Episode 4 of 'Seirei Gensouki' has done it! It has adopted the oldest trick in the Isekai bible: The "adopt a slave". I can't even remember how many times I have actually seen this cliche, owing to just how many Isekai actually does it. It simply goes like this: Cute girl slave is a slave, plus points if she is an animal girl. She doesn't trust you at first, but you have an infinite kind heart. You teach her that the world isn't a scary place and sooner or later, the only person she cares about is you (plus points if she is "smol" and possess "daughteru" characteristics). And you'll practically be preaching the entire Isekai bible if she ends up falling in love with you in the end.
I'm not the biggest fan of this trope. The idea of a slave girl itself not only removes the agency of the character (as we previously discussed), but also can be easily portrayed as fetishistic; You have a girl here who is solely dependent on you and will provide unconditional care for you. It is an idea that is highly meant for wish-fulfilment, and even worse done so while undermining the impact of slavery itself.
However, I'm going to be 100% honest here. After episode 4 of 'Spirit Chronicles', I think this might be my second favorite anime of this season right behind 'Sonny Boy'. And this plays itself to the topic of this essay: How do you actually write the "adopt a slave" cliche correctly?
Disclaimer: So this essay will have an exclusive lens on episode 4 only. However it will touch on bits and pieces of character agency, an idea I discussed in my last essay. You can thus read it for more context-flavor, but it isn't necessary as I will run through the idea here again.
Spirit Chronicles: How to build a world that is alive (Episode 1 & 2)
Revisiting Character Agency
I really, really liked how Spirit Chronicles introduced our slave character. But I want to preface this first by saying that: No, it does not have any revolutionary techniques, plot revelations, or insane character premises. In fact, all the crap that I said about a fetishized cute slave who straights up call our MC 'Onii-chan' by the end of the episode, stands. Every single trick in the Isekai bible is here, and it can even be said that it is more egregious than other shows that at least try to tone down the 'daughteru' aspect to lower the cringe levels.
But, I think what Spirit Chronicles have is simple: Character agency. I discussed this idea in its full details in my last essay but I think it can be boiled down to a simple question --
How would the people in this scenario really act? And in extension, how does this further characterize or humanize them?
Characters that have agency, primarily must act for only themselves and not for the authors' plot or whims (or at least show the illusion of doing so). In other words, they exist outside of the 'hand of god'. One of my favorite examples in episode 1 is in the scene where Celia argued with the torturer to release Rio from his shackles. So we tackle that with our main question in mind: How would Rio act towards Celia who fought for him?
The immediate thinking would be that of 'gratitude'. Having a cute girl save us from our shackles and heal us is a great thought after all. Or even if we take away that fetishistic lens, the subconscious idea would be 'thankfulness', for someone who has released us from our hellish torture. But, why would Rio actually feel like that? To him, these are all people who had thrown his life into a living hell. Celia might have been nice to him beforehand, but it is not a stretch for us to imagine that throughout his painful ordeal, he has cultivated a justifiable amount of hatred to even curse at humanity itself. Take note that he was a slave before, forced into this political debacle that only served to make his life even worse than it is. And even more so when he tried to save the princess as a kind act but somehow got wrongly punished. At this point, nobody would have enough emotional capacity to distinguish friend from foe. And thus, his immediate action was simple: He pushes Celia away, telling her "not to touch him".
This moment cemented Rio as a character with human agency in my head. He reacted in a way that was outside of the conventional cliches or viewer expectation and yet, when you try to understand and empathize, you'll realize that it was unbelievably human. Keep in mind also that none of this was needed as well; Afterwards, Rio becomes good friends with Celia and Celia even has a crush on him; All that Isekai cliches still underlined the core progression. But even so in that moment, Rio was outside of the 'hand of god' and acted as if he has his own will.
