Scum of the Brave 1×14 and 1×15 Review: “A Brave’s Priest” and “A Brave’s Melee”

Scum of the Brave anime season 1 episode 14, titled ‘A Brave’s Priest’, and episode 15, titled ‘A Brave’s Melee’, were about the team’s attack on Venusian Veil Count’s castle.

Due to episode 12 sharing Indo’s past trauma related to the Nephilim and being raised as a child soldier, I was looking forward to Yashiro taking the three girls to Hokkaido to uncover more information about the Half Dragon organization. For those wondering, I decided not to review episode 13 because, while enjoyable, it was more about introducing a bunch of new characters to participate in the upcoming attack on the Venusian Veil Count’s castle instead of fleshing out the plot and giving me stuff to share my opinions on.

But yeah, I’m back to talk about episodes 14 and 15, with Yashiro deciding to work for a particular Demon Lord to overthrow a competitor Demon Lord. It was interesting to see Yashiro agree to the Demon Lord Count of Rupturing Star Charts’ terms when we have seen Yashiro trying everything in his power not to operate as a mercenary for Demon Lords. But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. The current mission was just another piece of the puzzle for Yashiro to get closer to whoever was behind the Half Dragon and its role in murdering Ishino.

The Count of Rupturing Star Charts hiring a small army of Braves made sense considering his plan to storm Count Veil’s castle, located in the snowy terrain. Apparantly, none of the Demon Lords were happy about Half Dragon operatives disrupting the usual territorial disputes and, allegedly, picking sides to boost a particular Demon Lord against others.

I liked how Count Star Charts played a role in the attack instead of deciding to stay on the sidelines. His Ether Ability allowed him to control the weather, which he used to summon a hurricane strong enough to do away with the defenses outside the castle. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Count Star Charts’ Ether Ability was the most OP ability we have seen so far. Yashiro was surprised by how young Count Star Charts appeared, even though he had been operating for a handful of decades. Jogamine also had trouble reading his mind. So, we might get a reveal that Count Star Charts’ Ether Ability possessed some kind of supernatural link (passed down through generations), because, again, no other Ether Ability has been shown to be that powerful. Heck! Even our lead characters appeared incredibly weak compared to what Count of Star Charts was able to do.

As for another new character, the episode’s titular priest was named “Father” Ayashima. I don’t know why, but I really thought he would be a nice person. A man with a dark past (similar to every other operational Brave), but still nice. But nopes. Ayashima was revealed to be a wanted serial killer who relied on dirty tricks to kill his victims. On top of that, he behaved like a creep, forcing Yashiro to share a room with the girls just in case Ayashima decided to pull something to murder one or all three of the girls. And Yashiro was right to do so. He immediately noticed a couple of traps meant to poison his students.

I would like to learn more about why Ayashima was targeting the young trio. It could be chalked up to an uncontrollable itch to target younglings, but I hope we get a concrete answer, especially because Ayashima seemed to be the type of Brave who would betray his team to the enemy if offered a lucrative deal.

The attack on the castle during ‘A Brave’s Melee’ was action-packed, with the episode taking a couple of seconds to showcase a range of Ether Abilities of the Brave army hired by Count Star Charts. We had a person who could block bullets by creating a protective energy shield and then deflect the bullets back at his attackers. There was a Minecraft-looking guy who seemed capable of digging through almost anything. I liked the Ether Ability of the young-looking Brave who could make her targets look away from her so forcibly that they snapped their necks. The guy who could phase through walls and move around the castle as if he were swimming in thin air also looked cool. I doubt all of the Braves will survive the attack. But it was still nice to see the range of Ether Abilities that could manifest because of using E3.

Though hired by Count Star Charts, Malta was working with Yashiro to uncover the people responsible for Ishino’s death. It’s revealed that Malta had the Ether Ability to look into a person’s mind as if swiping through folders to gain access to their memories. It took time to get to the part of a person’s memories that Malta was interested in, but he was quite good at what he did. So, while the rest of the Braves confronted the minions scattered across the castle (which featured an underground maze, of course!), Yashiro and the trio tracked down Count Veil while Malta used his Ether Ability on certain people to collect information about the Half Dragon. I wonder if Count Star Charts will take kindly to finding out Malta was off on a side mission instead of doing what he was hired for.

With Yashiro and the girls finding a lab, it’s revealed that Count Veil was responsible for creating the Nephilim by experimenting on humans. The animators did a good job of portraying the horror of still-alive human subjects being experimented on by having Jogamine being flooded by their painful thoughts.

The fight with Count Veil was tougher than what Yashiro expected due to Count Veil being protected by three minions working for Levy. Count Veil’s Ether Ability allowed him to turn off the lights and then use the darkness to his advantage. However, I couldn’t help but laugh when his strategy didn’t work due to the minions being incapable of seeing in the dark. Teamwork requires practice!

While it was clear the minions were just following orders to protect Count Veil, what surprised me was their running away after realizing that fighting Yashiro could mean death. As Yashiro has been saying throughout the season, working as a Brave meant having no honor (at least, not during the current times).

What’s funny is how Yashiro’s opinions toward operating as a stereotypical Brave continued to be countered by his growing feelings toward his students and Jogamine’s very optimistic personality. Whether he personally accepts it or not, Yashiro’s practically raising the three girls now.

‘A Brave’s Melee’ concluded with the minions abandoning Count Veil, and Yashiro and his students (while injured) getting ready to take on the Demon Lord. It’s clear they will win, but that doesn’t mean it will be easy.

Did you watch Scum of the Brave anime season 1 episodes 14 and 15? What did you think of them?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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