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Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles
Episode 12

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 12 of
Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles ?
Community score: 4.3

There's a persistent problem with anime adaptations of long-running manga or light novel series: the dreaded “read the source material if you want to know more!” effect. I think many of us suspected that Seirei Gensouki would ultimately fall into that category, but watching it actually happen is even more frustrating than expected, because in a lot of ways it feels like the series ends just as things are finally getting interesting. Certainly saving Celia from her dreadful marriage is a nice ending all on its own, but rather than stopping there, we finish with the revelation that not only are there three souls from the bus/train crash who were reborn into this fantasy world, but there are apparently three living people who were just brought over wholesale – possibly even more, if the rays of light indicate the number of the living isekai victims rather than the total number of people both living and dead who have come from Japan. That one of those people is the very same Mii-chan Haruto has been pining for feels more like a kick in the teeth than a happy reveal. (And I can't think any of the girls are going to be pleased about it, either.) It's also a shame that Alfred got such a brief introduction, because he seems like a character who could be interesting, and let's not forget our true mustache-twirler, the man with the red eyes, who is clearly going to continue to be all kinds of trouble.

To a degree, the decision to end here makes sense. It certainly is a good advertisement for the books, which, if you missed it, are being translated by J-Novel Club. I was planning to pick them back up anyway, but this has made it feel like a much more urgent purchase, because now I'm not just interested in a cursory way; I'm genuinely curious to know what happens next. Judging by what book readers have said, however, as well as the clearly breakneck pace of the anime version, jumping ahead to where the show left off adapting does not seem like a good plan – more than ever it feels as if we got the highlights reel rather than the full story. But while that's made for less than stellar viewing, I do have to admit that if the goal was to sell more novels, they've probably succeeded.

Even with the abrupt and frustrating finish to this episode, this is one of the more exciting installments. Rio's decision to give Celia another chance to escape a marriage that is clearly made in hell is sweet, even if a piece of him just really wants to stick it to Charles. (And can you blame him?) There's a lot of action that goes on – Rio's literal flight with Celia, the fight scenes, and just the emotional action of Celia finally deciding that her own happiness and potential well-being aren't worth sacrificing for a nebulous and doubtful “greater good” are all solid moments. It's also a chance for Rio to remind us that he does in fact have emotions and that those he cares for, he cares for deeply. He and Celia have the potential to have a really nice relationship in a world where there's more time granted for its development, and while she likely does have a crush on him, the more important aspect feels like the genuine care that they feel for each other, which could just as easily be friendship or a familial love. (It probably isn't, but it could be.) And I do like that Rio doesn't have the exact same relationship with every girl – there may be some similarities between them, but his relationship with Latifa isn't a replica of his with Celia or Sayo, which again probably speaks well of the source material.

Seirei Gensouki is, at the end of its run, a show that squandered a lot of its potential. Had it been given more episodes to tell its story, it could have been a better series: one that played with its isekai tropes in more interesting ways, as the first episode seemed to indicate. It isn't terrible and it was never unwatchable, but it really could have been a lot more than just “the okayest show I watched this season,” which is where it ends up.

But hey – we can always read the source material if we want to know more!

Rating:

Seirei Gensouki - Spirit Chronicles is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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