Shangri-La Frontier Pulls No Punches in Season Three's First Two Episodes!
Oikatzo calls in a favor, needing Sunraku and Arthur to help him win a game tournament where it's one team of four versus another team of four. However, Oikatzo cannot be present for most of the tournament due to prior obligations, and thus the rest of his team needs to simultaneously win their rounds while also stretching out the combat rounds for as long as possible for the sake of giving Oikatzo enough time to make it back to the tournament venue before it's his turn as the anchor. What I like about this arc so far is that it establishes the stakes and how it will influence almost every decision of the main cast. The timer for each round is always prevalent throughout the matches, so even when the action gets very intense, the show makes it very clear that there is a simultaneous battle against the clock that is taking place.
Unlike Shangri-La Frontier, which was an open-world action RPG that actively punished players for attacking each other, this tournament is a fighting simulation game built in the same engine. So every movement, strategy, and attack is built upon taking the other person out instead of taking down a boss. This is where this arc generates more excitement compared to previous arcs because the action never stops. It is integral to the story's momentum itself. Watching these episodes with the crowd was actually phenomenal because it felt like we were the audience in the show watching the tournament unfold, reacting to everything that the characters were doing and being shocked whenever their actions were meant to invoke a specific reaction. Episode two of season three in particular probably got the most crowd engagement because it very much played up Arthur's character in a very entertaining way. The fighting game that they're playing does have a direct combat system, but there's also a role-play mechanic involved where one fighter acts as the hero while the other acts as the villain. Seeing Arthur go full mask off, playing a villain in a video game where she doesn't have to suffer any consequences and is even incentivized to act as villainous as possible was an absolute highlight.
The action itself was kinetic; there was a great use of the environment, and you can really tell that whoever wrote this has a fundamental understanding of arena-based fighting games. There's even a breakdown in episode two about how the game works and how both advantages and disadvantages depend on the class of fighter that you choose. The first episode did a good job of setting the stage with the new character Megumi, who is already on Oikatzo's team before the rest of the cast was introduced. Her fight acted as a perfect contrast to Arthur's because Megumi is a good person pretending to be a villain. But then by episode two, Arthur is free to go absolutely insane, and the cliffhanger that episode two ends on was the first time in a while that I was ready to jump out of my seat, cause I wanted to see what happened next. My feelings for Shangri-La Frontier have fluctuated a lot throughout the first two seasons, but season three so far captures just how entertaining watching gamers' game can be.
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