Take their hand and uncover the truth of the world.
The twenty-fifth episode of Shangri-La Frontier is out and with it we’ve reached the end of Season One! Hurray! With the next season being more than half-a-year away, a lot of expectations were placed onto this episode. Did it deliver the promised hype?
Let’s discuss it all in my Recap and Review, along with a Season Review.
Recap
The episode opens with Sunraku showing off his loot to Bilac to soothe his broken ego and asking what she can do with it. The materials from the monsters and ore she can refine into weapons, but gems aren’t really her department and she suggests having them processed into accessories via a Jeweler. And since there aren’t any Jewelers in their town, she calls in a Cait Sith who would have connections to do it instead.
Said Cait Sith happens to be Aramiys, Vice-Captain of the Musketeers, though Bilac basically calls him an idiot considering he can’t get a clue that she’s not interested in him romantically. She wants him to hook Sunraku up with the best accessories possible for these jewels considering he was declared worthy by the Night Emperior (Lycagon) and beat the Eternal Gravekeeper (Wethermon). He has doubts about that and decides to test Sunraku via an attempted stab, which he narrowly dodges, and then gets the crap beaten out of him before he steals a kiss off Bilac and runs for his life before she can hammer him with a teleportation spell.
Sunraku asks how those two know each other considering the… dynamics of their relationship. She explains she just made a weapon for him once while Emul elaborates that he’s actually fairly high-ranked in the Kingdom of the Cait Siths, Cazzeria, and in terms of raw fighting power even Bilac admits he outclasses her. With this new information to process, Sunraku decides to take a nap in real life to re-energize himself for an evening run, only to get messages from the other two members of his guild that he opts to ignore.
He logs back in later on, recharged and ready to go, only to see the Cait Sith getting his masochist kink satisfied by Bilac stepping on him. Aramiys explains he returned after delivering the jewels to help them with raising Bilac to become an Ancient Craftsman. Sunraku considers how bringing someone even stronger than her would put everything on easy mode, but Bilac points out that he’d follow them either way since the King of the Cait Siths wants to take in his worth as Vash’s underling due to their kingdoms being sworn allies and him beating a Colossi. She also explains that Cait Siths love jewels and are skilled Jewelers, but they have a bad rep for pocketing materials, hence why she boasted all his accomplishments since they wouldn’t swindle him, but he has a lot of pull and needs to be aware of that going forward.
They head to Eighthold, with Sunraku donning his full-body ghost cloak since he has to carry both Bilac and Aramiys while Emul chugs mana potions to avoid joining that mess. Along the way they run into the pink-haired girl we see in the OP, who proceeds to speak in an old man’s voice. He reveals that he knows who Sunraku is and wants to speak with him, introducing himself as the leader of the Library Clan known as Professor.
They basically dive into the lore of the world and gather information on just about everything. Sunraku finds the potential connection worth diving into, but with a cat and two rabbits currently in his party, he wants to get out of dodge. The Professor extends a hand along with a Friend Request, asking if he would be willing to explore the unknown with them while Lycagon awaits a rematch with Sunraku.
The SLF Mini covers Bilac, who desires to make an alloy but needs the materials. Sunraku runs to get them each time with Emul, which leaves them getting tossed around by everything, but she keeps changing her mind. Eventually, Sunraku gets pissed off and they start throwing hands while Emul tries to keep the peace.
Review
So this episode sets up a bunch of plot points for everything going forward… and then ends off as if we need to tune in next week. When its the final episode of the season… Good thing that they announced Season 2 right after it ended, or I would have been out for blood.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the casual bits. But this is a season finale. Endings are paramount, so they need to stick the landing.
But, getting on topic, let’s discuss what we learned and some of those plot hooks, shall we?
First, we got to meet a new NPC character different from the vorpal rabbits: Aramiyas. He’s a Cait Sith, a flirt, and a swordmaster who is supposedly stronger than Bilac. The masochistic stalker isn’t my favorite trope to begin with but he’s not as bad as some examples.
More importantly, it tells us there are other places like the home of the rabbits. That means more places to explore and more secrets to uncover. We also learn that Sunraku has gained some major street cred with the NPCs for not only getting Lycagon’s mark but also for beating one of the Colossi.
Pencilgon and Katzo trying to contact Sunraku is another plot-hook that got setup. Even Sunraku knows something is amiss, but he chose to ignore it after his nap. Whatever consequences that’ll have will be fun to watch.
And then there’s the Professor, whose avatar is that of a Magical Girl and yet his voice sounds deep. He’s an older gentleman in life, which I imagine surprised most people who thought they would be another cute waifu. They ended the season with him extending his hand out like in the OP, as if the show itself is asking us to help chase down the mysteries of the setting with them.
And that’s where the episode ends.
If I had to be honest, for a season finale, it was fairly tame. It was largely introducing a new character, setting up plot-hooks, and then ending on a cliffhanger. That would be fine if it were just another episode, but it was the season finale, so that impacted my opinion of it. But since Season 2 was announced we’ll call it even.
Season 1 Review
It should be fairly obvious that I have nothing but positives to say about this season of Shangri-La Frontier, given its the only show I went out of my way to review every week despite having basically suffered burnout after the last season had me working overtime. As someone who followed the series as a manga back when it was released on Crunchyroll, I had nothing but praise because it gave me everything I wanted with a VRMMO series and none of the downsides.
Not everything needs to be a death-game or world-ending stakes. The side-characters have their own stories and events outside of the MC and what he’s doing. And everyone is competent in their own fields of gameplay, bringing something to the table, rather than relying on the infallible MC.
And the MC isn’t infallible. He screws up several times, whether it being something simple like game basics such as skill chains because he skipped the tutorial or when he botched his positioning during the boss raid and got killed, resulting in a near-wipe. Both times the others in his party had to pick up his slack, meaning they weren’t just accessories to make him look good rather than being essential players.
The characters as a whole are enjoyable. Especially the rabbits. Emul is absolutely adorable, and while she clearly admires Sunraku, I’m not worried about some harem BS love triangle forming because it would be so out of place here that the whiplash would snap my neck.
And the action… do I really need to say anything? You saw the finale of the Wethermon fight. If that doesn’t speak for itself, nothing I say will matter. They went all-out on it and it looked good enough that it belonged up there with what we saw in Frieren and JJK.
Overall, it’s just a good VRMMO series and I want more. So, if I gave out number rankings for the series, this would be the highest I could offer. Here’s looking forward to Season 2 in October.
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