellsalem's Lot. He tends to rush into situations head-on without considering the attention that such reckless retaliation could attract. Of course, he finds himself kidnapped and held hostage against Libra within a matter of days.

So some petty thugs extract Philip's brain from his skull, give it remote control over his body, and try to use him to get valuable information out of Libra. They're found out immediately, and Gilbert sets out to rescue his butler comrade. He turns out to be a total badass, of course, kicking butt in a gun-toting pseudo-batmobile. And when it looks like the villains have managed to deal a fatal blow on the old man, he reveals his secret power – the ability to regenerate from fatal injuries. So that explains the bandages, kinda? Either way, it's cool. Apparently he doesn't use this power too much, since he likes his body as it is. Frankly, it doesn't even seem like he needs it most of the time, as he proves himself fully capable of standing alongside the best of Libra. At the end of this adventure, Phillip is left with a new respect for Hellsalem's Lot and the techniques that people adopt (both cunning and forceful) in order to survive there. He doesn't want to stick around, but he won't condescend to Gilbert (albeit innocently) anymore, and he'll work to cultivate the types of strength he witnessed from the everyday inhabitants of this city going forward.

Philip also leaves with a souvenir in the form of a metal eyepatch that hides the scars from his brain extraction. It looks pretty cool, and it's a clear trade-up from the fate he could have suffered, all things considered. He rejects Gilbert's offer to join Libra at the end, which makes sense in terms of his character but also leaves me a bit sad. I like the guy and wouldn't have minded him making background appearances (as Gilbert's trainee or something) for the rest of the show. In the manga, he returns for some end-of-chapter gags (alongside the similarly underused Femt). It'd be nice if they could find something like that for him to do in this series.

Otherwise, this episode was another example of the adaptation actually remaining quite inspired following the directorial shift. There were a bunch of dynamic shot choices that didn't originate from the manga, and some solid gags also invented for this anime. Both the creature that assaulted Gilbert in the beginning and the bug that Leo blurrily photographed (believing it to be the assailant) showed up again in the final shot. It's the type of blink-and-you-miss it callback I'd expect out of the first season. The climactic fight was also quite thrilling, excellently scored and storyboarded to convey Gilbert's sheer prowess. The direction is great at recreating shots from the manga while filling in the necessary material to make the whole thing dynamic as cinema. It's neither thoughtlessly recreating the source material or changing it in some fundamental way. It's just clear that a lot of thought has been put into conveying what the manga does in a different medium.

Overall, this was another great episode of Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond. I particularly liked Phillip's brain-jar design. Yasuhiro Nightow has a talent for making gross things look cute, and I wouldn't have thought that a disembodied cerebrum could be made lovable just by adding a single floating eyeball. Poor Phillip. (He's still cuter as a human, though.) Next week, it looks like we'll be treated to more of this anime's overarching storyline. Hopefully it'll give us an indication of just what the endgame might have in store for us.

Grade: A

Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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