The Strange Relationship between the Writer and the Audience
Effectively building character agency will probably be a facile point for more critical viewers. After all, any good writer of literature out there obviously has characters with their own motivations, agency and human reactions; It is much less a literary technique or consideration at this point than it is a necessity to separate 'good' from 'bad' storytelling; It is so simple that it is not worthy for analysis or discussion.
However, I want us to take our mindset out from our usual role as passive viewers for a moment here. And consider a fledging writer's perspective: When I write a story, the first thing I am always inclined to focus on is the "moments". Why that is so is because these 'moments' are the big climaxes, the emotional pay-offs, the cathartic experience. They are what the audience will feel the most emotions and excitement from. Afterwards, I will "work backwards". "Now, we will need the build up", will be my next focus. My characters would need to get to that setting, of course with the justifiable motivations and means, so that they can perform that cathartic moment. However, notice how writers essentially write a story in the opposite direction of how we view them; Writers are inclined to lead their characters to the 'moment', leaving the on-site details for last. But for us audience members who are on-site viewing everything linearly, we will be inclined to scrutinize those very details or the lack-thereof.
If I have to give an apt analogy: Writers are often directors of a construction project. In constructing a building, they need to consider the resources, the man-power, on which block to even lay their first brick. However, us viewers are the inspectors. We come in only when the building has finished constructing and our primary job is to scrutinize every safety hazard and missing brick there is to find.
Us viewers are instinctually the greatest enemies of writers. We are much more able to see the hidden corners that writers easily miss, simply owing to the fact that we exist solely in immediacy. What does it matter to us that the writers might have skipped this plot-point for the efficiency of the climax? We as on-site viewers don't need the responsibility to consider the bigger picture like the authors do. You give us a plot-hole, and we will pick it apart as the unforgiving inspector.
Am I saying to cut the writers some slack? Not really. It is as much an audience's freedom to be critical as a writer's responsibility to impress. And thus Kitayama-Sensei rethinks her approach; Instead of simply being the 'director', she puts herself into the shoes of the characters, becoming the on-site inspector for her own work. I saw her on-the-ground many times in episode 4. The first time being the heart-wrenching cries of Latifa when she was immobilized by Rio.
It was a difficult scene for me to watch as I was given an unrestrained view of a child struggling and begging not to be killed; A fear that we don't even need to live through itself to be instantly palpable. It was an extremely human reaction. However such a reaction can be easily missed when a writer is the 'god' of the story looking from above. You focus on the big picture which is 'Latifa will open herself up to Rio' and you think to yourself that there is no reason why Latifa should hold such a horrid reaction to him. Kitayama-Sensei however didn't allow herself to fall prey to that assumption and instead was on-site as an inspector herself, thinking: How would Latifa, the slave, truly act in this scenario?
I want to further add that it is not that I am saying that a less competent writer would've skipped over that fear and immediately jump to the companionship. I think all writers would've instinctually input some levels of panic for their slave characters. However the extremity of Latifa's reaction is more difficult to grasped than we give writers credit for. Everyone and more importantly, the author herself, knows Rio ultimately won't hurt Latifa. It is often in that subconscious assumption where we may be lead to downplay this initial fear from our slave.
For comparison, let us study another Isekai, 'Shield Hero'. It arguably has one of my favorite 'adopt a slave' arc as well but even in that aspect did the author possibly fell victim to the "writers' folly". Why would Raphtalia not be grossly afraid of Naofumi when they first met? And by afraid, I mean Latifa's kind of palpable fear, instead of Raphtalia's submissive hesitance. Granted the circumstances are different in the sense of one being a battle of life and death while the other is relatively low stakes, but one would imagine what kind of nightmarish thoughts would be going through Raphtalia's head; Her parents got eaten, she was thrown into a cage by humans and now is being enslaved by the same human who has every capacity to make her life a living hell; Was a stronger reaction and retaliation not warranted here?
