Hell’s Paradise – Episode 08

Episode Synopsis:

Asaemon Tenza and Nurugai encounter a Tensen on the beach, and flee inland, where they encounter Tenza’s instructor, Asaemon Shion. The Tensen catches up to them, and Tenza sacrifices himself to allow Nurugai and an injured Shion to flee further.

Episode Review:

Balancing as many characters as Hell’s Paradise has can’t be easy, but it does feel like there’s obvious room for improvement here. Designating a solid chunk of an episode to a character’s backstory after they’ve sustained a mortal-looking wound doesn’t strike me as the most effective way to maintain audience investment – this kind of timing could instead be construed as a signal that one won’t have to pay much attention since the character is about to stop having an impact on the future plot. This fight couldn’t have been started earlier, since the main cast is only now learning of the Tensen, but perhaps we could have gotten the Shion/Tenza story before the Tensen caught up to their position, and then cut to other characters right as they arrived to draw out the tension until the next episode? Makes me wonder if scenes are playing out in the same order as the source material.

Speaking of the source material, fight choreography isn’t really this series’ strong suit either, which is something that could be a symptom of leaning too heavily on print works. You can get away with a lot when you can trust a reader’s mind to fill in most of the gaps, but real-time combat has a kind of cadence that requires dedicated attention, especially when the combatants are fast. It isn’t as noticeable here as in previous episodes, but it did feel like the Tensen could have gotten quite a bit done while the protagonists were talking. Still warming up, perhaps? It also struck me as odd that someone capable of perfectly dodging a flurry of sword attacks could get laid out by the same attacker just punching them – I’ll have to chalk that one up to the element of surprise. Tangentially, my man just whales on the Tensen while Shion carries Nurugai away, but did the latter pair really get far enough away that the Tensen won’t be able to hunt them just as easily as the first time? The last thing we see is them stopping to catch their breath, and all I can think is that every sound they make is a death sentence.

Weird episode – due to the flashbacks, it doesn’t really feel like much happened.

Summary:

Minus one protagonist (or net zero, depending on how you count Shion), plus one unstoppable death machine.

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