Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest (Episode 4) – Guardian of the Depths
Hajime and Yue enter a spectacular room on level 100, but before they really have a chance to appreciate it, a giant magical circle fills the room. Something is coming and Hajime seems to be a little bit too excited!
What did you watch?
This is episode 4 of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest and it’s been a real mixed bag so far. The first episode was arguably the worst first episode that I had seen in a long time, the second episode was a huge improvement, and then the third kind was meh! So, who knows what we’re going to get today. This episode starts immediately after the events of the last episode, so you can expect spoilers for this week and last, for sure.
What happened?
Hajime and Yue pushed through the large ostentatious door on level one-hundred and entered a room full of large purple crystals. The proceeded to walk through the room, hoping to have finally found the lair of the Maverick. Then, just as it was appearing too good to be true, a giant magic circle expanded from the centre of the room. Hajime gave a wry smile and prepared for battle.
A massive hydra appeared in the room, each head having a different power, one of them even had the ability to heal the others. Hajime and Yue attacked relentlessly, but couldn’t seem to stop it. Then, when all seemed lost, Hajime kissed Yue (she’s at least three-hundred-years old) and they both gained renewed vigour. Finally, Hajime put together a plan to bring it down, once and for all.
What did you think?
I’ll be honest, I didn’t really like it. When the magic circle appeared, I remembered thinking to myself, “please don’t be CGI, please don’t be CGI, please don’t be CGI!” and would you believe it, it was CGI! Once more we have been treated to another disaster of a CGI monster. Alone, it may have looked good, but interacting with Hajime and the surroundings, moving, breathing even, it all looked off and really ruined what could have been a fun fight. And as the fight took up about twenty minutes of the episode, it’s a pretty big problem.
What was your favourite moment?
It was cool to see Hajime get the big gun out. I would question how he’s able to operate it with just one arm, but there’s so much more to worry about.
What was your least favourite moment?
All right, that would be the CGI hydra. It just looked really bad and I can’t understand why anyone thought this was the direction to go with this series. It’s already well established that they decided to skip most of the character development in favour of going straight to the action, but the action is just not interesting when it looks like this and we have no reason to care for anyone in the show.
Who was your favourite character?
I’m going to give Hajime credit for never giving up and being able to stop the attack of the silver head of the hydra with his big gun and his right eye. It’s impressive that nothing else really saw much damage, but at least he can wear an eyepatch now. Plus one hundred edgy points…
Who was your least favourite character?
There was a brief scene where the teacher confronted a priest or something, we don’t really know, about making the class go back into the dungeon so soon after losing a classmate. He said, but they have to go in and she said, if you make them, I won’t help you with the crops, so he said, fine, if they don’t want to go, they don’t have to. Satisfied with her easy victory, she stomped off, and we’ve no idea if any of it made a blind bit of difference to anything.
Would you like some more?
I’m already worrying that every review of this show will be complaining about lack of character development, pointless scenes with no meaning, and my personal favourite – terrible CGI. It’s so much more annoying after I felt like it was moving in the right direction after the second episode. I don’t like dropping shows, but there’s a real chance that this could go that way.
Other posts in the series
- Season One
- Episode 1 – The Monster of the Abyss
- Episode 2 – Pandora’s Box
- Episode 3 – The Golden Vampire Princess
- Episode 4 – Guardian of the Depths
- Episode 5 – The Maverick’s Lair
- Episode 6 – Worthless Rabbit
- Episode 7 – The Great Reisen Labyrinth
- Episode 8 – Reunion with the Past
- Episode 9 – Dragon Slayer
- Episode 10 – The Goddess’ Sword
- Episode 11 – The Monsters’ Day Off
- Episode 12 – A Looming Shadow
- Episode 13 – The Best at Being the Worst
- Season Two
- Episode 14 – Irregular
- Episode 15 – Burning Light
- Episode 16 – Black and White
- Episode 17 – Reunion
- Episode 18 – Memories from the Bottom of the Sea
- Episode 19 – Someone Important
- Episode 20 – A New Vow
- Episode 21 – A Disturbing Darkness
- Episode 22 – Invasion of the Capital
- Episode 23 – God’s Apostle
- Episode 24 – Betrayal
- Episode 25 – A New Journey
- Bonus Posts
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Thanks for this Lynn, I’m really appreciating you re-publishing all of these posts to remind me of things like the CGI hydra. So much nostalgia!
I also enjoy watching my hopes get dashed over and over again as it almost does something good only to forget about it and do something terrible in the next episode.