Arata Kangatari - 06

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Alongside Suisei no Gargantia, Arata Kangatari continues to go at its own, uninterrupted pace.  Slowly, we're getting to the juicy part of the story.

The story so far has been a pleasant journey.  Arata (Hinohara) has been at the centre of the adventure and until now it's been mostly about his character development.  The most recent arc at the prison island was a good example of this; an arc dedicated to pushing along Arata's evolution from zero-confidence weakling to real shonen protagonist.  Bearing that in mind, this was the first episode where things actually started moving along.

Before that, we got a shift in focus to Kannagi as he took over a good portion of this episode.  With Akachi making his move, in a despicable manner no less, Kannagi has emerged as the lesser of two evils.  Although we can't say he's not evil - attempting to kill princesses tends to make that clear - he does have an admirable side to him, which is on full display in this episode.  What started off in the previous episode, was put front and centre in this episode, giving Arata Kangatari a bit more variety that resembles Magi's approach in character development.

We still don't have all the clues as to who's good and bad, but clarity isn't all that necessary right now.  A possibility is for Kannagi to emerge as a pseudo-second lead, for the story.  A part deux of a dual-protagonist scenario perhaps, which has now been made possible.  This comes at a time that (I heard) the anime has started to deviate from the manga, so a new direction for Arata Kangatari might be what we'll get.  A direction that could make Kannagi a more central character to the plot and may have started already - the girl from his flashbacks.

Now that things have started up in the fantasy world, Arata Kangatari might be ready to push the real-life story along.  Each episode so far has given us a little glimpse at what the other Arata is doing in the real world, and based on previews we might actually get an episode more focused on him.  Seeing as how the other world's plot should kick in any time, the half-way point in the anime might be a good time to do so.

We've finally reached the decisive point in the story.  Now it's time for the story to up the ante.

Final Note: I'll be covering for Angela until she can start writing again.

Arata Kangatari Episode 07 Preview

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