In the Land of Leadale

Episode 8

This episode finally gave us a bit more of what I had originally wanted from the show, and while some of these reveals could've been brought up sooner, it's nice that we get them at all. The event boss revealed at the end of last episode acts as an interesting inciting incident that helps to demonstrate the power difference between Cayna and these two player characters that were newly introduced. That said, it does make me wonder about the game's power scaling, since the given numbers would imply that Cayna is about 100 times as powerful as these two. What's more, the fact that she was from a guild that apparently was just filled with broken players begs the question of what the game's overall progression system looks like, and how it can continue to be fun for other players when such a discrepancy exists. However, that's probably part of the whole power fantasy appeal of the show, and considering that Cayna wasn't really able to get up or do anything in the real world given her implied condition, it does narratively make sense that she would spend so many hours of her life in the game leveling up.

That said, it does still feel like the show is skimping on details that should have been clear by now, or at the very least characters are only asking questions at specific times when I feel like they reasonably should've asked them sooner. For example, at the end of the episode when Cayna goes back to her tower to ask what happened two hundred years ago, I don't know why she didn't ask that question the first time she visited, but I digress. I like the introduction of more player characters, and the fact that all of them seem to have popped up in this world at different times is interesting. What's more, it doesn't seem like death was the primary contributing factor to them being trapped in the game since as far as we know, Cayna is the only player that actually died while being logged in. I also wonder if that rumor about there being a ghost in the game is subtle foreshadowing for things to come. Either way, the episode ends with us returning to where we started, but at least I'm getting a better picture of how this world might have worked before versus how it works now, and it'll be interesting to see what it's like when we hit the next major step of this journey.

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In the Land of Leadale is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.