Shangri-La Frontier Season 2

Episode 35

I must say, the end of this episode definitely grabbed me by the balls. Was anyone else expecting that to happen? I certainly wasn't. Most of this episode is a lot of fluff and nice moments between Sunraku and Psyger-0. As someone who desperately wanted these two characters to interact more after a season and a half of build-up, I pleasantly enjoyed the exchanges. I was a little worried the show was going to lean more into the joke of Psyger-0 constantly coming off as accidentally intimidating because of her aura when, in reality, she's just a shy, awkward girl with a stalking problem. However, they found a good balance between keeping that joke while also having the two genuinely get closer. The two aren't on the same wavelength, but there is a rapport there and it is refreshing compared to how all the other players in these games interact. Not all online players want to be at each other's throats or troll the hell out of each other. Some of them are just awkward yet well-meaning.

Still, though, that ending with the arrival of the very beast that jump-started a lot of the major plot points in this series was certainly unexpected. It's a little bit convenient that Sunraku and Psyger-0 just happened to accidentally wander into the area where this beast was supposed to spawn, but the look on Sunraku's face at the end definitely makes up for it. I'm very curious to see what this encounter is going to look like, because Sunraku is not prepared to deal with this at all as he is getting ready to fight a completely different boss and if there's a little bit of lingering PTSD for the monster that literally tore into him. Ah, who am I kidding? This guy could as likely be thrilled at the development. Because there are a bunch of high-level players now occupying the area, maybe we'll see a different result from last time. It's been a while since I've been this excited to see what happens next.

P.S. I'm also glad the show finally decided to elaborate on how getting Sunraku's curse removed isn't as easy as it was implied to be. I feel like if that was made clear sooner, then I would have been a bit more understanding of Sunraku being bummed about not being able to wear the robot armor.

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