Episode 96: The Two Kings
Episode 96: The Two Kings
If you need to watch the episode, check out this post (community locked) for information!
Screencaps are from sillyshorts. :)
The episode opens with a recap of the last (along with Conrad's soon-to-be infamous line of 'Your Majesty! Someone's come to see us!' spanning for the next few episodes or so).
Someone (or rather many someones, 22+ according to Yozak) have intruded upon our heroes' picnic! The big boys show off their moves and when Yuuri asks what's going on, Sara apologizes.
The title appears: The Two Kings
Yuuri and his friends are off to visit Sara's castle.
Sara's most trusted general greets him enthusiastically and asks how his trip was. He then expresses worry about Sara's welfare and proudly declares the castle's securities are flawless.
Sara expresses his thanks with all smiles and introduces his guests. After customary small talk, Gerard runs away.
Sara then takes it upon himself to give Yuuri and his friends a tour of the castle. Yes, my friends, you can only get so objective with this episode.
As they leave, the camera pans further down the castle's courtyard where we see Gerard with two platoons. As he sends them off, he grins maniacally while telling himself that with the guards guarding the outside of the castle, he's got the inside under his complete control.
We find all is not well with Sara's most trusted general. Poor kid.
Back to our heroes! We find them walking down a hall! Yuuri notices that Yozak isn't around and asks Conrad of his whereabouts. Secret police go elsewhere, yes Yuuri, whisper it louder so that the others will find out!
Gunter proceeds to ask about 'lawless elements' in Small Cimaron. Sara answers that there are those who dislike the idea of making an alliance with the Demon Kingdom.
Wolfram and the Sage are skeptical of Sara's intentions.
Yuuri stops at a painting.
It's Sara's dad! See the resemblance? ...I don't either. Nope, not much.
So Sara's dad, Gilbert, was apparently a great man who did great things. He fought for Small Cimaron's recognition as a country and had participated in the war between demons and humans.
Yes Yuuri, that war. Do you have to ask?
Sara is then somewhat dismayed by such a turbulent history, oh how will we ever repair the rift between humans and demons? and all that. Yuuri flashes him a gigantic 100-watt smile and says it's why he's here, to forge a friendship of steel. Oh who could resist that? Look.
Sara proceeds to talk about his father, and how he was loved, trusted and hailed by his retainers and people. But unfortunately, after his death two years ago and during that time, the forbidden box went berserk, things got out of hand.
Sara pulls the 'I've only been king for a short while' card and Yuuri totally falls for it.
They hold hands (or if you'd like me technical, Sara holds Yuuri's hands in his).
Wolfram is far from impressed. Cue frenzied icon making of this shot.
After a short exchange of looks by Murata and Gunter, we are brought to Yuuri's room.
He enjoys the view very much. Not that it's very different from the view back in Shin Makoku. Hm...
Conrad and the others are enjoying room service tea.
Murata notices Gunter emoting in a corner. They talk about the suspicions they have with Sara and his looks. Clueless Yuuri is clueless.
We find out that Sara closely resembles (if not, is) a Shinzoku: special people who have an unusually high amount of Horyoku in them. Because of this, regular people view them as gods, hence the meaning of 'Shin' there. Well aren't he and Yuuri at the opposite sides of the spectrum?
As Wolfram further explains, the country where Shinzoku people come from, Seisakoku, has been unheard from in two thousand years. Hence, no one really knows much detail about them.
tl;dr Sara and Berias (with his convincing black hair and eyes) are a pair of fishy looking folk.
At this point, Sara interrupts any chance of Murata enlightening his friends with an epiphany.
He wants to take a walk in the gardens. Oh how swell.
Cut to a short scene of Gerard mobilizing his troops for mutiny. That smile is creepy.
Back to the gardens, we see Berias and Conrad are walking beside each other while Yuuri and Sara are taking the lead. We then get a suspicious close up of Sara's lips (presumably from Yuuri's point of view). Sara asks (with an unmistakable smirk, I swear) if there's anything on his face. Yuuri gets flustered and waves it off.
...as objective as we can get. :)
Our heroes then get news that the castle has been infiltrated! Yuuri and the others are appropriately alarmed, but what's this? Sara and Berias seem unfazed. Conrad is suspicious.
