Summary
Ishura gets off to an action-packed start in a premiere a little overburdened by proper nouns and hazy worldbuilding, but that nonetheless delivers exciting scale and brutality.
Ishura, a twelve-part adaptation of the Japanese light novel series of the same name by Keiso, gets off to quite a start in Episode 1, “Soujiro the Willow-Sword”. It certainly has its downsides – including some pretty complex worldbuilding delivered in a torrent of proper nouns it’s almost impossible to keep track of – but the premiere of Season 1 is full of enough action, scale, and surprising brutality that it’s difficult to mind.
Ishura is streaming on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ everywhere else. It’s releasing one episode a week, which is probably fair enough since the first was dense with exposition and the world seems like it won’t be especially easy to settle into.
Ishura Season 1 Episode 1 Recap
There’s a neat use of juxtaposition in the premiere, which establishes Nagan Labyrinth City as a lovely little scholarly home of learning, exploration, and “Word Arts” – a unique form of magic that is essentially telling the air and objects to do whatever you please. There are quirks to the place, of course, chief among them that it has been built around a gigantic living labyrinth from which mechanical demons known as Golems periodically emerge.
Other than that, though, things are pretty chill. Our first protagonist, Yuno, is a young practitioner of Word Arts and has quite an obvious crush on a fellow student named Lucelles. The city is peaceful enough that Yuno can quite naively imagine a future with Lucelles, but that’s only until the Great Labyrinth comes alive and wrecks the city, and one of the Golems pins Lucelles down and rips her off arms and legs one by one.
See? Juxtaposition!
Who is Soujirou the Willow-sword?
Yuno is able to take out one of the Golems with her Word Art, but she’s quickly surrounded and overwhelmed by several more. Luckily, she’s saved in the nick of time by the titular Soujirou the Willow-sword, a “visitor” from another world who wears a cape over his t-shirt and whose sword can slice the Golems in two with seemingly very little effort.
Now, this is what I mean about the proper nouns – Soujirou is the last Yagyuu of the Shinkage-Ryu, a visitor from the Distant World. I have no idea what any of this means. Functionally, though, it means he’s a pretty adept swordsman, which he proves in a protracted fight with the Great Labyrinth – which is versed in “Thermal Arts”; again, no idea – during which he slices the thing to bits.
It’s reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus, this. The kaiju-sized monster has a blue glowing weak point – the smaller ones do too since this is what Yuno seems to have clipped with her Word Art earlier, though it isn’t entirely clear – and Soujirou has to navigate the thing like a giant walking building. The animation is impressive in its scale and clarity here.
I’m less sure about a slot-in explanatory insert that tries to explain Soujirou’s sword technique with such brevity – and right in the middle of the sequence! – that it would have almost been better if it weren’t there. I do expect Ishura to utilize this same technique in the future, though I’ll be pleased if it doesn’t.
Nevertheless, the Great Labyrinth is defeated. I was going to ponder how on earth Ishura could possibly up the stakes for Soujirou after he so handily despatched a mechanical behemoth the size of a skyscraper, and that might be an issue down the line, but Yuno helpfully teases a whole bunch of future opponents with really cool names coalescing in Aureatia that might prove a stiffer challenge.
How does Ishura Season 1 Episode 1 end?
The premiere of Ishura ends with Yuno – who wants to find out more about her new friend and the conflict for the True Demon King mantle that seems to be taking place – and Soujirou – who wants to learn more about Word Arts and, presumably, Yuno – setting out for Aureatia together. It’s a classic odd-couple pairing since the two are so obviously different, but if the action-packed opener is anything to go by this anime might have some very exciting things in its future.
What did you think of Ishura Season 1 Episode 1? Let us know in the comments.
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