Zetsuen no Tempest ~The Civilization Blaster~ ? 04

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Well that was oddly pleasant. I'm not sure I liked it for the right reasons though.

Fate has been a topic brought up many a time in Zetsuen no Tempest, so it only makes sense that a flashback episode explaining the relationship of the protagonists follows suit. It also happens to be the first time I've thought of the butterflies significance in all of this......I feel stupid right now, but enough of that.

One of the more interesting parts of Zetsuen no Tempest from my point of view is the relationship between Mahiro and Yoshino. Deviating from the shonen norm, this dual protagonist setting isn't based on friendship. What may appear like friendship on the surface is actually closer to a frenemy relationship with both parties keeping one another at arm's length.

This relationship works well with the darker Shakespearian setting especially later - avoiding spoilers - and so it was inevitable to explain this relationship. If memory serves, this episode is either not in chronological order or is entirely anime original. Even so, it's well placed.

Starting the route to "friendship" is the fated incident that brought these two together. It had to be fate, because it would eventually lead to some romantic entanglement and even further down the road it would lead to a reunion and a quest for the truth. Fate is the operative theme used in the series and it only makes sense that origins of the story date back to a first encounters, although I didn't expect it to be this happy.

Maybe it's my curse of reading manga, though there isn't much of it, the relationship between the two isn't really as cheerful. Sure it does play into the frenemy relationship quite well since we know that both Mahiro and Yoshino are reluctant to trust each other full heartedly and it also creates opportunity for more dilemmas to pop in the future for the both of them. All of this is going along with the story rather well, but I was still thrown by the pleasantness of it all.

The first three episodes were also no help. Prior to this episode, this series had been the more moody one out of the Fall 2012 bunch and now it delivered something very shonen. Pleasant isn't all bad, and I must admit that I chuckled at the end with the "punchline."

A breather episode for Zetsuen no Tempest Looks like it! Next week we should be back to the usual convoluted mystery and great action sequences.