Pensive Murata is pensive.
Everyone flees to safety, escorted by three measly castle guards. Oho, I feel real safe now.
Seems like they're taking a stroll in the park...
Looks like Sara is anticipating something.
He grabs Yuuri's hand and makes a run for it before the so called rebels burst out from a neat little room right beside them. Our boys are in for a fight.
Pretty awesome sword work there guys.
Suddenly, a wild Yozak appears! He tells Conrad to leave the fighting to them and run after Yuuri. Conrad leaves and Berias follows the suit. Wolf wants to come of course but the rebels block his way.
We get an awesome shot of his rage though.
Meanwhile, Yuuri and Sara go through a trap door.
Conrad is confuzzled.
Berias tells him that the trap door opens only once but there's a different pathway in and off they go.
After the commercial break, we find Gerard annoyed at the fact that Sara and Yuuri escaped. He sends off his troops to fortify the exits and other soldierly mutinous things.
Meanwhile, we cut back to our boys.
They've wiped out all the rebels they've encountered and are rather surprised to know that there's mutiny within the castle. Wolfram demands to know what the hell security are doing but Murata tells them all to retreat for now.
Wolfram does not want. Murata tells them it's pretty pointless to do much else unless they know what's really happening (you tell us guys because we're totally clueless here too). Yozak leads the way out. Wolfram is disappoint but orders are orders.
Cut to Yuuri and Sara.
We find them in an underground maze. Sara gives Yuuri mixed signals and lets him look for him for a while.
This smirk is out only hint to know what he's plotting something. It could range from something big and disastrous to something small but surprisingly annoying, like an itch.
...definitely an itch. But hey! What can we say? The producers apparently considered this adequate fanservice.
Yuuri is surprised by Sara's glompage. Sara says he suddenly got scared...in his own castle, somewhere where he's lead Yuuri to and therefore presumably knows all its nooks and crannies. Sure, darling.
After their small chitchat, we find out they're in an underground fire escape. Yuuri asks if those soldiers were the 'lawless elements' they've previously kept bringing up. Sara has a suspicious, but is out of clues as to how they could have gotten in the castle.
Sara then thinks Gerard might have something to do with all this an has a mini existential crisis. Yuuri flashes him yet another 100-watt smile and says Conrad and the others will save them.
Meanwhile...
Conrad is getting tired of running. He's really suspicious of the fact that Sara grabbed Yuuri's hand before the soldiers appeared.
At this point, us viewers are lead to a sense of tension when Conrad and Berias grip their weapons in what looks like a test of each others' reflexes.
Turns out there were rebels waiting at the upcoming intersection. Badass, guys. Kudos. :D
More gush out. It's combat time. Cut back to Yuuri and Sara. They end up in a huge ass mausoleum.
It doesn't take much to see that he's not comfy with the idea. But suddenly, Sara hears soldiers approaching. They've got to hide! And what better way for two boys to escape capture and imminent death by squeezing themselves in a coffin?
Yeah. As objective as we can get.
To pass the time, Sara asks Yuuri to talk about his kingdom and his family. Yuuri apparently paints a really pretty picture for him as Sara expresses his want to visit someday. Then Yuuri mentions his mama.
'What's a mama?' Sara asks.
At this point, we are interrupted from seeing any further groping at the sound of the searching soldiers opening the wrong coffin and finding a dead body inside. After the soldiers leave, Yuuri and Sara emerge and Sara takes him to his room.
...if that didn't sound like a come on, I don't know what does.
By Sara's logic, no one would search for them in Sara's room. Yuuri buys it and they continue their talk about Yuuri's mama.
He sums her up in a confusing couple of quotable quotes. We wonder if Sara understands. He does, a bit.
In turn, he tells Yuuri a bit about his lonely childhood. Gods, the kid was cute back then.
Sometimes, in dreams, Sara continues, he sees his mother. Wonder who that lady is? :)
Unfortunately, Sara's 'no one will look for me in my room' logic fails for he had dropped his hanky on the floor...in front of his door, like one great big 'I'M HERE!' or perhaps that was what he intended.
Sara tells Yuuri to run away.