Once again, I don't want to discredit 'Shield Hero'. I think it already did a very good job in terms of justifying the motivations and character dynamics between Raphatalia and Naofumi; A good focus on the bigger picture. But the on-site immediacy could have probably used greater imagination to truly bring across just how scary it will feel for a young girl to be sold to an adult male.
Another example of Kitayama-Sensei being on-site, was in the brilliant characterization with Latifa's slave collar.
Latifa wants to follow Rio on his journey and in his desperate attempt to convince him as such, she allows Rio the opportunity to put back the slave collar on her. Without context, this sounds like the most fetishistic idea that 'adopt a slave' can offer; It is quite literally a girl giving you permission to enslave her. And I don't even need to name which Isekai has allowed that, because I can assure you have seen at least one of them. But the difference is once again, the on-site details.
A conventional reasoning would be to have our slave character be comfortable enough with our protagonist. Their reasoning hinges on the fact that they know (and in extension, the writer and us know) that he will never hurt them and thus the leash itself is meant to crystallize the trust they share. However, try to think of this in a real world context; Would you ever allow your spouse, no matter how much you trust them, to do something like that to you? And even if you would, would you not at least cringe at the idea or be hesitant?
In the magic world itself, we are talking about a collar or a spell that physically can make you hurt like a bitch. And this is coming from characters who should inherently have developed some kind of trauma towards such an idea. Kitayama-Sensei understands that and flips her reasoning: Latifa allows that on herself not because of some trust she feels towards Rio, but more so because she is more afraid of being stranded, alone and lost. In the scene, she was trembling and you can feel from her voice just how traumatizing the collar was to her, much less being chained into it again. However in her mind, her fear of being alone far outweighs that of the collar. And thus, she was forced to compromise.
I am not saying that this reasoning is revolutionary, or highly impressive. However I do want to bring appreciation for how a subtle tweak in characterization can bring so much more humanity and agency to a character. Case in point: It is not as if the end goal has changed in any sense. Latifa did still end up as the 'daughteru' regardless. However, instead of her now being helplessly enamored by our protagonist because 'harem' show, it is more so because Latifa chose this path for herself, having even fought for it. This subtle shift is the kind of on-site details that writers are always prone to miss when they are only considering the bigger picture. And it is because of this that we can respect and understand Latifa as her own human being as well; After all, we now know what her biggest fear and motivation is -- To seek and retain companionship.
Also how about the impactful scene when Latifa cried over eating a sandwich?
I am sure such a moment is quite familiar to us in many Isekai as well. Food, the immediate remedy to poverty and hunger, is quite a pivotal factor in allowing the 'slave' to realize how much better their life will be from now on. However the difference is in the tweak of details; Instead of putting the focus on the bigger picture of 'gratitude', it is more so on the selfish appreciation for the better life itself; Latifa thus didn't cry while she thanks Rio, but she cried thinking about how bad her food was before and how demeaned she was from eating "pet food". Once again, the big picture is undeniably Latifa's trust with Rio, but at the immediate moment, her feelings were for the ego-centric, and thus much more human purpose of 'relief' -- To 'vent'.
On a side note, I want to appreciate how good the cinematography was.
Our characters share a frame, sitting side by side to show us that distrust no longer harbors in their heart. And as Latifa shares her feelings, the 'zoom-in' shows how they are becoming closer to each other. Even their 'staging' of having their back-faced to us create an intimate bubble for both characters; We get to observe but we don't get to intrude as this moment is exclusive for them alone. Having Latifa's crying expression be hidden as well can be read as a sign of respect for her, allowing her time to 'vent'. Good animation or not, I would much rather have a scene that invokes an emotion than just 'fluidness' or 'sakuga'.
