黄泉のツガイ

It's really funny how people just don't trust the person that wrote one of the most famous manga of all time, and think she is just winging it. This episode was a great example of setup and payoff, all the details from the plan were meticulously laid but some people just do not understand how important that step is. They want immediate resolution, if something doesn't make sense or don't seem important yet, they complain.

Yeah. I lurk these threads and read comments from people complaining about pacing all the time, and it honestly feels kind of crazy to me. The balance between the setups and payoffs has been pretty much perfect, and even this episode is pretty clearly laying the groundwork for future events while providing the audience with some spectacle, character moments, and comedy. The entire series has flowed seamlessly from one thread to the next, I've just been super impressed.

Genuinely so true lol. I think a lot of people have come to expect significant plot development or reveals to happen with regularity, and when that doesn't happen they view the episode as "filler" (despite filler meaning something else entirely). Im not a fan of this kind of mentality, but I think its just a sign of how younger people typically engage with media and how their tastes are influenced by what they grew up consuming. Don't really think it's a fixable problem, candidly I only think it's going to get worse and media will eventually adapt to appease this kind of audience.

I agree it seems like an age thing, as far as what people are used to or expect. I'm older, and sure I thought shows like JJK, Chainsaw Man were "cool" in that they have interesting fights, whatever, I just cannot care about any of the characters. I also don't take them seriously, because nothing lasts, nothing builds up, people drop left and right, meh. Again, yes they're very exciting and flashy. Emotional connection? Not for me, anyway. This type of show is much more interesting to me.

I was rolling my eyes at her asa speech considering how many people she massacred for fun in the village who might have been completely innocent I feel like the show has shown enough for us to reasonably understand that pretty much all the adults in Higashi Village know about and support the plan to kill Asa and Yuru. It's clear that Gabby takes things to the extreme. We even see it in this episode, where the plan was to take Akio alive, but she almost killed him. But what these scenes are trying to show about Gabby character is that she doesn't just kill randomly. She kills people based on whether or not they have hurt, or are trying to hurt, the people she cares about. Higashi Village has been sending assassins after Asa for 10 years now, and there's no signs they are ever going to stop. Gabby has been the one protecting Asa all this time. The way she sees it, keeping these people alive just means it's possible they may come after her best friend again. It's obviously a perspective fueled entirely by emotion, but the core of it comes from a place of wanting to protect the people she cares about. She wants Asa to be able to live a normal life, but Higashi Village has been making that impossible.

The kids aren't aware about anything that the village is involved in. We see this in how the shaman came to give Asumi her vaccine, he covers her eyes with a cloth and says "here comes the god", but the other adult in the room doesn't have their eyes covered. The idea is that all the adults are aware of the outside world and basic science, but the kids are made to be completely ignorant about the modern world or anything going with the village's secrets.

I have watched FMAB and it's one of my favorite shows ever. However, I have watched enough anime to know that just because an author succeeds most of the time, that doesn't mean they succeed all of the time. I think it is absolutely fair for people to be skeptical, voice their critiques and point out what they don't like, instead of just blindly accepting everything because they like the author's other works.

There are plenty of modern animanga with plotlines as intricate and complex as this one, if not more so. People have seen authors they adore absolutely butcher endings, or even whole segments of shows they love. I’d say it’s completely warranted to be skeptical of even the most talented authors before their work is finished. Arakawa is one of the best, but I still don't like when people just blindly follow someone or something without ever questioning it.

Past successes and masterpieces don't mean an artist can only make good things afterwards. Ridley Scott made cult classics like Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator, but then made stuff like Alien Covenant, Gladiator 2 and Napoleon. CD Projekt made a trilogy of good games culminating in the masterpiece that is The Witcher 3 but then shat the bed in the most spectacular way with Cyberpunk's launch when people had an almost religious faith in them, believing they could never do anything bad. Tsugumi Oba and Takeshi Obata made Death Note and Bakuman, but also more recently made the infamous Platinum End. People have every right to have doubts when something is weird even if it's written by Arakawa. I mean, the show hasn't been flawless thus far.I'm currently watching FMA and its first 17 episodes have been more eventful and interesting than the first 17 of this show. I don't know what's funny about thinking that any author could make something questionable in their career.

