©大森藤ノ・青井 聖・講談社／「杖と剣のウィストリア」製作委員会
The premise of “The True Name of Cowards” could not be simpler. There is a Rank 270 demon called a Grand Duke, which the narrator helpfully explains to us is a creature with the strength equivalent to a mage with 270,000 credits. Now, the problem with such abstract anime power rankings is that we still don’t really know exactly what that means, but the gist of the situation is obvious: Will and the gang are not mages with 270,000 credits, so they’re going to have to put every last ounce of strength and wit into this battle just to survive. Even then, the odds are pretty dire.
There is hardly any plotting or major character development to work through, and we’ve already spent the last couple of weeks getting all of the characters into the same location and on the same page. The only thing left for this episode to handle is the fight against the big, bad monster itself. Thankfully, when it comes to the realm of pure spectacle, Wistoria has historically done just fine with simple setups like this. Scary monster hit real big; Will and friends hit real big right back. Rinse and repeat until the credits roll.
Is this a perfect example of a fight-focused episode? No, it isn’t. For one, the single Spooky Blood Cave location for the battle doesn’t have much in the way of interesting geography or asymmetry, so the whole thing mostly boils down to our heroes jumping and running around in a big circle around the duke. It’s the kind of arrangement that suits a boss fight in an MMORPG well enough, but it doesn’t make for the most exciting of cinematic displays. Also, the story still manages to get wrapped up in the usual anime cliches that might rub you the wrong way if you haven’t been fully indoctrinated by Weeb Scripture yet. Why does Will suddenly freeze up and lose all of his composure when his Protagonist Goggles break? Because that’s his Achilles’ heel, and you just have to go with it. Why do the characters keep overexplaining what is happening on screen with their incessant narration? Because that is the simplest way to clumsily integrate the video-game-esque battle mechanics of this world into more static mediums like manga and light novels, and very few anime have the confidence to just cut all of that extraneous stuff out and trust in their visual storytelling.
Minor flaws aside, “The True Name of Cowards” accomplishes its primary goal, which is to provide twenty solid minutes of badass demon fighting action. Sure, there are some strange edits and obvious animation shortcuts that make it clear that this episode was being rushed through the finish line at the very last minute, but the experience as a whole holds up well. All of the magic blasts, giant-sword slashes, and melodramatic “All is Lost!” moments carry us through a climactic encounter with an insanely strong foe that should by all accounts be the end for Will, Colette, Sion, Julius, Lihanna, and Wignall. Of course, as per genre tradition, that just means that Will is due for a dazzling display of his untapped potential.
In this case, that also means more hinting at the lore that gives this series its subtitle. “Wand and Sword” is apparently a legacy that Will has inherited which allows him to use his sword to absorb the magical potential that is normally confined to those little sticks that his friends are so good at wielding, with the end result being a big, deadly sword that is also on fire. I don’t care if the show hasn’t given us enough context or world building to understand the larger implications of Will’s powers or what it means for his relationship with Elfaria and all that; I’m sure we’ll get to it eventually. I came into this episode wanting Will to sword-murder the ever-loving Bejeesus out of a giant monster, and that’s exactly what we got. Hell yeah.
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Wistoria: Wand and Sword is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.
