English Dub Review: To the Abandoned Sacred Beasts “The Start of Troubles Ahead”

Overview:

Hank rejoins the army and faces an old foe during a final push.

Our Take:

It felt a little strange this time because up until now, we’ve had the theme of this episode shifts a little bit. Most of the Incarnates have become monsters over time, let their fears balloon and overcome them once the war is over and they no longer have a purpose, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for the centaur.

The centaur used to be a war doctor, and was constantly frustrated with his work on the battlefield. No matter how many patients he treated and how many lives he saved with his work, the people he treated would still come back dead. He started to feel that his work, while necessary, felt futile. When he gained the power to kill as a centaur, and he realized that ending the battle through slaughter would keep the men on his side alive, he came to the conclusion that fighting was better than healing in the long run. He still mends the soldiers in New Patria now, but he also has no issue killing en masse. He came to this conclusion, more importantly, during the original war.

The fact that he became merged with the centaur wasn’t the problem; the problem was that he was given access to that power in the first place. That’s a little different than being corrupted, because he was already mentally beat down to begin with. What brought him to his warped conclusion wasn’t the post-war fatigue settling in, but issues he developed on the battlefield, from being used as a tool by the government. Had be not been chosen as an Incarnate, he likely would have remained a frustrated healer, but because he was given this kind of power, he became a killer. And that’s not really Hank’s responsibility per se, it’s the government’s. The machine of war is responsible for his monstrosity, that he is an Incarnate period is the issue, not the side effects. It’s pretty tragic.

One episode left, and it doesn’t seem like things will be wrapping up entirely. There’s still a lot to cover, we still don’t know Cain’s real motivation for one, and I highly doubt a war will conclude in one episode. This battle might conclude, but things will likely remain open-ended. I guess there’s only one way to find out, though.