Warlords of Sigrdrifa

Episode 7

Oof, this was a heavy-handed episode. The death flags were waving from start to finish. After a full ten minutes or so of Amatsuka uttering empty promises of her return, I can't say that her (presumed) death had much emotional impact on me by the time it actually happened. RIP Amatsuka, we hardly knew ye.

Part of the reason her death fell flat for me is that I have difficulty seeing her as the reliable older sister figure she was presented as this episode. Last episode it was revealed that she sabotaged Sonoka's plane to stop her from fighting in a fateful battle some years ago. Even if her intuition was right about how Sonoka would not survive that fight, it was still a duplicitous act. Between that confrontation and her death, Amatsuka had only one conversation to win back Sonoka and the audience's trust, and that conversation was much too busy setting up the death flags. In the end, I can't say that I think too highly of Amatsuka as a person or as a character, and that undercuts the drama significantly.

In general, I get the feeling that the poor writing decisions of episodes 4 and 5 are coming back to bite this show, like the distracting bath scene. In the staff commentary, the writers said that bath scenes are a way of depicting people opening up and becoming emotionally vulnerable, but that's not how that scene actually played out. Instead, the mismatch of tones has made it more difficult into invest in the serious drama. It doesn't feel like the pathos of Amatsuka's death has been earned after all the nonsense from earlier, and that doesn't bode well for the rest of the show if it's going to maintain this serious tone.

At least the action in this episode was pretty good, even if it was a bit difficult to follow what was going on with so many different pilots participating in the fight. Also, once again, the larger mysteries around Odin and the Pillars are the main reason to keep watching for now, as Odin drops some more sinister hints while refusing to answer anything. Is his ultimate goal to turn all the Valkyries into undead warriors? That's my best guess at the moment, although I can't even begin to guess what his motivation is behind all of this. One thing's for certain: Things are going to get worse before they get better, if they even get better.

Rating:

Warlords of Sigrdrifa is currently streaming on Funimation.