Chaos Dragon

Episode 4

Okay, it's official. Ryohgo Narita plays the best character in Chaos Dragon. Of course, a story (or a tabletop campaign) can't be built on one character alone, and episode 4 does a great job of giving every party member a pivotal role to play. Nevertheless, the "immortal merchant" Ka Grava-Rai Fuu-Durham Stahl (Kaguraba for short) is just The Best, hands down. His voice actor Unshō Ishizuka is great, Narita's personality comes through strong, and despite his entrepreneurial quirks, Kaguraba seems genuinely good at heart, making him a welcome presence in a story full of two-faced avatars.

You read that right, by the way. I said this episode does a great job of telling its story! This is a genuinely good episode of Chaos Dragon, if you can get past the always-awful production values. Still, even the sloppy animation isn't poor enough to hurt the narrative that holds up underneath, so I was pleasantly surprised by the giant steps forward this episode took in developing its cast. Chaos Dragon is getting better!

Our party finds themselves in the city of Haiga, the only truly neutral territory in Nil Kamui, ruled by the eccentric Kaguraba in his immortal robot-golem state. He may not have a face, but he is quickly made out to be the most human character in the story so far, treating all the subjects of Haiga as true equals, even Bounded Ones and other demeaned and discriminated members of society, many of which serve as his closest confidantes. His greed is actually in service of general welfare for Haiga, because the technique that keeps him immortal (magic known as Wu Xing Ti that imbues metal parts with his essence) is very expensive and he has to remain immortal to maintain Haiga's promise of peace and prosperity for all. (I can't help but be reminded of his Baccano! novels, which revolved around gangsters making deals with the devil for immortality and choosing to never regret it, often using its "curse" to make the world a better place by their own standards. Of course, this concept is even more literal in his following series Durarara!!, where a "colorless" color gang called The Dollars uses their infamy to commit random acts of kindness instead of terror.) So he may be an immortal capitalistic skinflint, but Kaguraba is still a super-great guy! That doesn't stop a sneaky Kouran general from shooting him straight through the head during his parade, though.

After being rushed back to his mansion to screw on a new head, Kaguraba explains that the Kouran and D'Natia armies are beating down his gates today because they suspect him of privately funding the rebellion effort. (Because he did. Because why not stir the pot, right?) This chaotic neutral tomfoolery has finally bit Kaguraba on his boiler-shaped bottom, but there's a silver lining. He recognizes the marksmanship of the general who shot him, and they're actually kinda-sorta friends! She's an irritable and ambitious woman named Gakusho, who he remembers tricking into buying a giant stockpile of firearms for cheap, without telling her that he had completely cornered the gunpowder market and jacked up the price to ludicrous levels. So she's got it in for him, but they are also former business partners so maybe another deal can be struck! Ibuki likes this idea because he's tired of being used as a berserker pawn by his own party members, forcing him to kill friend and foe over and over. Kaguraba agrees with his desire for peace and says that if the party can resolve this issue for him, he will guide them to the Red Dragon and act as their robo-ambassador. So of course, Sweallow and his maid-servant go to negotiate with D'Natia while Ibuki and Lou go to negotiate with Kouran—wait you sent our poor protagonist out alone with Gen Urobuchi, what are you doing, are you nuts?

D'Natia's side of negotiations goes so well that we don't even see it, but needless to say, Kouran's side of things goes sour the second Lou gets a chance to curdle it. When Ibuki delivers Kaguraba's peace treaty to Gakusho, she immediately tears it up, saying that Lou told her the truth: Kaguraba is already dead, and Ibuki is one of Nil Kamui's last living royals, delivered to her on a silver platter. Lou giggles to herself at the prospect of forcing Ibuki to kill again so she can gather further intel on how to exploit the Red Dragon's weakness and feed him to her beautiful coffin-blade and—why oh why do they keep this evil woman in the party—oh right, because this was originally a gaming campaign and not a real story. That's going to cause some intense narrative dissonance, especially if Boochi decides to grief everybody for the entire game and force them all to just smile through it.

To make matters worse, Ibuki realizes that Kouran's aggression is partially his fault. Gakusho blames the revolutionary army for the death of her beloved (as in more-than-friends) superior Kohkaku, leading her to harbor greater animosity toward Kaguraba for supporting them. Kohkaku was the major villain of Chaos Dragon's first episodes, Ibuki killed her by sacrificing one of his friends, and he now finds himself at the gunpoint of that death's consequences. If he kills Gakusho here the same way he killed her fellow generals, he'll only have to kill more in the future. On top of that, the only companion around to sacrifice is Eykha (the spelling on these names will probably change a lot), who is way too eager to throw her life away after assuming that the kindness Ibuki showed her was all in service of making her a suitable sacrifice.

This tiny rumination on the cycle of violence is the strongest moment of the episode because it's unusually subtle. Ibuki doesn't agonize over this twist or monologue about all the things I just wrote above. One quick look on his face says at all. Eykha's situation is also surprisingly emotional. She's been devalued by the world for so long that even receiving compassion from Ibuki isn't enough to make her feel valuable. In fact, it's only made the situation worse! I think only true self-sacrificial love from Ibuki, completely valuing Eykha as an equal, will free her from the way she sees her fate.

So after all this tension build-up and emotional investment, Ibuki gets out of it by just begging Gakusho to believe him that Kaguraba is still alive and read the damn letter already.

What?

Yeah, Lou's brilliant plan was really just a wet fart when you think about it. Before the room can explode into another hilarious Red Dragon-fueled bloodbath, Gakusho does the rational thing and just looks at the torn-up letter. She realizes instantly that it was written by the real Kaguraba and backpedals at mach speed into apologies and a complete acceptance of the peace treaty. This screams of tabletop campaign adaptation, where the event was supposed to go down smoothly to bring Narita into the party, but Urobuchi decided to troll everyone and force a few more diversions and dice rolls because he just felt like his character would be that much of a douche-canoe. (Roll above 4 for Gakusho to believe you and read the damn letter already!) Once again, this stretches suspension of disbelief pretty hard because there's no way this kind of betrayal would be met with a shrug from real characters whose lives were almost destroyed on Lou's whim, and yet I'm sure it will have no long-term consequences for her because "oh you" and "story-essential player character." Weirdly, Gakusho's immediate acceptance of the treaty doesn't hurt my suspension of disbelief so much because, well, she was given a really good deal.

Kaguraba's treaty calls for peaceful occupancy and non-violent surveillance by both Kouran and D'Natia. They can just march right in, provided they don't hurt anybody in the process. If either side thinks he's supporting the rebellion, he's going to force them to prove it. (I'm sure he's already swept all the evidence under the rug.) He's lost his autonomy and can't do as he pleases anymore, but Haiga is still a prosperous city of equality for its citizens, so he can just laugh off Kouran and D'Natia's Cold War state while they watch each other as much or more than they watch him. True to his word, Kaguraba sacrifices control of his precious city to help Nil Kamui's once-and-future-king, as he promised to not only Ibuki, but the Red Dragon himself once, a long time ago.

Next week, we'll learn about the rebellion army's history with the Red Dragon through Eykha, one of that conflict's few survivors. Kaguraba wants the party to know that they aren't the first ones to try making peace with Nil Kamui's grumpy deity, and they'll need to learn their history to avoid repeating it. I'm eager to learn more about Eykha, and it's refreshing to say that I actually care about (some of) these characters now. The specter of its tabletop origins will always hang around this show's characterization and dampen the emotional stakes, but the show finally has my attention, and I'm unironically curious to see where the story goes from here.

Rating: B

Chaos Dragon is currently streaming on Funimation.

Hope has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.