Gachiakuta

Episodes 21-22

I had to take time off from covering Gachiakuta last week, but it ended up working out just fine. For as much as this entire story arc has been one long fight within the giant Trash Storm Trash Beast (try saying that five times fast), “Time Attack” and “The Power of Protection” really do fit together as a single, climactic explosion. The truth about the Watchman Series has been discovered, the Cleaners have all gathered together inside of Zodyl's Trash Beast cage, and the gang has to battle it out with the likes of Bundus and even Noerde, who has returned from death's door to make our heroes' lives as difficult as possible at the worst imaginable time.

The fight against Bundus takes up the entirety of “Time Attack,” and it's one of those occasions where it is incredibly easy to appreciate as a fan, but difficult to make much of as a critic. It's a lengthy, well-choreographed, and excellently animated fight scene in an arc that has been almost entirely composed of lengthy, well-choreographed, and excellently animated fight scenes. It was neat to see the robot arm-things that Bundus uses for his main weapon, and I'd say the most satisfying part of the ordeal was how Rudo finally got the chance to pop off a little bit and kick some ass with a magic nail gun. Looking back at this season as a whole, it is fascinating how much Rudo has taken a back seat in a lot of the action. He's had plenty of moments to shine, of course, but he's never been the sole mover-and-shaker in the way many shonen protagonists end up being. It speaks to the strength of Gachiakuta's cast and the rock-solid instincts of author Kei Urana that this has worked out so much in the show's favor. None of the Cleaners feel incidental, and our protagonist is merely one important cog in the larger machine of the whole team.

As we transition to “The Power of Protection,” I immediately notice and appreciate the brief cutaway to a family living within the domed walls of the city being threatened by the oncoming Trash Storm. If there is one major negative to how this last big arc of the season has been structured, it would be how small it has made the overall scale of the story. Sure, Zodyl has been talking a big game about the world-shattering plans he has in store for the Sphere, and how he's willing to sacrifice anything to make those plans happen, but at the end of the day, we've been stuck in the cave-guts of a rock monster for almost two months in real-world viewing time. The show had only just begun to flesh out the setting of the surface world when the gang got teleported by the Raiders, too, and it has become easy to forget that there even is a larger goal of protecting all of the innocent people that are right outside.

This episode helps bring back that sense of scale in two major ways, the first being the aforementioned reminder of, you know, the rest of the world. The second comes after Noerde is done trying to suicide-bomb the Cleaners with her exploding hair powers, which is a perfectly exciting sequence in its own right. After the delayed effects of Rudo's attacks crack a hole in the Trash Beast and threaten to send everyone flying out into the destructive winds of the storm, Noerde resigns herself to her fate and gives in to the gale. The episode indulges in the old “Show a melancholy flashback to a villain's origins literally seconds before they die so we can technically say that the character got some development” trick that has absolutely ruined perfectly good series like Demon Slayer, but this time the indulgence is at least a short one.

What makes up for all of it is the way that Noerde's final moments are completely swallowed by a mere glimpse at the eldritch abomination that is looming in the skyline. The music cuts out, and the entire picture gets inverted like a paper negative photograph. Even Noerde's last full sentence gets blotted out in black ink, as if this thing has the power to swallow everything a person ever was or ever could be with nothing more than a glance. Her actual last words get cut off as her body is seemingly wiped from existence like so much excess paint on a canvas, but we don't need her to finish the thought to understand the weight of “That thing is…The Watchma—”

It's a bone-chilling conclusion to this overwhelming and exhausting saga, and our heroes don't even know how afraid they should be. They're too busy being impressed by Guita's awesome and adorable Kaiju Pajama Powers and barely escaping the Trash Beast with their lives. We know, though, and that matters enough. This inaugural standoff against Zodyl and his acolytes may be over, but Rudo and the Cleaners' fight against the abominable force of The Watchman has only just begun.

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Gachiakuta is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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.