Thank you for joining me today at Anime Rants. RekiAku continued to be fairly entertaining in its sixth episode. Alicia had some badass moments. However, I’m getting increasingly annoyed with the love interest, Prince Duke.
Episode 6: the Villainess and Sleeping Side By Side
Episode Rating: 7/10
When we last left off, Alicia and Gill were kidnapped by some ruffians. They put an anti-magic collar around Alicia’s neck, thinking that would make her helpless. After Gill tries to tell Alicia where they are and how to escape, the men beat him into silence. One of them suggested killing Gill, and that was the last straw. Alicia leaped into action with the fighting skills she’d been honing for several years now. She was far from helpless.
Alicia quickly defeated two of the kidnappers, being careful to wound them but not kill them. The third ruffian tried to flee after his sword broke, but Alicia pursued him. I don’t think she intended to kill him, but she probably wanted to wound his legs to prevent his escape. However, before she could strike with her knife, Liz appeared and stopped her. Supposedly, from Liz’s perspective, it looked like Alicia was in the wrong, attacking a man who wanted to flee. But by stopping Alicia with magic, Liz created an opening for the kidnapper to attack.
(Side Note: To me, it seems like Liz was purposefully trying to make Alicia look bad to strengthen her own following in the Magic Academy. I’m beginning to think that Liz is intentionally manipulating others, hiding a very dark nature.)
If not for the sudden appearance of Duke, Alicia would have been stabbed by the kidnapper. Duke saved her by taking the stab to his arm. Liz argued that Alicia was wrong, and that she shouldn’t have resorted to violence – not even to save Gill. Alicia held her ground and defended her realistic position. Duke started to angrily use ice magic on Liz, but another boy reminded him to calm down and take care of Alicia. Though her wounds were healed, Alicia was exhausted. She fell asleep in Duke’s arms.
In the next scene, Duke is with Alicia in a bed, shirtless. Though Alicia is confused and uncomfortable, Duke tries to kiss her. Alicia shoves him away and at that moment, Gill and Henry appear. Henry makes a passing remark about how Duke should get consent, but nothing more is said to chastise him. Everyone is just sort of okay with what could have been a rape attempt at worst, and unwanted sexual attention at best. Even Gill sees no problem with it after confirming that Duke has no intention of marrying Liz.
Let’s talk about this for a second. As my readers have pointed out, Duke has been creepy from the start. He is several years older than Alicia, but was already showering her with visits and expensive gifts before she was even ten years old. You can argue that the kiss in episode 2 was a genuine act of concern to save Alicia from a high fever, but the way he forcibly summoned her in episode 4 was definitely not okay. Then we have his attempt to sleep with Alicia in this episode.
I understand that the story is trying to make Duke into a villain so that he’s a match for the villainess. But we all know Alicia isn’t truly a villainess – she has strong morals and a realistic desire to help the country grow. So why couldn’t the same be done with Duke’s character? It could have been cute and funny to have a love interest who was terrible at being a villain. Instead, the story opted to make him genuinely bad. I don’t like it. It’s rather disappointing to me. I also don’t like that he’s bonding with Gill.
Leaving that issue aside for now, let’s look at the rest of the episode. The student responsible for arranging the kidnapping was punished by the royal family. But Alicia’s father realistically fears that someone could endanger his daughter again. So he demands for her to stop being the watcher for Liz Cather. Alicia argues back, not wanting to lose her important role.
Eventually, she talked her father into a deal. If she can reach level 90 magic, Alicia will be allowed to continue her job of secretly supervising Liz. Alicia immediately makes arrangements to spend time alone in an isolated cabin to focus on magic training. The episode leaves off there. I did enjoy it for the most part, but I wish Duke’s character had been written differently.
~Thanks for reading~
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Anime Rants 
Duke stands up against the so-called “Saint” – who, really, in the best-case scenario, is clearly a blithering idiot whose only lingering priority was to be “right” in the argument – which is awesome, and then he goes and pulls something like THAT in bed with thirteen-year-old Alicia. Which, I must tell you, there are very few big brothers, or little brothers, in the history of the world who would have just been chill with that.
Interesting, though, how the plot of the game seems to be reversing now. Unless I miss my guess, the goody-two-shoes Saint is becoming the jealous one now, which was part of what pushed the game version of Alicia towards villainy.
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Excellent observation! I think you’re right.
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One more thing, which struck me quite suddenly.
Remember how they showed us everyone getting magicked before the characters ever mentioned the possibility? Well, in this episode, they showed us another tremendous tidbit that came and went, for the audience to see but the characters to not realize yet.
Liz lied.
She actually lied.
When they showed the audience that she was getting jealous, it took me a bit to remember, there are other ways of expressing that. Many of them are quite honest, and even those that aren’t, don’t always bother making themselves look nice and pretty. But instead of going any of *those* routes, Liz said she was happy for them. Instead of saying her real feelings, she lied. And she did so instantly, automatically, as easily as breathing. She’s maintaining a mask, a facade of benevolence and virtue, beneath which lurks her real self.
The ramifications of that are substantial. How much of what she shows others is truthful, if any of it is? If she’s not as naive as she seems, then how clever is she, really, and why make herself look more naive? If everything she does is more deliberate than she’s let on, then is she knowingly using magic to enchant the people around her, to gain their favor? Did she really mean to just stop Alicia, or did she try to give the thug a last-minute chance to kill her.
And here’s a most interesting question: in a story where Alicia is trying to play a part, is Liz also trying to follow a script?
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