Warlords of Sigrdrifa

Episode 5

With the introduction of Amatsuka and the counter-offensive operation against the Pillars, this episode brings the plot back into focus, but the show remains an inconsistent experience overall. We get some hints about the tragedy in Sonoka's past, as well as some buildup to what will probably be a difficult battle, but once again this episode had elements that completely took me out of the story.

Case in point: that bathroom scene. In a more ecchi-oriented show, that could have gone down in the books as one of the most impressive bathroom scenes in anime, because my god was it beautifully animated. Instead of doing a bunch of pans over still images of the girls in sexy poses (which is ironically what the last episode briefly did), this one focuses on the girls moving around while naked. The character acting is close to realistic, even as certain parts of their bodies jiggle about as if they have a life of their own. In the world of anime, where it's common to apply cartoonish exaggeration to female body proportions to the point of tastelessness, it's honestly a rare good example of what's appealing about animated female bodies. You don't often see this kind of focus on character acting in a fanservice scene.

...But that's also the problem. This was an episode where the breast jiggles were animated on ones while the rest of the episode simply isn't animated all that well, and even the static shots had some sloppier art than usual for this series. To me, this indicates a very deliberate mismatch of priorities. Although I don't know everyone responsible for the bath scene, animator Osamu Sakata tweeted that he worked on the first part; this was the animator who previously made a splash in the second season of Kaguya-sama: Love is War with Kaguya's absurdly well-animated self-care routine. It's obvious that he was chosen for his talents, but in a TV anime with limited resources, it makes more sense to assign the best animators to scenes of greater narrative weight. Aside from a bit of exposition about the counter-offensive, the bath scene in this episode doesn't accomplish much, and it only makes the rest of the episode look worse in comparison.

At least the following scene where Azuzu and Claudia confront Odin had some neat staging to complement the importance of that conversation, juxtaposing the theater environment with a retro fighting game. It's intriguing how Odin regards everything through the lens of fictional media, which ties into how frivolously he treats the lives and feelings of the Valkyries. He seems to be pushing for Ragnarok, the final battle, but beyond that his motivations are a cipher. The overarching plot of this show has mostly lost me by this point, but I am at least interested in seeing how Odin's plans pan out. Also, Yumiri Hanamori has been consistently knocking it out of the park with her vocal performance, nailing both the youthful male voice and the enigmatic smugness of Odin. I continue to be impressed by the technical prowess of the people involved in this anime even as the writing quality dips.

Rating:

Warlords of Sigrdrifa is currently streaming on Funimation.