And pushes him out the window. If he'd used his foot, I'd cap this different.
Yuuri slides down the roof yelling his name.
Thoughts on the episode:
Needless to say, countless issues have been sparked by this episode, ranging from huzzah a new pairing to slash to the indignation of ConYuu fans who knew this was the coffin scene from the novels to the indignation of YuuRam fans at Yuuri's surprising easiness. I won't bring them all up, we've been there and done that. :)
One of the things that were running through my head during this episode was 'What were the producers thinking?' Granted, there is a lot of SaraYuu hinting, but then plot-wise, where was it all going? We even had those moments where Yuuri's heartbeat rang in his ears at the sight of hair falling down Sara's neck and that comment on how nice he smelled.
It bothers me (just a little bit) that Yuuri's hot flash never had any closure. But then again, it probably isn't meant to have one, so why introduce it in the first place? All in all, it looked like a seemingly vain attempt to provide the fans with a little spark.
Spark, indeed. Once again, all in the name of good, fun fanservice.
Another issue with this episode is how Yuuri's being kept in the dark. That isn't very nice, guys, really. I know you'd like him to learn the hard way and all but once in a while, cut the boy some slack. He needs to know what he's getting himself into, at least for the viewer's sakes.
Also, in this episode, Sara has been exhibiting very odd and erratic behavior. Back when I was first watching the season, I really was lost with the whole thing. Bias aside, Sara's unorthodox ways of acquiring Yuuri's trust and friendship confused most viewers of what his real plan was: I assume, to bait Yuuri's emotional side rather than his political one like most rulers tended to do (but never really worked because Yuuri forges friendships with countries who's ruler's he's close to, like Lady Flynn) to serve his purposes.
Looking with this perspective, it seems like Sara's move is well thought out and smart yet isn't at the same time.
I don't know. What do you guys think?
All this aside, this episode really has some awesome close up shots of many characters. Gunter, especially with his hair up, Murata's knowing looks, Wolfram looking quite charming there and even Yozak exuding confidence. Is it me, or are Yuuri's eyes getting larger?
Next Episode: Episode 97 hosted by parsnip_chan
If you need to watch the episode, check out this post (community locked) for information!
Screencaps are from sillyshorts. :)
The episode opens with a recap of the last (along with Conrad's soon-to-be infamous line of 'Your Majesty! Someone's come to see us!' spanning for the next few episodes or so).
Someone (or rather many someones, 22+ according to Yozak) have intruded upon our heroes' picnic! The big boys show off their moves and when Yuuri asks what's going on, Sara apologizes.
The title appears: The Two Kings
Yuuri and his friends are off to visit Sara's castle.
Sara's most trusted general greets him enthusiastically and asks how his trip was. He then expresses worry about Sara's welfare and proudly declares the castle's securities are flawless.
Sara expresses his thanks with all smiles and introduces his guests. After customary small talk, Gerard runs away.
Sara then takes it upon himself to give Yuuri and his friends a tour of the castle. Yes, my friends, you can only get so objective with this episode.
As they leave, the camera pans further down the castle's courtyard where we see Gerard with two platoons. As he sends them off, he grins maniacally while telling himself that with the guards guarding the outside of the castle, he's got the inside under his complete control.
We find all is not well with Sara's most trusted general. Poor kid.
Back to our heroes! We find them walking down a hall! Yuuri notices that Yozak isn't around and asks Conrad of his whereabouts. Secret police go elsewhere, yes Yuuri, whisper it louder so that the others will find out!
Gunter proceeds to ask about 'lawless elements' in Small Cimaron. Sara answers that there are those who dislike the idea of making an alliance with the Demon Kingdom.
Wolfram and the Sage are skeptical of Sara's intentions.
Yuuri stops at a painting.
It's Sara's dad! See the resemblance? ...I don't either. Nope, not much.
So Sara's dad, Gilbert, was apparently a great man who did great things. He fought for Small Cimaron's recognition as a country and had participated in the war between demons and humans.
Yes Yuuri, that war. Do you have to ask?
Sara is then somewhat dismayed by such a turbulent history, oh how will we ever repair the rift between humans and demons? and all that. Yuuri flashes him a gigantic 100-watt smile and says it's why he's here, to forge a friendship of steel. Oh who could resist that? Look.
