Reincarnated as a Sword Season 2

Episode 6

That was a rough finish to what had otherwise been a strong start for Reincarnated as a Sword. The show needed to step back and recenter itself. It needed something of a soft reset. It needed a quick vacation. This week's episode is a stop-off into fun, functional, status-quo-adjacent moments between story arcs to remind the audience what's cool about this swordly series. Plus it packs in a beach excursion and bathtime funtime.

It works! Teacher and Fran freely getting out here, seeing the world, that's been the motivation of this journey for so long. So day-tripping them down to a beach town where they can yell at the ocean and revel in the beautiful sights of this realm is in the spirit. It brings things back to Teacher's driving desire for Fran: to make things nice for her so she can enjoy life. Even when he's not cooking up curry for her, she still gets tasty food in town as they wander around looking for a place to stay. Even having a hard time finding said lodging isn't enough to immediately get the group down. They have other priorities, like the beach excursion.

Notably, while Teacher winds up cooking curry on the beach, he turns Fran (and Jet) loose to play around. It's frivolous, but it's fun, and earned as I described. If the show has to expend energy on filling space like this, I'll honestly take watching Fran enjoy the simple pleasures of sand and sea over any amount of exposition and number crunching. Even beyond her backstory, this sells what should be the appeal of any reincarnation story: stop looking at those stat sheets and just relish the wonder of the incredible fantasy world you escaped death into. The show itself has fun with it, as some of the little bits of character acting, like Fran shaking off water, are nicely animated even though this technically isn't anything major.

Of course, the niceties of this excursion, as long as they remind folks of the vibes that power Reincarnated as a Sword overall, must inevitably contrast with the other side of the setup. The seedy section of town is foreshadowed only a couple of seconds before a pair of Blue Cats accost Fran in an alley. Given the four years between seasons, it's fair that the writing throws in a narrated recap of the Blue Cats' deal and why Fran resents them, even as it also reminds us of the series' odd absolutism on this one race. I keep thinking there's got to be a way they subvert that later on, since having an entire species of cats consigned to serving as unilaterally evil betrayers sort of flies in the face of Fran seeking to prove that her own race isn't singularly set up for slavery.

Regardless, the slavery aspect does come back when Fran and Teacher stumble upon these dirty deals in the town's back alleys. And as unsavory as the subject is, it still serves to reinforce a baseline appeal of Reincarnated as a Sword. That is, it's been a bit since the people playing along at home got to watch this catgirl and her cute comrade chop up some slavers real good! And like the beach antics, if in a rather different way, this is fun! The show can still animate Fran fighting with panache, and seeing the team go to town on mere mortals is an effective way to illustrate how well they outclass enemies when they aren't going up against arch-demi-fiends in high-level flying sky dungeons. It even comfortably brings in some of their new tricks, like Teacher shifting into a slick katana (it means "Japanese Sword") for speedier slicing and dicing. And the requisite boss fight, stopped short as it is, shows off a neat sense for characters fighting in a cramped hallway and using the walls and space within it, without being too constrained for the sake of rule of cool.

Lest this be unfairly categorized as "filler" (much as I'd argue shows today could use more of that sort of downtime), it also leads to more major developments. A couple of the would-be slaves that Fran and Teacher save wind up being Fult and Satya Phillius, twin royals and the blonde kids notably featured in the OP. Some connections to the previously mentioned Raydoss as well as another nation called "Seedrun" are teased, but the important part now is that the royal rich kids have rented out a whole inn where Fran and Teacher get to stay the night and, as noted, take a bath. See, bookend the episode with conventional cute catgirl fanservice around all the bloody murder in the middle. It's sort of like a sandwich of everything your parents assumed anime was about in the 2000s.

Crucially, that means it's fun, and comfortably bounces Reincarnated as a Sword back to basics after the frustrating missteps of last week's entry. It's still building out the world in this episode, showing off the new city, teasing the siblings' role in the new story arc, and even reinforcing the uphill social battle Fran faces as the royal chamberlain discriminates against her because of her Black Cat background. But that's static for now—I'm just happy to see the anime move things along in style.

Rating:

Reincarnated as a Sword Season 2 is currently streaming on HIDIVE.

While you were partying, Chris studied the blade, which is why he's here to talk about swords for another season. See him saying s-words sometimes on his socials.