Chained Soldier

Episode 6

Is it just me, or did Chained Soldier look good this week? Like, really good. At the very least, the match between Shushu and Sahara might be the best-looking sequence this show has delivered so far. It's well-choreographed and fluid to the degree that it stands out all the more because of how arbitrary this extra helping of sakuga feels for this part of the story. I mean, okay, sure, I shouldn't be surprised that the Chained Soldier animators pulled out all of the stops for what amounts to a bikini wrestling match between “Shushu the Giant Woman” and “Sahara the…Girl Who Can Give Herself Power Boosts, I Guess?” Still, we're talking about an almost entirely superfluous bout between a mostly comedy-relief member of the 7th Squadron and the girl from the 6th Squadron whose two defining character traits are that she is as sleepy as she is well-endowed.

I'm not complaining, exactly, since the match was certainly entertaining to watch; I guess I'm just a little puzzled about the episode's priorities in the grand scheme of things. Granted, a lot of that is probably more to do with the fact that “Blitz, Sahara, Twinkle” is one of those episodes that feels like, since a very short aside from the manga wasn't enough to fill a full twenty minutes, it had to cram the very beginning of a brand-new story into it back half to make sure we hit the end credits. It makes the sudden arrival of the Shuuki army and its humanoid leaders feel that much more like the show is making a hard swerve into “Okay, we promise, this stuff is important” territory. Shushu's crush on Yuuki is pretty dang cute, though; I'll give Chained Soldier that much.

Also, to Chained Soldier's credit, the Shuuki attack does feel consequential, as random as its place in the story may feel. Yuuki gets a new fusion transformation called “War Cloud,” which is pretty badass. I am only a little angry that my brain has already been poisoned enough that I can't help but wonder what kind of reward our boy has in store for him when two masters are compelled to satisfy his freaky-ass libido. Plus, for as one-note as Yachiho's role as the Psycho Sister can be, I can't lie and say that I didn't laugh at the utterly absurd joke where she has to contort her legs to form her Golden Hour pose when a baddie slices her arm off. It's just that kind of unashamed idiocy that I appreciate the most about Chained Soldier.

I am always a little peeved when an anime adaptation can't find a more natural way to combine two disparate stories in an arc than smashing them inelegantly into a single episode, but this is far from a worst-case scenario. I don't expect Chained Soldier to be a masterpiece of any kind. If any given episode can manage to be silly, exciting, and (tastefully) sleazy on a regular basis, then I consider it a success. “Blitz, Sahara, Twinkle” did just that, and it even managed to avoid mangling its fanservice with terrible lighting and visual filters! Let's hope next week can maintain this momentum and keep delivering the goods.

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Chained Soldier is currently streaming on HIDIVE.