Sara proceeds to talk about his father, and how he was loved, trusted and hailed by his retainers and people. But unfortunately, after his death two years ago and during that time, the forbidden box went berserk, things got out of hand.
Sara pulls the 'I've only been king for a short while' card and Yuuri totally falls for it.
They hold hands (or if you'd like me technical, Sara holds Yuuri's hands in his).
Wolfram is far from impressed. Cue frenzied icon making of this shot.
After a short exchange of looks by Murata and Gunter, we are brought to Yuuri's room.
He enjoys the view very much. Not that it's very different from the view back in Shin Makoku. Hm...
Conrad and the others are enjoying room service tea.
Murata notices Gunter emoting in a corner. They talk about the suspicions they have with Sara and his looks. Clueless Yuuri is clueless.
We find out that Sara closely resembles (if not, is) a Shinzoku: special people who have an unusually high amount of Horyoku in them. Because of this, regular people view them as gods, hence the meaning of 'Shin' there. Well aren't he and Yuuri at the opposite sides of the spectrum?
As Wolfram further explains, the country where Shinzoku people come from, Seisakoku, has been unheard from in two thousand years. Hence, no one really knows much detail about them.
tl;dr Sara and Berias (with his convincing black hair and eyes) are a pair of fishy looking folk.
At this point, Sara interrupts any chance of Murata enlightening his friends with an epiphany.
He wants to take a walk in the gardens. Oh how swell.
Cut to a short scene of Gerard mobilizing his troops for mutiny. That smile is creepy.
Back to the gardens, we see Berias and Conrad are walking beside each other while Yuuri and Sara are taking the lead. We then get a suspicious close up of Sara's lips (presumably from Yuuri's point of view). Sara asks (with an unmistakable smirk, I swear) if there's anything on his face. Yuuri gets flustered and waves it off.
...as objective as we can get. :)
Our heroes then get news that the castle has been infiltrated! Yuuri and the others are appropriately alarmed, but what's this? Sara and Berias seem unfazed. Conrad is suspicious.
Pensive Murata is pensive.
Everyone flees to safety, escorted by three measly castle guards. Oho, I feel real safe now.
Seems like they're taking a stroll in the park...
Looks like Sara is anticipating something.
He grabs Yuuri's hand and makes a run for it before the so called rebels burst out from a neat little room right beside them. Our boys are in for a fight.
Pretty awesome sword work there guys.
Suddenly, a wild Yozak appears! He tells Conrad to leave the fighting to them and run after Yuuri. Conrad leaves and Berias follows the suit. Wolf wants to come of course but the rebels block his way.
We get an awesome shot of his rage though.
Meanwhile, Yuuri and Sara go through a trap door.
Conrad is confuzzled.
Berias tells him that the trap door opens only once but there's a different pathway in and off they go.
After the commercial break, we find Gerard annoyed at the fact that Sara and Yuuri escaped. He sends off his troops to fortify the exits and other soldierly mutinous things.
Meanwhile, we cut back to our boys.
They've wiped out all the rebels they've encountered and are rather surprised to know that there's mutiny within the castle. Wolfram demands to know what the hell security are doing but Murata tells them all to retreat for now.
Wolfram does not want. Murata tells them it's pretty pointless to do much else unless they know what's really happening (you tell us guys because we're totally clueless here too). Yozak leads the way out. Wolfram is disappoint but orders are orders.
Cut to Yuuri and Sara.
We find them in an underground maze. Sara gives Yuuri mixed signals and lets him look for him for a while.
This smirk is out only hint to know what he's plotting something. It could range from something big and disastrous to something small but surprisingly annoying, like an itch.
...definitely an itch. But hey! What can we say? The producers apparently considered this adequate fanservice.
Yuuri is surprised by Sara's glompage. Sara says he suddenly got scared...in his own castle, somewhere where he's lead Yuuri to and therefore presumably knows all its nooks and crannies. Sure, darling.
After their small chitchat, we find out they're in an underground fire escape. Yuuri asks if those soldiers were the 'lawless elements' they've previously kept bringing up. Sara has a suspicious, but is out of clues as to how they could have gotten in the castle.
