Episode Summary
With Ikoma now lingering between half human and Kabane he attempts to escape with everyone on the train that Mumie has cleared a path for, with her two sawed off steam shotguns. Mumei however isn’t able to help against the Kabane on the train because of a time limit where here Kabaneri heart consumes her and she needs to rest. Ikoma is found out after the passengers see his now Kabane heart and is shot out of the train left for dead. The train comes up to a halt however unable to cross a bridge because of a mechanical malfunction. Ikoma returns getting brutally injured as her takes out Kagane and successfully manually engages the drawbridge level. Mumie shows back up to save Ikoma’s let for dead body and reveals to the police that she and him are Kabaneri, half human half kabane.
Review
It was almost cruel having to wait for the second episode of Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress, but it’s finally here, and its time to gush. First of all, every second of watching Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress I was cheering in my head. It didn’t matter if people were dying, everything was just so awesome that I felt like I needed to keep pumping myself up. And Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress is very much a pump up show. Everything down to the movie like action scenes and Hiroyuki Sawano’s insert song while Mumei playfully dispatches Kabane proves this. Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress has up until this point rocked out its story at a spinal tap eleven. So lets look at how it did this so well.
We finally get to see the follow-up of Mumie’s sweet decapitation in episode one and are exposed to her real potential as a kabane exterminator. She playfully, but not annoyingly, dispatches countless kabane, all while making a path for the citizens to get on the train. It seems she’s well-balanced her emotions towards the world and kabane, as opposed to seemingly everyone else besides Ikoma. In a world of seemingly insanely scared people, its nice to see someone who takes tries to take pleasure in the situation. And her skill level warrants that behavior, so I’m okay with it. To maybe make a comparison I’d say she’s like Woody Harrelsons, Tallahassee is Zombieland. And given what we learn at the end of the episode that Kabaneri are basically undead tanks, I’d say there’s loads of cool shit we can see from her, and Ikoma as well.
So if Mumie is the elegant tank, Ikoma is the bullet sponge, which has its own merits. His weapon makes him get up close and personal and he gets brutalized this episode. To be fair it was because he was surrounded, but that makes his triumph over it so cool. Because I assume he can still feel pain, and yet he powers through it in an attempt to save the train people just to spite them for leaving him behind. Now that’s a badass. But not one without relate ability, as the train drives away he cries at the fact that he’s going to die but his stupid ideals won’t let him take the rope his friend throws out. Theres a lot to chew on for his characters and seeing him steadfast on his ideals, but at the sometime be hurt by them makes for a compelling character.
As for the events of this episode, I’d say it flows in a way that is exactly what you want from this kind of show. That being that events happen in such a fast pace and with such impact that you don’t really have focus to put anywhere else. This makes for seemingly simple events to have surprising outcomes that you would normally figure out easily, but the show is so good at keeping you directly engaged, that when it happens you don’t see it coming. Kabaneri of The Iron Fortress masters engagement and with having a premise that’s not that original, this is crucial to its continue success. I can’t wait to see where they go from here and how they’ll blow me away next.
Episode Rating: A
