Skeleton Knight in Another World

Episode 8

This episode of Skeleton Knight in Another World serves as our first proper introduction to Chiyome, the beastman ninja girl from back in episode 4. Simply put, she is the beastman version of Ariane; her job is to clandestinely rescue kidnapped beastmen that the humans are trying to sell as slaves. Also, like Ariane, she is kind and earnest—though unlike the dark elf, she has yet to become quite as distrustful and disdainful of humanity in general. But what's truly interesting about Chiyome is what she teaches us about this fantasy world: Arc is not the first person from our world to have crossed over.

While there have been hints of other crossovers before (Ariane is from the city of “Maple” in the Great “Canada” Forest, after all), this is the first time we have learned of another actual person from our world. 600 years before Arc's adventure began, another man named “Hanzo” helped the oppressed beastmen—teaching them about the way of the ninja and renaming them as various famous ninjas from across history.

But there's an interesting hidden layer to this. Hanzo's namesake, Hattoi Hanzo lived from 1542 to 1597. Goemon's namesake, Ishikawa Goemon lived from 1558 to 1594. Chiyome's namesake, Mochizuki Chiyome likewise lived around the same time. It's not hard to do the simple math and see that these historical figures all lived around 450 years ago. However, the ninja-loving Hanzo, who arrived in the fantasy world 600 years ago, already knew about these people and their exploits. This implies that there are some timey-wimey shenanigans going on. Either time moves faster in the fantasy world or people like Hanzo and Arc are not just transported across space when they come to the fantasy world but time as well. For all we know, Arc could run across a person from Earth's distant future—or ancient past. It opens up a massive can of worms for potential future stories.

Learning about Hanzo also lets us see a change in Arc. Each time Chiyome talks about her ninja clan, Arc geeks out. What's telling about this is that he doesn't even try to hold himself back. Rather than roleplaying the stoic knight like normal, he's comfortable letting his true feelings out. This shows just how much he has come to trust Ariane over their adventures so far. He doesn't fear her abandoning him for being strange or otherwise judging him.

The fact that he feels comfortable geeking out in front of Chiyome, on the other hand, likely has to do with the sense of familiarity. Since coming to the fantasy world, Arc has been a stranger in a strange land. But with Chiyome, he finally has someone who can talk with him about things he is both knowledgeable and passionate about. Of course, he'd feel a connection to her despite the relatively short time they've spent together (and her having a similar origin and purpose to Ariane likely helps as well).

All in all, this episode is a good introduction to Chiyome with some fun worldbuilding alongside it. I just hope we get some stuff that separates Chiyome more clearly from Ariane as a character going forward.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• So, Prince Dakares was behind his sister's assassination. However, it looks like his aid is actually working for his brother, Prince Sekt. While the aid reported that the assassination failed, he was holding the proof that it succeeded. (Remember, none of those who escaped Arc's wrath saw him resurrect the princess—so all the eyewitnesses think she's still dead.) In other words, the aid's goal was probably to trick Dakares and get him to go to a “safehouse” where he could be assassinated easily at any time.

• It's nice to see a fantasy world that treats teleportation magic as the world-changing thing that it is.

• The meal scene between Arc and Ariane was cute. She genuinely wants to help him get past his fears and he's open enough to new experiences to welcome her help.

• You know, I somehow doubt that Arc was a big, physically imposing man in our world. He probably just always wanted to try out that test of strength cliché he saw in anime and couldn't help himself.

• Poor Arc, he got totally fleeced for that garbage mask and thought he would look cool.

• So similar magics can compound and go wild. Well, that's good to know.

Skeleton Knight in Another World is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.