Hiromu Arakawa is one of the legendary mangakas of our time. If you don’t know, she did Fullmetal Alchemist, Silver Spoon, and The Heroic Legend of Arslan… all of which received anime adaptations. Now, her latest series has been no different. This is Yomi no Tsugai (Daemons of the Shadow Realm). Enough of the intro…
Let’s go!
First Episode Synopsis
Yuru is a boy working in a village all for the sake of his sister Asa, who, for some reason, is kept inside a cell with only a select few allowed to see her. Along for the ride is Yuru’s friend Danji, an energetic boy who doesn’t seem to be exceptional at anything that he does. As Yuru is killing a pheasant for dinner, he looks up at a pair of chemtrails, thinking that it’s a dragon flying overhead.
When he returns, a brilliant flash lights up the sky, and suddenly, the barrier protecting the village disappears. Military men storm the village, killing anyone and everything in their path as dual helicopters circle overhead, providing air support. Then, a girl in a red trench coat shows up and mutters “Gobble” over and over again as people’s bodies are sliced in half effortlessly. Yuru’s grandmother knows that they are here for him and puts out the order to find and hide him, but it’s too late.
A traveling merchant by the name of Dera is more than he seems. Once he sees the village getting attacked, he pulls out a cellphone and reports on the situation. He storms the village, taking out as many soldiers as he can until he catches up with Yuru. The grandmother instructs Dera to take him away and go into hiding. He obliges, but they run into a bit of an issue. He gives Yuru an amulet depicting the twin statues at the village’s front gates and tells him to slot it into the hole between them. When he does so, two yellow sentient pieces of energy rip apart the helicopters, later manifesting into a man and woman named Migi and Hidari (Right and Left). They are Yuru’s Daemons!
Worth Watching?
YES – I can’t say enough good things about this first episode. While it is still too early to tell how all of this will unfold, it is a work by Hiromu Arakawa, and she rarely misses… and this episode was no exception.
You start off thinking that this is going to be set in the older days of Japan with people living in villages, roaming the woods, speaking on ancient legends and folktales, but then you get the shot of a plane flying overhead with Yuru mistaking it for a dragon, telling you that he and his entire village has led a sheltered life and know nothing of the outside modern world, which I thought was an interesting twist.
Then, all hell breaks loose, and we involve the military, and invisible daemons that people can control, and suddenly, you have a mixture of classic Japanese folklore, modern, and fairy tale all mixed into one amazing episode that keeps you on the edge of your seat with each passing second. Characters you thought were pivotal are not; some characters are not even what they seem, and some throw you for a loop altogether. Just when you think you predicted how everything would turn out, the anime tells you that you were wrong the entire time, and you didn’t feel bad about it even once.
Yes, Gabby looks like a gender-bent Edward Elric, yes, Dera has that “Greed” look to him, yes, Asa looks a bit like Lust, and yes, Yuru looks like Alphonse took the main role and never lost his body, but that’s just Arakawa’s style, and I don’t see anything wrong with that. While the characters are completely different, it feels familiar… it feels like coming home to something we loved in the past, and that’s a good thing.
Just do me a favor. Stop reading me and go watch this
