Premise: A retiring knight is granted the title of lord and “empty” land to go with it. But surprise! The empty land has indigenous people who, after prior persecution, are enemies of the knight’s kingdom.
Bold choice for the author to broach such a touchy subject as colonization. I’m definitely viewing it through the lens of my American state’s genocide of the indigenous peoples who were here before, though my husband picked up on Mongolian touches (hello, yurts). I’m not yet familiar with Mongolian history, so maybe there’s somehow less of a colonial injustice context.
At least the story seems willing to engage with it. In his first conversation with the local village’s chieftain, new lord Dias learns that the nomadic Onikin residents of the plain have beef with his kingdom, but he promises to respect them as a good neighbor. They gift him a yurt and a pair of sheep and teach him how to start trading up to build the outpost he was told to build.
I’m struggling with that a little. It’s excessively kind. I respect these two civilizations coming together and establishing their boundaries for peaceful coexistence. To me, it is only decent to make sure Dias has food and shelter, but I wish he worked his way up from hospitality in someone else’s household instead of getting a free starter kit. (Is this my American bootstrapping dream?)
That’s all well and good for now.
Where it lost me is the value of “manliness.”
“But wait!” our brave hero Dias says. “Don’t your women care about other things, too, like kindness and conversation?”
“No,” he’s told, “only manliness. Be the great provider, so the family doesn’t starve.”
And as soon as he proves his manliness with the great one-man bison culling, our standoffish, brash, competent heroine guide melts into a make-up bedecked, blushing, eye-batting damsel in need of rescuing.
Verdict: decent premise, potentially challenging thing, another installment in a long line of propaganda anime designed to convince young men to marry and have families.
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