Record of Ragnarok (Episode 20) - The Pinnacle of 1116

Before he became the top god in India, Shiva and his best friend, Rudra went on a quest to reach the pinnacle together, however, only one god can stand at the top. And all Shiva wanted to do was dance, not fight!

Record of Ragnarok (Episode 20) – The Pinnacle of 1116

What happened?

Shiva is the god of destruction and his best friend, Rudra was the god of the tempest. Rudra trained continuously, hoping to get stronger and stronger. One day, he hoped to stand at the top of India as the god of gods. He asked Shiva to accompany him, however, Shiva just wanted to dance, but he wasn’t going to let Rudra have all the fun. They always had fun when they were together. So off they went in search of other gods to defeat.

They fought and fought and fought. At first, everyone thought they were cocky, but with each victory, the mood changed. Soon people became excited and began to expect it. They kept going defeating stronger and stronger opponents until they reached the summit. Shiva was ecstatic, however, Rudra knew that they needed to fight. There’s only room for one at the top. They owed it to the 1,115 gods they had defeated on the way. Shiva ended up on top although he tried to concede rather than kill Rudra, however, Rudra was the first to give in.

Record of Ragnarok Episode 20 Shiva knocking back Raiden Tameemons defense

What did you think?

This episode had a lot of fighting, however, there were so many fights against so many opponents that it ended up feeling kind of meh! I enjoyed it and felt like it could have been much better had they taken the time to really flesh out the characters and spend more time on the fights. It’s ironic that my usual criticism of this show is the exact opposite. Anyhow, it added to Shiva’s backstory and then gave us a little more of the fight with Raiden, but that was about it.

I love how confident Brunhilde is most of the time when everyone else is ready to write the fighter off. It’s funny that this time, she appeared to be truly worried at the end when Raiden didn’t. If anything he seemed to be enjoying himself even more. I wonder if that has anything to do with one of my observations in the last episode.

Record of Ragnarok Episode 20 Raiden Tameemons excited

What have you learnt?

I mentioned that Raiden doesn’t seem to want to be a fighter. We’ve had lots of hints about that and now we just had an episode where Shivu told us several times that he was a dancer at heart. Now, I don’t want to jinx this as I’d much rather they continue the fight, but could this turn into a dance-off? It seems like the most absurd suggestion possible, but I feel like it warrants bringing up.

It would certainly be an unusual twist and may do more to ingratiate the humans with the gods. In the end, I can’t see the gods losing the overall tournament, but I do believe they will allow humanity to continue just so that they can do this again in another thousand years. The more everyone is enjoying the spectacle the less likely they are to make it impossible to have another.