Don't think that Latifa was the only one who gets a fair share of on-site characterization. Rio doesn't falter as well. Rio in this episode doesn't immediately go "kind-MC mode on!" Instead after his battle with Latifa, he shows continued signs of distrust. It is only when he sees that she consents to putting the slave collar back on herself, did he relent. For Rio, I bet that she wasn't even much of a threat, but having Latifa admit to loneliness, draws a lot of similarities to the emotions that he often feels as well; Separated from his own world, losing his new parents, betrayed by his peers and having to even leave Celia, his one and only friend, must have been lonely for him no matter how stoic he is. And we can even further extrapolate his desire to help Latifa when we consider that he knows how being transported from Tokyo and being stranded as a slave feels like.
Thus far, we have spoken a lot about how Kitayama-Sensei imbues immediacy and character agency to humanize. But now I want to discuss another interesting effect that may have on us audience. We spoke about how writers and audience are the natural enemies of each other, but the audience does undoubtedly have a bigger advantage in this fight. After all, how can writers win against an inspector who can take their own sweet time to dissect every character decisions just like what I am doing now? However, I will say that there is a way for the writers to have a fair fight; And that is simply this -- Make the audience think for you.
With my analysis on the decisions that Rio makes, virtually none of it is explicit. He didn't have a monologue that says that he adopts Latifa because he relates with her loneliness. He didn't have to tell her that he understands how slavery feels as well to comfort her. All these ideas are what I myself conjectured based on my own understanding of Rio. Kitayama-Sensei has essentially manipulated me to write the story for her.
This effect is incredibly profound however I want everyone to know that it doesn't come without significant effort. Writers has to first establish a trust between them and the readers; It is because I have seen time and time again that Kitayama-Sensei has been down on-site, doing the menial labor of lifting bricks and building character agency do I trust in her writing. Similarly, it is because of episode 2 where I saw flashes of Rio's loneliness, can I extrapolate that Rio relates to Latifa now. I now have enough material from our writer herself to write the story for her, and I will do so because I respect her enough to make that effort.
Conclusion
The show thus far has a lot of moments where we are encouraged to not just be critical, but to emphasize. Many of our side characters may at first glance be generic, but on a deeper analysis, you will realize that the writers of the show put a lot of effort in differentiating them, building them as foils and making them clash. Similarly for Rio, he may be the same ol' powerful MC #501, but even so, I feel so much more attached to him because he has shown me so many moments of immediacy and character agency that I can't help but empathize. Or at least am propelled to do so because he doesn't express his feelings much, another trait that makes him so much more unique than the usual MCs.
And of course, we have Latifa -- The walking slave cliche. One last point that I want to talk about is that cliches aren't inherently bad. Throughout many years of discussion, we have come to synonymize cliche as being uninventive, not changing the wheel. But honestly, do we need to reinvent the wheel? Isn't it more crucial to understand what the wheel is for to begin with?
'Adopt a slave' are cliches not because they are bad, but because we saw a potential in such a story arc to begin with; The potential lies in it being a triumphant story of breaking out of oppression, an idea that is cathartic and easy for us to invest in. It similarly makes us proud of our protagonist, a champion we can aspire and root for. And lastly, it is an intimate story whereby we see a bond between two characters that is thicker than blood. There is a lot of emotions to be experienced with this cliche.
However, throughout the years, many writers tried to capitalize on it without understanding what makes it good to begin with. Because of them emphasizing more on the 'end-goal' bond, they forgot to build a proper bridge for us to experience the initial 'fear' and 'apprehension'. Because of a need to fetishize the slave as well, the cliche has gained a bad reputation.
I am not saying that Latifa reinvented the wheel. In fact, like I have explained, she still possessed the very same fetishistic ideas that may be quite off-putting for some. However the main core difference is that Kitayama-Sensei understood the core of the cliche; She understood that she needed to characterize the 'slave' with human reactions and she didn't forget to give her an 'agency'. She understood that Rio plays an important part in this dynamic as well and didn't forget to hint at some possible reasons to why he would care so much about Latifa. All these subtle details may in itself not contribute much, but together, they add up -- They show us that a cliche is not something that is simply followed and reinvented, but is something that first has to be understood.
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