Sara then thinks Gerard might have something to do with all this an has a mini existential crisis. Yuuri flashes him yet another 100-watt smile and says Conrad and the others will save them.
Meanwhile...
Conrad is getting tired of running. He's really suspicious of the fact that Sara grabbed Yuuri's hand before the soldiers appeared.
At this point, us viewers are lead to a sense of tension when Conrad and Berias grip their weapons in what looks like a test of each others' reflexes.
Turns out there were rebels waiting at the upcoming intersection. Badass, guys. Kudos. :D
More gush out. It's combat time. Cut back to Yuuri and Sara. They end up in a huge ass mausoleum.
It doesn't take much to see that he's not comfy with the idea. But suddenly, Sara hears soldiers approaching. They've got to hide! And what better way for two boys to escape capture and imminent death by squeezing themselves in a coffin?
Yeah. As objective as we can get.
To pass the time, Sara asks Yuuri to talk about his kingdom and his family. Yuuri apparently paints a really pretty picture for him as Sara expresses his want to visit someday. Then Yuuri mentions his mama.
'What's a mama?' Sara asks.
At this point, we are interrupted from seeing any further groping at the sound of the searching soldiers opening the wrong coffin and finding a dead body inside. After the soldiers leave, Yuuri and Sara emerge and Sara takes him to his room.
...if that didn't sound like a come on, I don't know what does.
By Sara's logic, no one would search for them in Sara's room. Yuuri buys it and they continue their talk about Yuuri's mama.
He sums her up in a confusing couple of quotable quotes. We wonder if Sara understands. He does, a bit.
In turn, he tells Yuuri a bit about his lonely childhood. Gods, the kid was cute back then.
Sometimes, in dreams, Sara continues, he sees his mother. Wonder who that lady is? :)
Unfortunately, Sara's 'no one will look for me in my room' logic fails for he had dropped his hanky on the floor...in front of his door, like one great big 'I'M HERE!' or perhaps that was what he intended.
Sara tells Yuuri to run away.
And pushes him out the window. If he'd used his foot, I'd cap this different.
Yuuri slides down the roof yelling his name.
Thoughts on the episode:
Needless to say, countless issues have been sparked by this episode, ranging from huzzah a new pairing to slash to the indignation of ConYuu fans who knew this was the coffin scene from the novels to the indignation of YuuRam fans at Yuuri's surprising easiness. I won't bring them all up, we've been there and done that. :)
One of the things that were running through my head during this episode was 'What were the producers thinking?' Granted, there is a lot of SaraYuu hinting, but then plot-wise, where was it all going? We even had those moments where Yuuri's heartbeat rang in his ears at the sight of hair falling down Sara's neck and that comment on how nice he smelled.
It bothers me (just a little bit) that Yuuri's hot flash never had any closure. But then again, it probably isn't meant to have one, so why introduce it in the first place? All in all, it looked like a seemingly vain attempt to provide the fans with a little spark.
Spark, indeed. Once again, all in the name of good, fun fanservice.
Another issue with this episode is how Yuuri's being kept in the dark. That isn't very nice, guys, really. I know you'd like him to learn the hard way and all but once in a while, cut the boy some slack. He needs to know what he's getting himself into, at least for the viewer's sakes.
Also, in this episode, Sara has been exhibiting very odd and erratic behavior. Back when I was first watching the season, I really was lost with the whole thing. Bias aside, Sara's unorthodox ways of acquiring Yuuri's trust and friendship confused most viewers of what his real plan was: I assume, to bait Yuuri's emotional side rather than his political one like most rulers tended to do (but never really worked because Yuuri forges friendships with countries who's ruler's he's close to, like Lady Flynn) to serve his purposes.
Looking with this perspective, it seems like Sara's move is well thought out and smart yet isn't at the same time.
I don't know. What do you guys think?
All this aside, this episode really has some awesome close up shots of many characters. Gunter, especially with his hair up, Murata's knowing looks, Wolfram looking quite charming there and even Yozak exuding confidence. Is it me, or are Yuuri's eyes getting larger?
Next Episode: Episode 97 hosted by parsnip_chan