Week by Week – Yona of the Dawn Episode 4

HOORAY! No more exposition episodes! Now I don’t have to talk about ‘I liked how they set up for this’ and ‘how they should have wrote that.’ Now we’re to unaltered, straight-up, pure story.

Oh yeah, yada yada Yona of the Dawn.

Knock know. What’s there? Spoiler warning.

In this episode, as I stated not even 2 paragraphs ago, we finally are able to get out of the exposition slew of the first 3 episodes. I know I said I liked this exposition, as it allows us to really get to know and sympathize with our main cast of characters, but come on! The first 3 episodes was pushing the bill a little too much, especially when we need something to keep your focus. I’m not asking for more action then a Michael Bay movie, but I need something to sate the psychopath inside of me.

Sorry, I needed to vent a bit.

Now that we’re out of the ‘exposition express,’ we get to the rising action of what I assume will be our first battle. We are introduced to Capitol Fuuga, the hometown of both the Wind Tribe and Hak. It’s a quaint little place that has a small town feel, like everyone is buddy and buddy and give to the greater good of the community.

I would also like to point out the pattern I see here: Wind tribe, fire tribe, what I assume are earth and water tribes? This is starting to feel like a Chinese version of Avatar: The Last Airbender with less magic. And speaking of less magic, isn’t this a fantasy anime? The closest thing I’ve seen to fantasy yet is the guy with the dragon hand, who hasn’t even been introduced as an actual character. I really wish that if they’re going to market it as a fantasy anime, at least have some proof of fantasy earlier on…like in the first 3 episodes of exposition.

Sidetracked.

Anyway, we get a big, juicy bit of plot in the form of a meeting called between all of the tribe leaders, in the case of Hak, his grandfather. All of them are told of the situation…you know, besides the little factoid that Soo Won murdered the king, Having to elect a new king, since Yona was nowhere to be found, a vote was started to inaugurate Soo Won as the king. All of the tribe leaders voted to let him be king, since they needed some kind of leadership, except for Hak’s grandfather. Since Soo Won needed the support of all 4 clans, he couldn’t become king.

I like this point of the episode, as it shows how much Hak’s grandfather cares for him. If he were to vote Soo Won as king, Hak would probably be made out to be the murderer and hunted down. It kind of gives a personality to Hak…because without it, he would be lazy-anime-brawler-cliche-#5000.

Oh yeah, definitely a Hak episode.

However, the refusal to support the kind is met with punishment from the Fire Tribe, who was in on the plot with Soo Won the entire time. They block off the river the Wind Tribe relied on for water, and attacked merchants that were going to the Wind Tribe so they simply couldn’t buy water and medicine.

Trying to prevent an uprising from the Wind Clan, and stop the torment of the Fire Clan, Hak orders his grandfather to support Soo Won in becoming king. And this…feels like it unravels everything. I personally didn’t like this bit, simply because if we were going to end up selling out Hak anyway, why tease us with his possible protection before doing it? I wish we would have let this little embargo on the Wind Tribe continue, and let the tribe deteriorate much more. Then I would have felt like this was important.

Nope, Hak threw in the towel about 5 minutes into the bullying.

Not a lot really happened this episode, I feel like it’s more setting up towards some sort of confrontation…which we need, because I’m depraved of fighting and bloodshed. Oh, we also got Yona back! Who’s surprisingly cheerful after watching her father getting murdered! I mean, coming back from that shock and disbelief is one thing, but she’s smiling…like, a day or two after she watched her only family member die…by her cousin, whom she had a crush for…ANCIENT CHINA, people!

That’s about it.

Leave a like to let me know you’re still liking these weekly reviews, and drop a comment on how you liked the episode. But until next time, this has been the Anime Analyst. Zachary, out.