Scum of the Brave 1×22 and 1×23 Review: “A Brave’s Ideal” and “A Brave’s Truth”

Scum of the Brave anime season 1 episode 22, titled ‘A Brave’s Ideal’, and episode 23, ‘A Brave’s Truth’, revealed a lot of answers as the narrative came closer to the finale.

With episode 21 having Sara, Indo, and Jogamine do 1-on-1 battles with Levi’s minions, ‘A Brave’s Ideal’ focused on Jogamine’s fight with Tomoe. While Sara and Indo demonstrated a lot of growth and managed to defeat their opponents, Jogamine was a whole other story. Even though she looked up to Yashiro, she refused to kill or gravely injure her foes. And that meant that she wasn’t going to progress as a student in a manner Yashiro expected her to.

I liked how Yashiro, Sara, Indo, and even Levi continuing to stay on the sidelines during Jogamine vs Tomoe didn’t feel forced. Turns out that Levi had summoned a bunch of Nephilim to the location, and she was using the confrontation between the two girls as a way to stall for time. As for Yashiro not going for Levi, he wanted to allow Jogamine to prove herself. And Yashiro being Yashiro, well, our male lead, wasn’t concerned about the incoming team of Nephilim.

Even though Jogamine knew how to get on Yashiro’s nerves, I have to commend her ability to remain true to herself. Killing the enemy just wasn’t an option for Jogamine. And for her to stick to her goal, Jogamine had to change her fighting style. Yashiro realizing what Jogamine was about to do to secure her victory against Tomoe made sense. It wasn’t a tactic Yashiro would ever use, but he was aware of it.

Jogamine willingly getting impaled by Tomoe’s spear just so she could land a good punch gave me Sakura Haruno vibes from Naruto. Jogamine could risk making such a move because of her enhanced healing ability. However, Jogamine still got points from me because certain characters would be uncomfortable with being impaled through the stomach, regardless of them possessing accelerated healing. Such a move still required resolve, which Jogamine demonstrated. She’s so stubborn!

With Tomoe defeated, Yashiro vs Levi was a lot cooler than the fights between the students. Yashiro’s managing to slice off Levi’s wrist took me by surprise. I loved it!

Interrogating Levi offered some more answers about E4. Apparently, Half-Dragon was researching E4 as a way to unlock the secret to immortality. However, only a handful of people had showed compatibility with E4, with the project deemed a failure.

Levi didn’t share any unexpected information. However, I was glad she talked and pushed the narrative to start tying a bunch of plot threads before the finale.

After dealing with Levi, Yashiro and the trio went to face Coffin Count of Storms. I enjoyed seeing her immediately put our leads in a difficult situation. Coffin Count of Storms’ Ether Ability to use control suits of armor and swords was quite dangerous.

‘A Brave’s Truth’ continued the battle with the Coffin Count of Storms. As Yashiro put it, he and the girls were risking being gravely injured if they couldn’t figure out how Coffin’s Ether Ability operated. While there was a chance Coffin wouldn’t outright kill Yashiro, Sara, and Jogamine, Indo could be easily disposed of by Coffin.

Coming to why Coffin had encouraged a civil war, it had to do with her wanting to be at the very top of the Demon Lord hierarchy. It wasn’t the most well-written motivation for a villain, but oh well, it served the intended purpose. I did like how Coffin, more or less, thought of herself as the main character and wanted to maintain her sense of “peace”, without realizing she wasn’t the first villain across countless media to aim for such a world order.

Getting to learn about Coffin’s Ether Ability was handled in an engrossing manner. The reveal about her “wind-up toy” Ether Ability was a very unique take. I appreciated the creatives taking such a route instead of simply giving Coffin some kind of telekinetic ability. According to what Jogamine could glean from Coffin’s mind, Coffin saw a wind-up key on various objects. Coffin could turn the keys to “charge” objects and then set them loose on her targets.

The weakness to such an OP Ether Ability was also quite interesting. Due to the controlled objects operating as wind-up toys, if you got out of their way just in time, the objects would stop.

Coffin’s Ether Ability manifesting in such a manner made sense for her character. Coffin has been about recruiting people as her puppets or toys. So, yeah, Coffin being able to use objects as her wind-up toys was a good choice for an Ether Ability.

Jogamine did well with reading Coffin’s mind and sharing the information with Yashiro without Coffin noticing. She might annoy the heck out of Yashiro, but even he can’t deny her usefulness. Also, kudos to Sara for trying to keep up with Coffin in a swordfight. There was no chance of Sara winning, but her courage still demonstrated character growth.

As for Coffin talking about Jogamine being an experimental doll, I do feel the creative team could have done a lot better with the gravitas of the situation. Jogamine was a bit too sunny about accepting how she was just a clone of Kiyoto’s deceased daughter. Even her memories were “fake” and planted by Kiyoto to mimic her daughter’s life. But I guess, there’s only so much you can do when it comes to fleshing out certain storylines in a limited run of episodes. Also, having an overly optimistic character like Jogamine go through an existential crisis isn’t easy. Jogamine’s very “I guess that’s just part of my life! No need to stop being happy!” when it comes to addressing concerns.

Having said that, I did enjoy seeing Coffin being annoyed by Jogamine’s personality. It was a way for Jogamine to stall for time to relay information to Yashiro, but she was still being herself. Ha!

With Coffin Court defeated, ‘A Brave’s Truth’ finally had Yashiro show up at the academy to watch Sara, Indo, and Jogamine participate in an exam. It was such a sweet thing for Yashiro to do. However, I knew there was likely more to Yashiro willing to appear to “support” his students, especially with one more episode left this season.

And behold, turns out, Yashiro’s next target was none other than Arthur Pendragon. Apparently, Arthur was expecting Yashiro. So, I’m very excited about how their fight will pan out, including Sara’s reaction to Yashiro going after her father.

Did you watch Scum of the Brave season 1 episodes 22 and 23? 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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