No kids will be allowed to leave alive.
Impressions:
Boy, this episode was certainly a turn. For the better, mind you, not that that’s saying a lot. Is this what we would have gotten if the schoolkids were ejected from the show entirely? It is missing most of the levity, but I don’t mind the more subtle jabs, especially from the little dude, who’s far better as a weirdly hyper competent samurai instead of squeaky comic relief. He also had about 75% of the animation budget for the episode, which was still not quite to the range of mediocre, but contained actual movement, so a large step up from the slow-mo frame by frame narrations of the early episodes.
The tone in general was just plain a lot darker, though I think it did get a bit gratuitous towards the end. It’s clear the politician dude is abusing his family, but you still cut the girl in half after the whole “try not to kill them” speech without even trying to neutralize her, and then the supposed friend to the orphans immediately gutted the other one. We just had a whole flashback and discussion about whether or not the panda corpse mutilator and child soldier trainer is really THAT evil, and two minutes later, he’s out here murdering kids. I think we can probably close the book on that one.
Next Episode:
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