I don’t have time for a thought-provoking introduction this time, but I just want to say, I’m immensely enjoying this anime! With the start of the second half of the series, the opening and ending songs were replaced with new ones. Although the new ones don’t sound quite as good to me as the old ones, I still really like them. Here are my recaps and responses for episodes 13, 14, and 15.

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Episode 13: A Sympathy Call and a Hyena Guard Captain

Sariphi is assigned her next duty as Acting Queen Consort: go to a neighboring vassal area and give encouragement to their newly established army. But unlike the previous trip, Sari must go without Leo, who will be visiting a friend on his deathbed. This makes Sari nervous at first, but she’s also excited for the chance to be more independent. Besides, she won’t be completely alone. Sari gets to pick a Captain who will lead a small force of guards for her.

There are not many volunteers who want to serve a human queen, so Sari picks the first candidate who arrived: Lanteveldt the Hyenian rogue. Anubis disapproves of the choice, and it’s clear that “Lante” has no manners or real respect for the Acting Queen. Nevertheless, Sari picks him and they set off for their destination later that day.

On the way to the vassal country, Lante suggests changing the route. The driver obeys, and the carriage is soon attacked by giant sand serpents in the desert. However, Lante dispatches all of them by himself. The other guards are suspicious. It seems like Lante intentionally went into sand serpent territory. The Hyenian tells Sari that this is true. He wants to make a name for himself by protecting the Acting Queen, so he put her in danger on purpose. Sari asks Lante not to put anyone else in danger.

After arriving at the destination, Sari is able to fulfill her duty and give the encouragement speech to the new army. She also meets with the country’s new Lord, who is an old Goat. That night, Lante is approached by soldiers who don’t trust him because he is Hyenian. Lante loses his patience and tries to attack the soldiers, but Sari appears and stops him. She defends him to the other soldiers, saying there is nothing wrong with Lante being a Hyena. (A long time ago, the Hyenians betrayed the King of Ozmargo.)

The soldiers reluctantly leave Sari and Lante alone. Then Sari renews her commitment to trusting Lante. The Hyenian pretends not to care, but privately, he seems to appreciate the gesture. Unfortunately, the next day, Lante is not at his post. Moreover, the Goat Lord has been brutally attacked by an unknown assailant. To be continued.

I enjoyed this episode as usual. Lante the Hyena seems pretty cool. I like how the anime set him up as a character who is hard to trust, yet easy to want to trust. I’m sick of bad hyenas and I really want Lante to turn out “good.” I’m pretty sure the narrative is heading in that direction. I bet the soldiers hatched a plot to frame Lante and make him look like the culprit. The Giraffe Lord who briefly appeared also might be the one to blame.

On a somewhat related note, I really liked Lante’s voice. It reminded me of the voice of Denji from Chainsaw Man. I looked it up, and he isn’t the same voice actor, but it was still a cool similarity. The music in this episode was great as always. And as usual, I loved seeing all the different kinds of humanoid animals. That’s all for episode 13.

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Episode 14: A False Charge and a Lonely Hyena

As predicted, everyone blames Lante the Hyenian for the attack on the old goat, Lord Braun. Sariphi defends Lante, believing in him right away. The Captain of the Guard for the vassal city (which is called Maasya) is a giraffe who seems to be a good person. He agrees to help Sariphi find the real culprit. In the meantime, Lante will be held in prison just in case.

While he waits in the prison cell, Lante remembers how he’s always been mistreated for his Hyena blood. As a pup, his mother was sick with a curable disease, so he worked very hard and saved up money for her medicine. But after he bought the medicine, the guards in the market took it away from him, concluding that he was a thief. As a result, Lante’s mother died. That was when Lante vowed to become a high-ranking officer so nobody could order him around or take away what he needed.

At the end of the day, the guards release Lante. Sariphi found the real culprit, a badger who resented the monarchy and didn’t want Maasya to have a king. When Lord Braun was attacked, he grabbed a tuft of his attacker’s fur. The beast-folk couldn’t tell anything from that, but Sariphi, as a human, could see more colors than them. So she used the fur color to find a match. It took all day, but she did it. In return for Sariphi’s help, Lante swears loyalty to the Queen.

Back at the palace in Ozmargo, the King calls Lante to see him. When the King asks if Lante takes pride in his blood, the Hyena says yes. He asserts that he will never give up his pride in being himself, and that the only person who can boss him around is Sariphi. That’s actually what the King wanted to hear. So he verified Lante’s position as the new Captain of the Queen’s Guard, as well as Sariphi’s Knight.

I don’t have very many thoughts to add, but this was a good episode. It was interesting to me that humans in this anime can see more colors than beasts, just like in reality. Seeing young Lante in the flashbacks was sad, especially when he lost his mother. I really like Lante and I’m glad he is now definitely loyal to Sariphi. That’s honestly all I can think of for now.

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Episode 15: Chance Meeting of a Boy and a Child

Part one of this episode was about Amit and Jormungand. When the reptile Captain returns Amit’s amulet, Sariphi knows something is up. Jor won’t answer as to why he did it, so Lante challenges him to a duel with wooden swords. If Lante wins, he will demand the truth from Jor. Unfortunately, the Hyena loses. However, the King had been watching the duel and had noticed something. Jor’s swordplay was off, so he might be hurt.

Sure enough, when Amit pulls back Jor’s cloak, she sees that his arm is injured. Jor explains that he feels guilty for letting himself get hurt despite having such a nice protective amulet. He didn’t want Amit to know. That’s why he gave it back – to protect Amit’s feelings. Now that she knows the truth, Amit asks Jor to take the amulet once more. The reptile captain agrees.

The second half of the episode was about Ilya, who is hunting beasts near the border of the human country and Ozmargo. By chance, he encounters a young armadillo pup who was taken away from his home. He was going to be sold to humans and stuffed as a trophy or used as a circus animal. The armadillo asks for help getting back home, and Ilya reluctantly escorts him to the border.

On the way there, some human kidnappers tried to take the armidillo, but the young pup cried out for help. The cry reminded Ilya of his sister’s cry for help before she died. So, he fought off the humans, breaking their weapons. At the end of the journey together, Ilya was much more tolerant of the little beast than before. He still insists that he hates beasts, but he admits that maybe some beasts are gentler than he realized.

There was also an after-credits scene wherein some anti-monarchists were plotting their next moves in an abandoned building at night. They were interrupted by a tall, buff dog who told them that from now on, they would be subjects of the King. The scene ends without really explaining anything, but I suspect that this dog isn’t a “good guy.” Based on the opening song, there are two villains in the second cour: a white wolf who is missing an ear, and the buff dog. I’m not sure if he’s working for the King or not at this point, but he will probably end up being an enemy.

Other than that, I once again don’t have anything much to add in the way of thoughts. But that dog does kind of look like Batman, so I’m going to call him Batman-Dog until we learn his name. I look forward to the next few episodes of this fun and cute anime.

Thanks for reading~

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PATREON