Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest (Episode 6) – Worthless Rabbit
When Hajime and Yue emerge from the Labyrinth they find a bunny-girl waiting for them. She’s desperate for their help, although they seem less than enthused about it.
What did you watch?
Last week there wasn’t an episode, well, there was a catch-up episode which was completely pointless, so I skipped it and wouldn’t blame anyone else if they did the same. This week in episode 6 of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest, Hajime and Yue return to the surface in hopes of finding a way home. Could a change of scenery be just what this series needs? I guess we’ll find out shortly. Get ready for spoilers.
What happened?
Hajime and Yue arrived at the surface and found an odd bunny-girl running towards them. Before she could get close, they turned to walk away. The bunny-girl eventually caught up and grabbed hold of Hajime’s leg, begging for their help. It turns out she can see the future, which got her bunny-man tribe expelled from some group and now she wants to save them since bunny-men aren’t any good at fighting. Hajime couldn’t care less and neither could Yue.
After a while, they reluctantly agree to help and take Shea, the bunny-girl to find her tribe. They arrive just in time as a group of dragons close in on their lunch. Hajime shoots them all out of the air and proceeds to take the bunny-men back to the group for protection. He’ll make them take them back. In exchange, the bunny-men agree to take Hajime and Yue to some ancient dead tree where they will find the entrance to another labyrinth.
What did you think?
Honestly. I was bored. This episode really did nothing for me. If anything, I now dislike Hajime and Yue more than before. Their attitude towards Shea seemed absurd and overly harsh. Maybe now that they are interacting with people and not just trying to kill monsters, we’re seeing their true colours. I generally got the gist of what was going on with the bunny-men, but once more Arifureta is determined to rush through any sort of development, whether it’s character or story.
What was your favourite moment?
If I have to pick, I guess it was the duel between Yue and Shea. We can already see that Shea is quite overpowered for a bunny-man, especially in comparison to the other bunny-men. Plus she has the ability to see the future which in reality should make it possible for her to counter every one of Yue’s attacks, but that wasn’t the case. Also, when she won, why on Earth would she want to go anywhere with these two miserable losers. They could have at least developed their relationships a little.
What was your least favourite moment?
Basically every time Hajime interacted with anyone. He was a massive jerk to Shea right from the beginning and it just seemed to continue, using her as bait for the dragons for example. Then, the way Hajime dealt with the bunny-men was once more over-the-top and it didn’t feel like an anti-hero or a hero, but some strange place in between the two.
Who was your favourite character?
Shea seemed to be the only character that got any development with a short flashback to her as a child and her sincerity in trying to protect her tribe was admirable. Even when Hajime pointed a gun at her face, she didn’t back down. Yeah, did I mention that Hajime is a jerk? And again, why would she want to go anywhere with Hajime and Yue? I just don’t understand.
Who was your least favourite character?
And that would be Hajime. I’ll also take a brief moment to mention the bunny-men and how they transformed from timid flower-loving hippies to violent mercenaries in the space of one kill. Their bodies changed and their demeanour too. The leader even grew an evil beard in place of his hippy commune one. It was funny to see the transformation, but come on. Development… anyone?
Would you like some more?
I didn’t enjoy this episode and after the second episode which has so far been the highlight for me, it’s kind of spiralling down. Part of me wants to drop it, although there are only six episodes left, so who knows where the story will be by then? But, I think I’m going to stick it out because, if nothing else, you can learn a lot about story craft from bad stories. Teach me, Sensei!
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
You might also like…
Haha because I used the episode title this week we have the exact same post name.
I didn’t actually think Hajime was THAT bad, mainly because Shea was very obnoxious towards him from the get-go and acting pretty entitled. The rabbit-people’s transformation was pretty sudden also, but I just found it funny more than anything.
Great minds and all that.
I felt that Hajime and Yue had already dismissed Shea even before she got close to them. Then when she begged for their help, maybe it was a bit pushy, but she was desperate so I don’t blame her. Hajime then hit her repeatedly, pulled a gun on her, and threw her at dragons. Then he agrees to help them! I usually love the morally ambiguous anti-hero but Hajime doesn’t even seem to fit that character type.
Yeah I’ll agree with that. Acting edgy for the sake of it, basically. It’s true they seemed to have their mind made up, but I guess the argument there is that they have one goal and that’s to find the other labyrinths, and they aren’t going to let anyone get in their way because they were both betrayed in the past. Not that the episode does a good job of conveying that.
Yeah and I think that’s the big problem. They’re both just edgy now and we’ve just got to accept that. Be nice to know what they’re thinking from time to time so we can see why they do what they do.
This anime is definitely a how not to do character introductions, character development or pacing guide at this point.
I’m really struggling to find much in the way of positives in it so far and I’ve not read the LNs or manga. Everything seems hurried and I can’t wait to see how they beat another four labyrinths in six episodes!
There really aren’t any positives in how they’ve presented it. Admittedly, I felt even the source material got weaker after they left the first labyrinth, but given they butchered what is arguably the best part of the story my expectations were pretty low for what they would do next. Even then, Arifureta managed to butcher Shea’s introduction. Honestly, this whole anime is just a mess.
Plus, I guess we’re just going to forget about the classmates and the whole demons versus humans prophecy stuff. There’s obviously a lot of story in the source stuff and they appear to be trying to cram it into 12 episodes. It would have been better to focus on just a part of the story with hopes of getting a second season.
Or just taken the bits they wanted from the source and writing a well paced story from it would have worked. I really don’t mind changes in adaptations provided they deliver something entertaining.
Exactly. One labyrinth would have been fine if they’d developed the characters and the story to fit. All this and we haven’t even mentioned the CGI… lol!
Let’s not mention that. The less said about it at this point, the better.