Yona of the Dawn

Episode 7

Poor Hak – not only does Yona refuse to listen to him when he keeps telling her that he won't die, she also has no idea what's going on when he tries to kiss her. (Or she's really good at sneaky rejections...) Add to that the fact that he keeps getting smacked in the injuries every time he tries to assert his strength, and this is not a great episode for him. Luckily for us, Yona herself suffers none of this, and Hak's bad luck is just the comic relief to what is a pretty major episode of realization for her.

Previously we've seen Yona decide to stand up and fight, but this time she learns that it will take more than just saying, “Okay, let's get him!” to actually do anything. This is what's so great about her as a character: she may have started out as a one-note whimpering princess, but as the show has progressed, she's become a multi-faceted character in her own right. She's learned not only to stand up for herself, but also to listen, a skill many people never develop. When Yun snidely expresses disbelief that she doesn't know what was going on in her own palace, she thinks about it and realizes that he's right...so she immediately asks him to tell her. When Ik-su has a prophecy for her, she listens to it and asks questions. Then she takes the information, considers it, and makes an informed decision. It's a pretty great trait to have as a future queen, and when at the end she asks Hak for weapons lessons, you can tell it's because she's been thinking about it since at least the hair-cutting incident. Watching her learn to be more than just a pretty face is easily one of the best parts of this show, and on that front, this episode is no exception.

What's less thrilling is that it necessitates a lot of explanation. Granted, this wasn't going to be action-packed no matter what, given that she and Hak are recovering from that whole falling off a cliff thing, but it would have been nice to see Ik-su and Yun developed a little more; right now they're still just easy-going priest and feisty cute guy who can cook and sew. From the preview we're going to get that next week, and while I can't reasonably expect them to put too much into twenty-three minutes – and if I'm honest, I would have criticized them for it – a little more balance would have been a boon to what is essentially a really talky episode. The humorous chibis against a solid color background are also overused, making our tolerance for the heretofore well used device wear a little thin. But hey, we do get a lot of very important information, such as who the other four major male players are and just why Yona has red hair. (Can you say “reincarnation?”) Slowish episode or not, the story is clearly building to a very epic, prophecy-based fantasy, one that looks like it will have some implications for Hak as well. After all, if the four dragon warriors are representatives of each tribe (making Yona the fifth for the royal family's tribe), then what role could Hak have? There'll be a dragon warrior for the Wind Tribe that isn't him for reasons discussed in the episode, so how will he handle that on an emotional level? Or Su-won, for that matter, who is also going to find out that he isn't his tribe's dragon? This episode may be set up, but it still gives us a lot to think about as Yona prepares to make her next move.

Rating: B+

Yona of the Dawn is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation.com.