Combatants Will Be Dispatched!

Episode 9

“In which our hero becomes a cannibal?”

As punishment for not only failing to get the water the Kingdom needs but also instigating a war, Six and crew find themselves tasked with getting water seeds from the most dangerous part of the desert, where the Sand King lives.

The first few minutes of the episode, with Six and crew finding the seeds, picking them, and attempting to escape the Sand King, is actually a good bit of world-building that doesn't rely on cumbersome expository dialogue. Just by looking at what is happening in front of us, we can piece together a plausible explanation of why the desertification is happening.

The Sand King (a giant mole creature of some sort) is adapted to living in a desert, swimming through the sand as if it were water. Using magic, the Sand King draws the water out of its surroundings and compresses it into the “seeds” that it then stores in its needles. In other words, it's creating its own habitat and securing the water it needs to live at the same time.

Of course, this begs the question: wouldn't killing the Sand King stop the desertification and thus any reason for war between the humans and demons? Perhaps, but that supposes that A) it can be killed with the existing weapons and magic in the fantasy world and B) that the environmental devastation won't continue on its own even without the Sand King. Honestly, what the world needs is an army of people with superior weapons and technology to take the beast down and repair the environmental damage...

In other words, Kisaragi's invasion will probably end up saving this world from becoming the next Arrakis.

The rest of the episode is focused on Six, Snow, Alice, Grimm, and Rose's survival as they attempt to escape the heat of the desert on foot. Of course, they attempt to use the evil point system to survive and, in the process, we learn two important things related to it. The first is that there is some sort of diminishing returns when it comes to the evil points. Peaking at an unconscious Grimm's panties is evil, but only counts for the first few times.

The other thing we learn is that Six still doesn't quite get how evil points work. He assumed that he doesn't get evil points if the victim enjoys his evil act. However, it's more that he only gets evil points if the victim does not give him consent to do the act. Thus, even if Snow had given Six permission to ravage her, it wouldn't have gotten them any points.

The big joke of the episode is centered around Six and Rose—and it's a joke that I don't think works as well in English as it does in Japanese. The whole thing is a pun built around a Japanese slang term “Nikushoku Joshi”—directly translated as “Carnivorous Girls.” It alludes to extroverted women who are vocal in their wants, needs, and expectations in regards to the opposite sex—and who stereotypically tend to be sexually promiscuous. Of course, the humor here comes from the fact that Rose is literally a “carnivorous girl”: she only eats meat given the fact she is part monster.

So Six is thinking that Rose wants to “eat him up” in a sexual way (as in, “That guy is so cute, I just want to eat him all up.”) and is facing the moral dilemma of having sex with an underage girl in order to get the evil points needed to save their lives. Rose, on the other hand, is actually starving and wants to tear the meat from his bones and gorge herself on his innards.

When the misunderstanding is revealed, Six and Rose fight—mainly so Six doesn't end up getting eaten by the ravenous Rose. Of course, beating up a child also turns out to be a great way to rack up the evil points so, before long, they're all in a brand new jeep driving home with an unconscious Rose in the back seat.

All in all, in Japanese—with the wordplay and cultural context—it turns out to be pretty funny. However, it comes off a lot creepier in English, and might make Six irredeemable in the eyes of the viewers. I look forward to reading the comments on this one and seeing how it is regarded by the non-Japanese-speaking viewers.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• According to the wiki, Rose is 14 or 15. Six is 19 or 20.

• Honestly, I don't think I could eat an Orc either. The idea of eating a sentient being creeps me the hell out.

• There is also another possibility as to why Six stopped getting evil points for looking up Grimm's skirt: she died. Perhaps the victim needs to be alive to gain evil points from them.

• I was sad at how few lines Grimm got in this episode. Though I did laugh at how quickly she was out of commission.

• I do like that the information on the ruins that the Princess was offering as a reward for gathering the water seeds wasn't really a reward—it was a trick to get Six and crew to fight the demons in the ruins and stop them from getting their hands on an ancient weapon. With the desert mission a failure, she simply drops the pretense and sends them anyway.

• The Kisaragi leaders beat the heroes after all! Good on them. Does that mean that they have finished conquering Earth?

Combatants Will Be Dispatched! is currently streaming on Funimation.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.