Banished from the Hero’s Party | E3: A whole lot of nothin’.

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Okay, so I will admit. I did go skim through the manga, so I know what is to come for the series. However, I won’t be spoiling anything, so you don’t need to worry. Now that I’ve gotten my admission out of the way, it’s that time of day where I share my thoughts on Banished from the Hero’s Party, episode three.

Let’s be real here, episode three wasn’t all that great. But, as the title of this blog suggests, it was ‘a whole lot of nothin”. I think the best part of the episode was when Red talked about the Divine Blessings and how they provide a sense of purpose and promote a world of violence because the only way to level up your blessing is if you kill other people who also have blessings. This idea of ‘kill or be killed’ is a concept we see a lot in anime, but to see it in an anime that looks pretty light and bright isn’t something you usually see. So I think it best represents that while everything on the outside seems happy and vibrant, internally, that probably isn’t the case in one shape or another.

In many ways, I think that Banished from the Hero’s Party is an outlier in the Fantasy genre, and that’s weird for me to say. If anything, Banished from the Hero’s Party feels more like a Slice of Life, and you know what, I’m not sure if Fantasy and Slice of Life work. In this fantasy world, where we have the Divine Blessings system, where many aspects of the show feel inspired by MMORPGs, we find ourselves spectating two characters that do not seem to abide by what is considered the ‘norm’ for a fantasy anime. So, to sum up episode three, it was basically me watching two fantasy characters try to live the life of an NPC; and that’s weird. The more I think about these two characters, the less enthusiastic I am about the anime being a decent one.

While I’m not all too optimistic about Red and Rit, Ruti (Red’s younger sister), seems to be the character that I should be paying close attention to. This emotionless character seems to be very Tatsuya-esk in terms of being given god-like ability and power. However, she’s very much like Miyuki in that Ruti has a serious brother complex that takes precedent above all. She’s also the main person of the Hero’s Party, as she’s the hero. This makes everything even more interesting because Ares kicked Red out presumably because Ares wants all the glory that comes with helping the hero defeat Demon Lord. While on the other hand, the Hero (Ruti) doesn’t care for the reason why Red left and only wants her brother back by her side.

This conflict of interest is something I’m looking forward to watching unfold because then we’ll see the true priorities of the Hero Party and its members. For all we know Ruti could be a person who only believes that she can fulfill her destiny with the help of her brother. If you’re known throughout the world as the person destined to slay the Demon Lord, such fame and attention aren’t good if you’re someone like Red who is looking to live a low-key life. When these two worlds collide I think it’ll make for something interesting.

In that regard, I’m looking forward to what the future episodes hold. But presently, especially with regards to episode three, I wasn’t all that impressed.