I’ll give the show another episode or three to win me over with him. He embodies nearly every cliché about a shonen protagonist and doesn’t bring anything fresh to the table. So far I have to say that the main character Seth isn’t somebody I’ve taken a shine to. I just used my rainy Sunday afternoon to binge all six episodes.
I suspect Yaga knows full well Seth is special and is just being a hard-ass for his own amusement, but I’ll be surprised if we don’t hear something about a prophecy before too long where Seth is concerned… He’s got so much spirit his gloves (hands are definitely the key to Seth’s power) can’t hold it, in fact. Doc scolds Seth that he can’t just plow ahead relying on martial spirit all the time, but in truth, that actually seems to be the formula for Seth – he is to magic what Ushio wants to be to sumo, straight-ahead Yokozuna style or bust. She suggests Doc, who unsurprisingly isn’t too keen but agrees when Melba seems taken with the idea. The problem with Melie as a teacher, of course, is that she can only practice offensive magic when she’s in banshee mode. Melba is played by Touyama Nao, by the way, continuing an impressive accumulation of seiyuu talent for Radiant.
There’s also Doc and the Kettle Coffee girl, Melba (she’s a peach), though I don’t know about having a puppet as a father-in-law (and that roast beef tea…). He’s far too dense (which is reasonable, at this age) to follow this line of thinking but there are signs that Melie isn’t. It’s hinted at here though, as Seth first comes to Melie for help in learning some offensive magic so he can impress Yaga enough to get trained and eventually ends up moving in with her.
Will that taste involve romance? Well, I don’t know if Fairy Tail ever got past the innuendo stage and that series had years, so I’m not holding my breath. It seems based on 6 episodes that Radiant is going to stop short rather than try and artificially be “complete”, which is the better of two troubling options, but it’s clear we’re only getting to be getting a taste of the story. I don’t even know how many eps Fairy Tail got since I dropped away years ago, but it’s what, hundreds? And this series is very much in that model – these sorts of shounen fantasy series just take serious time. I’ll certainly take 21 episodes over a single cour, but shows like Radiant and Hinomaru Zumou remind you with every episode of just how inadequate two cours (especially short ones, as here) are going to be. Nowadays we tend to think of two cour announcements as something of a miracle for anime – we live in a 12-episode long world. Presuming, of course, it uses that opportunity to explore the cast and the world-building a little deeper.
This was kind of a transition episode for Radiant, which is always tricky with a series structured like this one, but I think it portends a welcome direction for the story – it’ll benefit from being settled in one place for a while. That’s one of the few benefits of a crap season, I suppose. It’s another one of those overbooked weekends, leaving me little time for full posts, but I’ll do my best to keep up.