Daemons of the Shadow Realm

Episode 10

This episode is one big fight scene. Our heroes battle Tenga and Ashinaga—two Daemons that fought Left and Right to a standstill in the past and were eventually defeated by being sealed in a mountain. If you stop and think about it, this raises the question of who freed them in the present (i.e., someone who is almost certainly part of one of the Higashi Village factions as they seem to know about the Lost House) and implies that there may be other counters to Seal and Break out there (as it seems unlikely that Asa would knowingly do so and Left and Right have been waiting on their own mountain). Of course, none of this is explored even slightly as the immediate threat overshadows everything else.

Objectively, the fight has all the parts it needs to be exciting. We have a credible threat with Tenga and Ashinaga. Not only are they on par with Left and Right, but their master is also hidden somewhere while Yuru is right there in the open—an easy target. It's got twists and turns galore, and our heroes only win because they can outthink their opponents as well as outfight them. There's just one big problem: how things play out is insanely contrived.

The reason for this is centered around Dera. In this episode, he uses a high-powered sniper rifle to take out Ashinaga. More than that, he has 100% accuracy—he hits every shot he takes. He not only shoots a hole through Tenga's leg but also shoots out both of Ashinaga's eyes before decapitating him with a shot through the neck.

This begs the question, if Dera can blow off Tenga and Ashinaga's heads with a single shot, why didn't he? Why blind Ashinaga and hobble Tenga first? If blinding Ashinaga was somehow necessary, why not shoot the neck right after? Why switch targets to Tenga? And if switching to Tenga was important, why not shoot her in the neck? Why shoot her in the leg?

If Dera had fought as he should have, given his character, the battle would be over the moment he took that first sniper shot. Ashinaga would have lost his head, and Tenga would have faced a two-on-one beatdown even if Dera hadn't taken a second decapitating shot moments later. The truth is that there is no readily available in-world explanation for his seemingly illogical choices.

Thus, we have only the obvious real-world explanation to fall back on: if Dera had acted as he logically would have given his skill and experience, the fight would have been less exciting. It would have been a major anticlimax, and we wouldn't have been able to see Yuru's quick-thinking fake-out to make Tenga and Ashinaga think that he already had the Seal power.

I'm not going to sugarcoat things: I absolutely hate when writers do this—when they have their characters act uncharacteristically stupid or unskilled solely because the plot demands it. Good writing is having your characters act in-character while still furthering the plot in the most emotionally engaging direction.

And in the case of this episode, it's not like things can't be fixed with just a few minor tweaks. All it would take is having Right, Left, Yuru, Dera, or the old lady with the knife blinding Ashinaga and injuring Tenga's leg in some way other than the sniper rifle. Then, as the combined Tenga-shinaga chases Yuru, have it break the window into the armory—allowing Dera to get the sniper rifle and eventually take the kill shot. Just by having Dera get the rifle later, it's all fixed. The contrived writing is gone, and we are left with a fun, tense battle. But, unfortunately, that's not what we got, and I, for one, was left annoyed and disappointed.

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Daemons of the Shadow Realm is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.