Record of Ragnarok (Episode 22) - The Brink

Raiden Tameemon and Shiva are literally putting their bodies on the line as they each seek to win the fight. The gods and humans are on the edge of their seats. No one can look away. This is intense!

Record of Ragnarok (Episode 22) – The Brink

What happened?

The way Shiva fought was burning his body up from the inside out. There was only so much time before he wouldn’t be able to continue. Raiden’s body was tearing itself apart with only Thrud holding him together. Time was ticking and they both knew it. Finally, Raiden decided to put everything into another open-palmed slap. If he connected, it would be the end of Shiva. However, Shiva was ready to and charged in with an attack of his own. They met in the middle, Shiva’s heels striking Raiden’s palm. The force was so violent, it ripped Raiden’s arm in two.

Even so, Raiden smiled. He couldn’t have asked for a more thrilling fight. He even asked Thrud to release him from the volundr so that she could live, but she refused. She had no plans of leaving the one she loved. Shiva acknowledge Raiden by name and then kicked his head clean off. On his way out of the arena, he saw Zeus and commented that the humans were actually pretty incredible. Zeus agreed, however, he still didn’t want to lose.

Record of Ragnarok Episode 22 Shiva wins

What did you think?

This was a thrilling conclusion to another epic fight. I do wonder if anyone has cut together all of the fights without the flashbacks to see what that would be like… Anyhow, I was worried for Raiden and Thrud and rightly so, it would appear. I still can’t believe she stayed when he gave her the chance to leave. Such a sad moment seeing all those sumo wrestlers crying as they stomped in Raiden’s memory. I was starting to think there were similarities between Raiden and Kojiro, especially with their supporters, but we didn’t get the same outcome unfortunately.

There are five more episodes which will no doubt be the entirety of the next fight as they appear to have moved to a five-episode per fight format and I love that Buddha has decided to fight for humanity. I can’t wait to see who he’s going to face. All I need now is for Netflix to release the remaining five episodes. I’m not sure why they held them back, but they did and that’s all there is to it. I won’t write up a season review for season two until those five episodes are available… and I’ve watched them, obviously.

Record of Ragnarok Episode 22 Shiva versus Raiden Tameemon

What have you learnt?

Brunhilde has been a huge character in this story and I feel like they’ve not quite used her as well in the second season. When she has been on the screen it’s been incredible. She can be excited, calm, serious, angry, sad, distraught, and just about anything else. They really need to give us more Brunhilde, after all, she’s basically the one leading things from the human side.

This series definitely has a funny way of delivering these insane fights, but once you get used to it, you almost don’t realise. It definitely helps if you can binge it as you can do four or five episodes at a time and it’s like a long movie, giving you an entire fight. Episodically, I don’t think it works as well and could get really frustrating. I think the Raiden and Shiva fight was clocked at eleven minutes spread over five episodes. Given that this is being released as ONAs, I don’t see why they didn’t just make them hour-long episodes. I think that would make it far more impactful.