The Holy Grail of Eris

Episode 7

Heroines and villainesses are regular features of anime and light novels, and The Holy Grail of Eris certainly has both seen from a certain perspective. But they're combined with other stock characters from other genres of fiction – Amelia Hobbes is the Girl Reporter, Connie is the Lady Sleuth, Randolph is the Stoic Male Lead, and Deborah Darkian is the Scheming Witch. The first two hail from mystery fiction, the third from romances, and the last from Gothic novels, and putting them all together results in a story that is filled with the usual tropes but not wedded to them. They allow the series to build upon the bases of extant genre fiction without being beholden to any of them, and I think that's one of the reasons why it works so well. We've become used to pat storylines and plots that are telegraphed based on the character tropes present. Eris doesn't allow us to get that comfortable.

Although this episode does a lot of jumping around as it struggles to cover all the plot points it needs to make this a twelve- or thirteen-episode series, it still manages to reveal some very telling details. One of my favorites is the depiction of the sex workers. Abigail O'Brian isn't a typical brothel madam, but, according to Miriam and Rebekah (both Biblical names), she's one who has earned the respect of the women who work under her aegis. Abigail respects them and their career choices, and while many of them may not have gone into the profession because it was what they wanted to do with their lives, she doesn't treat them like social outcasts or fallen women. She gives them a safe place to work and the respect they deserve as humans, and that alone makes her far different from most of the other women in power in this series. Deborah is busy plotting downfalls (and she secures both Aisha's and her cousin Sharon's), Amelia is muckraking to secure her own fame, and Cecilia…well, whatever Cecilia's doing isn't good.

In all of the years since Scarlett last walked the earth as a human, it seems like she's the only one who ever had Cecilia's number. Amelia, this week, falls into the same trap others have, assuming that the crown princess is weak and malleable. But Cecilia is anything but – if there's an evil mastermind in this series, it's almost certainly her. Maaya Uchida does a phenomenal job of showing how manipulative the princess is, with her quick vocal shifts during the confrontation with Amelia – Cecilia goes from sweet to venomous and back again, with impressive flexibility. The “princess” act is just that, a role Cecilia is playing to be able to get what she wants, whatever that may be. She clearly believes the old saw about catching more flies with honey than vinegar, and it must be admitted that so far, it's been working for her…at least, since she got rid of Scarlett.

That's what makes what Connie's doing so dangerous. Not only is she following leads pointed out by Scarlett, but she's also getting involved with all the people who were present ten years ago. By reopening Lily Orlamunde's death and becoming engaged to Lily's husband, she's placing herself squarely in the center of unresolved events – and now that Randolph and Connie appear to be growing attached to one another, that ups the ante. Cecilia will only underestimate Connie for so long, and since she just figured out the truth of Lily's key, the time she can scrape by under the radar is nearly up.

Was Scarlet killed because she, too, got too close to whatever Cecilia was up to? Or was she just a convenient pawn whom Aisha made it easy to blame? And more importantly, would Connie's death end things the same way Scarlett's did? Stories don't like to be left unfinished, but Connie needs to be careful lest her ending come all too suddenly – just like Scarlett's.

Rating:

The Holy Grail of Eris is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.