Rage of Bahamut Genesis

Episode 7

Last week was a recap episode, so this time, Rage of Bahamut Genesis spares no time diving into the action. It's a "Part 2", after all. We've got to make good on that stored momentum, so this week did…kind of. We still don't know who the heck Amira's father is or why he just showed up, but at least the battle is over, the head bad guy has seemingly been defeated, and all our heroes are safe and sound. There was plenty of development for Kaisar and Favaro's relationship too, as they learned their age-old grudge might be based on a lie, and they're far more comfortable working together. In between all of that, we also got to watch some crazy battles! What else is this show for?

This brings me to the most important thing about anime battles: visual quality. After the animators' week off, have they leveled up at all? Well, there was some CGI in the battle between the humans/angels and the demons/otherworldly monsters. It looked a bit out of place here, and some of the actual animation was a little clumsy. It was still miles ahead of, say, Garo's transformed Makai Knights. That could be because Rage of Bahamut's art style simply lends itself to this sort of thing better, or that MAPPA is piling more of its money on this project. Either way, it was nice to see that the animators made good on their break. As for the color and lighting, it's too bad that the excessive contrast and washed-out brightness are back. At least the show does interesting enough things with it to compensate?

So the visuals have continued to be solid, but for once, the writing concerns me a little. This is especially true with the reveal that Rage of Bahamut Genesis is planned for just one cour. While the plot has moved at a breakneck pace since episode 1, the characters still seem to be stuck in embryonic versions of themselves—with constant hints of more growth to come. I don't really see how only five more episodes is expected to accomplish that, especially for the female characters. It's clear there's some sort of backstory commonality between Jeanne and Amira, but how are we going to leave enough time to explore that and also protect the God's Key from the bad guys? (Even if Azazel was ostensibly defeated, I doubt it's completely over. We saw no sign of Cerberus and her puppies, after all.) There's also the consequences of Amira's connection to and previous cluelessness about her father. What happened to her mother? Who really killed Kaisar's and Favaro's fathers? They also have to get Favaro and Amira to Helheim, for whatever they need to do there.

That's the thing: as much as Bahamut seems like it's racing through plot points at the speed of light, a lot of this reeks of set-up for a bigger plot. The last few episodes especially have loaded us down with fresh exposition that can't be anything but groundwork for an epic, long journey. I mean the kind of journey that needs at least a cour to itself. Thankfully, the series' subtitle, "Genesis," likely indicates the first part of something. So we can hope that this series gets the "Exodus" that it needs in some future anime season. (I think it's moving a little too fast for a Leviticus, Numbers, or Deuteronomy though.)

Of course, this is an episode review—not a review for the entire series. It's just kind of impossible to talk about this episode without discussing the whole. It's not so much a part two as it is a bridge between different sections of the story. It had Bahamut's usual crazy fights and gleaming god powers, but it isn't very distinctive as its own piece. Other than some new CGI and quasi-revelations (and that's if you assume Azazel is telling the truth), this episode lacks the freshness that previous chapters have provided us.

I guess that's to be expected when we're finally cutting into the meat of the main plot, instead of building toward it with weekly adventures. At the same time, the weirdness is a lot of what makes Bahamut so appealing in the first place. It's why it felt like anyone could drop in at any time, and still enjoy themselves. You never knew what it was going to do next. It's still energetic and paced well enough that I couldn't keep my eyes away from it—but it doesn't give me quite the adrenaline rush it did before. This week was a little too predictable.

As Bahamut winds down its hopefully first and not only cour, it can't lose too much of the wind in its sails. At this point, it's unlikely that any remaining viewers aren't invested for the long haul. It's just nice to remind us sometimes why we're invested in the first place.

Rating: B

Rage of Bahamut Genesis is currently streaming on Funimation.

Rose is a graduate student in musicology, who has written about anime and many other topics for LGBT site Autostraddle.com and her own blog. She tweets at @composerose.