Romelia War Chronicle ‒ Episode 6
With Romelia's company having survived their latest skirmish with the demon hordes, it is time to heal, rest, and take stock for the days ahead. As it turns out, Romelia is just as hands-on a doctor as she is a general, which is either an incredible stroke of luck or a horrifying twist of fate for her men, depending on how much they want their beautiful and enigmatic leader cutting them up and stitching them back together. Ray seems to be quite fond of all the attention, as painful as it may be, which isn't all that surprising. I always suspected that he'd be the freak of the outfit.
While it's been great getting to know Al and Ray as two of Romelia's top soldiers, we were bound to get episodes that focused on other comrades in the crew before too long. Enter Ragnar and Gran, a pair of identical twins who get recruited by Romelia to help her do a little bit of spying on a local trade tycoon who she hopes to do business with. I'm honestly not very fond of the way that most media tend to use twins as supporting characters, since the gimmick of their identical features and mannerisms always wears off long before the characters are allowed to gracefully exit the narrative. So far as new additions to the cast are concerned, though, Ragn and Gran the Wonder Twins are all right. The show has at least done them (and the audience) the favor of getting two different actors to voice the characters, so that we too may eventually be able to tell them apart. In a funny bit, we learn that Romelia is able to quickly differentiate between the pair because she's used to learning how to tell apart nearly identical-looking horse siblings.
So far as one-off bonding adventures go, Romelia and the twins' bandit encounter is mostly just okay. The story hits all of the predictable beats. Romelia gets put out of commission for a while, so Ragn and Gran can suffer some beatings and existential crises. I'm pretty sure the old “I don't know who I am without my twin!” dilemma was old hat even back when Sister Sister reruns were dominating the Disney Afternoon block, but it is still nice to see Romelia swoop in to save the brothers and inspire them to kick some bandit ass with her.
Less inspiring are the visuals, which look rougher than ever before this week. The worst shots are mostly confined to the opening scenes in the infirmary, since the viewer simply cannot miss how misshapen and flat all of the half-dressed men look in their recovery beds. The action suffers as well, with the climactic bandit battle being the weakest battle of the series thus far. It's not enough to kill the series, but it certainly inspires worry. In this industry, you never know if episodes like this are signs of total production collapse, a permanent lowering of the quality bar, or a mere stumbling block on the way back to better fortunes. For all our sakes, let's hope it is the latter case. Romelia War Chronicle is a fine story, and it deserves production values that elevate the material instead of hobbling it.
Rating:
Romelia War Chronicle is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.
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