I’ve watched a lot of these father adopting random child anime (or at least it feels like it) in recent years so comparisons are inevitable. Ultimately, Somali and the Forest Spirit is probably a bit of a victim of timing for me. I’m assuming that with the rich detail of the settings there either isn’t time to fully animate the sequence or they really just want to show off how pretty those settings are (and they are gorgeous), but there’s a distinct lack of animation going on for a number of the sequences we’ve seen in this series so far. One thing that became far more apparent in this fourth outing, and it isn’t new to the series but I definitely noticed it more, is the heavy reliance on stills and panning when the characters are journeying. The show as a whole isn’t as light and frothy and there’s certainly less action, but just in terms of the relationship between the main characters I feel Somali is kind of nailing it. Still, I’m going to come back to my comparison between this story and If It’s For My Daughter I’d Even Defeat the Demon Lord and point out that Somali has a far more tolerable and endearing father-daughter relationship being developed than the one between Dale and Latina. That said, it is this almost cavity inducing sweetness that reduces the impact of the more emotionally poignant moments within the episode. The family dynamic explored in this series, while highly sanitised and given an incredibly wholesome almost Brady-Bunch level of unreality, remains lovely to see and with Somali, Golem, and the characters they’ve so far encountered being such ‘nice’ people it remains charming to watch their interactions. This episode is outstanding in showing that growth isn’t just for children. What we get is a relatively heartfelt journey for Somali on her quest to retrieve the flower that ‘will grant her wish’ and then the Golem’s equally heartfelt journey to understanding why she did it, what she needs, and the providing her comfort in the form of a white lie that is most definitely going to come back to bite him. Provided they survive the current leg.Įpisode 4 of Somali and the Forest Spirit reaches for a poignancy it doesn’t quite land – but that’s okay. The reveal of the mask wearer’s identity is pretty obvious and yet it does lead to some interesting questions about what next for Somali and Golem in their journey. Instead, we see Somali and Golem meet two other travellers, one of which is a harpy and the other is quite clearly wearing a mask. This is the first location where I haven’t felt instantly like it was a distinct place.īut the location isn’t the focus. While the overhead shot was nice, seeing the town inside the volcano, the community itself didn’t seem to have any distinctive characteristics visually and it more seemed just more of what we had already seen in previous communities. I’ll point out that this location was so far the least interesting visually. Alternatively, you have the shows where they end up travelling with half a community because people just keep randomly deciding to drop whatever they were doing and join the protagonists on their wandering, but that isn’t the type of story Somali is.Īfter a hot wagon ride they arrive at a town built in the caldera of an extinct volcano which is apparently in order to protect it from the sandstorms in the desert. It is kind of a standard of these kinds of stories where characters move from one location to the other is that characters come and go from their lives and by default the audience only sees them for a brief time and then they depart. Somali and Golem are finally crossing the desert and it is a tearful parting for Somali’s friend.
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