![]() Lugh’s initial interactions with Tarte are seemingly kind, if somewhat emotionally distant and logical. Sometimes…things just happen, like meeting Tarte. The thing is, that seemingly throwaway gag of her watching The World’s Finest Special Ops Guy become a NEET over four decades proves she’s not always watching Lugh and making things happen. Tarte happens to be backing a huge amount of mana-more than he’s seen in anyone in town-and the grizzled assassin in him knows it can’t be a coincidence the Goddess must have sent her to him. It’s when Lugh goes hunting so his family will have meat in the winter that he comes across Tarte. There’s even a brief little aside of comic relief when the Goddess checks in on another person like Lugh who isn’t faring so well. Mind you, Lugh doesn’t arrive to save her until after we get an extended scene of him at the harvest market, watching the townsfolk prepare for the winter by preserving and rationing. Then our friend Lugh arrives, and uses the wolves to practice his killing skills while Tarte watches. When her family abandoned her, she felt she had lost all reason to exist. If this is how she goes, at least she’ll be put to good use keeping other living things alive. She neither fears nor blames the hungry wolves hell, she respects them. Here’s what immediately made Tarte interesting: she smiles moments before her death. Starving and running out of strength, she’s set upon by a pack of wolves. Winter is coming, so the family decided to cast her out so there’d be enough food (it’s implied their lord overtaxes, which caused families to make impossible choices). We begin with Tarte in pretty much the most dire situation someone can be in. Macro-wise, we’ve already seen Tarte in action, but this is the episode that truly introduces her as a character, not merely an ass-kicking machine. I love the way it darts and weaves back and forth through time. Ansatsu Kizoku is by no means the best-looking or most original anime of the Fall, but it just might have the best structure, or rather most interesting structure to its narrative.
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