Episode Review: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War ep 2

January 21, 2023Episode Review,  Mecha Discussion,  ,  ,  
They see me hoverin’, they hatin’!
As much cheap-looking feeling as I had from this anime, episode 2 proved that the staff has indeed tried to utilize what they had in their hands, and it worked. While this episode’s main content is still an introductory episode, the pace and the transition felt better this time, and more things were to be explored than in episode 1.

Aside from the two capable Jaegers that we met in episode 1, we were introduced to the rest of the main cast in episode 2, and compared to those guys, I kinda understood why they were a bit bland, they were background characters, meant to be replaced. 

We got Iseria Frost, the sniper, the joker and the one that stir up the air around her. Talion Drake, the serious, buffy guy of the team. Finally, Martin S Robinson, the head of the team. While felt like a relaxing, lazy guy, no joke he felt like the one that cared about his teammates most. With Lavi to this team, we had a “team just like any other JRPG team”, nothing new, but definitely worked before. We will probably have more time with them in the future.

On the other hand, the politics behind the story got explained in detail and with good pacing. One politic scene right after one character scene, a great structure and also the transition is good as well, help the audience to stay awake and understand the information that the show showed. Also, the dancing performance happened along with the debate of Northern Jaegers and the North Ambria’s government also a nice touch as well (although the dancer boy is a bit…stiff)

As I have said, the staff did what they could with what they had. The character fighting animation in this episode definitely not the greatest and not the smoothest, but at least it felt like a fight. Those don’t have many frames per second but each frame count, has impact in the movement, for example the mock battle between Talion and Lavi. Of course, there are some moments you definitely felt like “this could have been better”, and I agree with that. Especially with the final scene in episode 2, that white girl voice actress really outdid her paycheck through out this episode, sadly the final scene, where if the animation studio invest a little bit more, the outcome would definitely be better.

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