Principally speaking one should indeed be wary that a successful artist may not always create masterpiece after masterpiece. That I agree with you. However, Arakawa-sensei had yet to warrant so much wariness just yet. If anything, her other successes like Silver Spoon, the Arslan adaptation and Noble Farmer proves that she knows what she's doing. In fact, her de-escalating from the epic FMA to the chill Silver Spoon told me since long ago she had room to stop caring for masterpieces and more for artistic expression. All of which is to say, while Daemons started on questionable footing I had ample reason to have full faith that someone as busy yet careful as Arakawa-sensei has a plan. (Mother of two kids + also-ongoing monthly Arslan !) And this arc was when all that faith got paid in full.

Having the Asa in the manga studio be an illusion was cool, and Jin's caricature of Asa made the bro-con thing funny for the first time in the show. However, the critique was never just that Asa said the same thing for 2 episodes. The real Asa still hasn't had any character development other than being a traumatised bro-con ever since Yuru came down from the mountain. I want more of the serious Asa we saw in the first episode. I want her character to be given more depth so that I can care about her as much as I care about Yuru.

I like that Gonzou's original daemons are the reason why he can make contracts with any pair he likes now, but what I enjoyed most how it turned into a festival the moment they all joined lol. The power of harmony is OP.  I'm glad Jin is so observant, it's crazy how that one reaction from Yuru, and his trust of Yuru's words, lead him to doubt Akio and make full on preparations for it. It's sad that there was someone so close to Asa this entire time that wanted her dead, I can understand why Gabby went berserk. I really like that they even showed his betrayal in the credits, Akio is credited separately from the rest of the Kagemori clan when he was right under Haruo originally.  I like how none them pursued Akio so that he could suffer from being engulfed in that daemon's ballsack lol. Akio's face as it envelops him was so funny, he resigned himself to his fate.  It's clear why Shingou has as much power as he does, and why it was smart to keep his daemons hidden. Raijin and Fuujin are really strong youkai, Yuru can't do anything on his own right now. I did like seeing him take control of the situation even if momentarily.

My understanding of the power system is that they wouldn't be annulled. That would actually be better for Gonzou. His yokai don't make it so he can have multiple contracts, they just stop his daemons from clashing with each other. So if they're taken out, he has a giant horde of monsters that are suddenly beefing with each other and he's in the middle of it. They said that conflicting daemons can even lead to the owner's death. He would need to start emergency releasing daemons in the middle of the battle field until he pared down to ones who were compatible, but that could take a while.

It was a fun reveal for me because I was only able to call it like right before they explained it. He was descending with his little swirling harmony pair and spamming contracts and it just occurred to me, wait, does he have a whole-ass army because his main daemon ability is somehow the get-even-more-daemons ability? And of course they drop the harmony lore immediately after that. So I got to feel pwetty smawt for two whole seconds. Other stuff like the daemons not having shadows thing, Yuru attacking Akio first, Asa acting a little too Asa to be the real Asa, all that totally blindsided me. Definitely a series that rewards paying careful attention to those weird little details that don't add up at first.

I don't mind him losing control to daemons, but them hitting him from invisibility when he can see daemons feels like a copout. Last episode it was an intangible undetectable kidnapper who can both be unhittable and carry someone away at the same time. This episode its a daemon pair that attacks while completely invisible. Both feel completely unfair, not setup, and unearned cheap gimmicks to get the writer out of the corner he wrote himself into without making Yuru less badass.

One hundred Daemons who really really really really really love Gonzo I appreciate how every daemon are practically Pokemons with which they have certain matchups they are strong and weak against, making each fight interesting to say the least. Kinda like rock paper and scissors where Left and Right are rocks and Ivan's katana daemons are papers (if that even makes sense lol considering they can literally cut stones)

He's too competent for the writer. Writer keeps having to do arse pulls to pull one over on him. First a kidnapper who can't be detected until he strikes and then can't be stopped after the grab, literally being unhittable WHILE carrying him away. This episode daemons that can strike from complete invisibility to 1 shot a person. Neither one was foreshadowed or setup, both just come out of nowhere with their BS to get the writer out of the corner they've written themselves into without making Yuru look weak or stupid.

Agreed, but with the level of reverence everyone seems to talk with about Seal and Break, you'd think they'd be a little more afraid? Everyone and their mother thinks that just controlling one of these two demons can allow them to pretty much dominate the world, yet they won't bat an eye facing said demons? And Break has feats. Asa made donuts of her kidnappers iirc. Break so far seems to have no limits on what it can break - physical objects, people, seals, daemon contracts - and it's side effects on Asa, if any, seem to be sufficiently low to allow repeated use, or she wouldn't have been able to carry out the Higashi village attack. Perhaps Break isn't at full power yet and the Kagemoris know that? Maybe it'd grow stronger when Seal is also awakened, so everyone right now is just underestimating it in its current form?