Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am pleased as punch to be returning to Thunderbolt Fantasy, as its third season most recently introduced one of the franchise’s most delightful characters: Chao Feng, the sadistic murder princess of Bewitching Melody of the West. Chao Feng effortlessly won my heart through her twin enthusiasms for music and murder, and I am thrilled to see her getting upgraded from a side story antagonist to a main series threat. While I can’t imagine we’ll be getting a repeat of Bewitching Melody’s guitar duel murder brawl, simply having her around and craving Lang’s performances is sure to add a delightful note of chaos to our proceedings.

So far, our heroes have spent this season mostly stumbling into beehives, seeking one enemy only to trip headfirst over another. They’ve attracted the ire of evil swords, corrupted monks, malevolent cults, tyrannical rulers, and the entirety of the demon realm, making Lin Xue’s yearning for a decent nemesis seem perhaps a touch premature. I’m eager to see what our terrible princess makes of these new arrivals, so let’s dive back into Thunderbolt Fantasy!

Episode 3

“The Infatuated Princess.” Hell yeah

This theme song is a worthy successor to the first two. T.M.Revolution is a master of the cheesily epic guitar rock that evokes the soul of Thunderbolt Fantasy – it feels like the opening themes possess the same mix of earnest melodrama and cheeky self-awareness that characterizes the show itself

Over in the garbage dimension, our evil monk and his new friend are enjoying a dimensional lightning storm. The scientist explains that he intends to catch a ride on someone else’s dimension warp, presumably meaning Shang and the crew’s next jump will bring these guys along

I remain delighted that Thunderbolt Fantasy introduced a goddamn cyborg scientist in its third season. I mentioned before how the show has a somewhat gamified narrative structure, but stuff like this also seems to harken back to the simply joy of playing with toys as a kid, and never minding whether Spiderman and the Predator would actually team up to fight the Power Rangers

Lou Zhen asks whether this process will return him to his own world, to which his companion offers his most confident “probably”

Lou Zhen’s new arm has a detachable hand that can blast through solid rock. God I love this show

Cyborg man then starts talking shit about the Seven Blasphemous Deaths, a mistake I’m sure Lou Zhen will not forget. We’re creating a nice mix of nested rivalries among this season’s villains

Chao Feng recognizes Lang by the sound of his breath alone. Girl really does have it bad

Love Lang’s sheepish body language as he emerges from behind the curtain, looking much like a kid who just stole from the cookie jar. These puppeteers are able to extract a delightful specificity of character acting from these puppets

Chao Feng attempts to guilt trip him about leaving her again. The great thing about Chao Feng is that she still genuinely believes she was the wronged party in this whole situation. Bless her myopic, megalomaniac, sadistic heart

Chao Feng states she’d kill any number of people to secure Lang’s love, which would be a more impressive vow if she didn’t regularly kill people just to avert boredom

Then she promptly changes tact, stabbing Lang and delighting in her ability to take everything from him. See Chao Feng, this is why you never get a second date

And of course, a fight swiftly ensues. I appreciate the show’s unique approach to the fight choreography of its various combatants – in particular, Shang’s focus on redirecting his enemy’s energy and disarming rather than striking is very clear. You can see his personality and values playing out in the way he fights

“The things she’s done… because of me…” Right, Chao Feng plays directly into Lang’s greatest emotional weakness. Throughout Bewitching Melody, he consistently struggled to see his “gifts” as anything but a curse, a power destined to bring others to ruin. With Shang’s help, he eventually gained the conviction to use his powers for good, but hearing that Chao Feng has been killing hundreds in pursuit of his abilities is sure to reignite his self-hatred

“How can you feel guilty about that psycho princess!?” Well said, demon lute

With the party trapped in Chao Feng’s garden, Wan Jun Po suddenly appears, and claims he intends to help them escape! What further tangling of our alliances is this!?

This is the sort of thing that makes Urobuchi dramas so satisfying, though – characters frequently have motives that can’t be fit into clean boxes or moral assessments, making for lots of relational reversals as external circumstances shift. Characters who are more than a gimmick and a goal can be frustratingly rare in anime

Lou Zhen’s cyborg buddy opens the portal, and our wayward monk makes his move, striking down the cyborg for the crime of insulting the Seven Blasphemous Deaths. Told ya man, shouldn’t have done that

As Shang explains, Wan Jun Po was a great help to him on a number of prior adventures. Wan Jun Po seems like something of a mirror or counterpoint to Lin Xue – both of them seek a better future, but Lin Xue favors creating chaos outside of this society’s systems, while Wan Jun Po seeks to create order within them

Wan Jun Po reveals that many of the nation’s greatest soldiers have been called back to Phoenix Light Palace, leaving the country’s defenses in disarray. Chao Feng is now calling orders directly as regent, meaning the entire country’s military is now dedicated to her selfish errands. A civil order allegedly driven by a righteous, objective avatar actually rotting from the inside, driven by the callous and nearsighted desires of its overseer? Oh Urobuchi, you do have your favorites

Not at all to say Urobuchi’s consistency of theming is in any way a weakness – on the contrary, it’s refreshing to keep in touch with an author who has something they feel so passionate about, who is never content to let his stories do nothing more than entertain

I was hoping Chao Feng would reappear in season three, but I hadn’t guessed that her terrible leadership would doom the whole country this franchise takes place in. She’s not just getting a cameo, she’s earning a position of honor in Thunderbolt Fantasy’s gallery of monsters

Wan Jun Po reflects angrily on the men remaining on the western front, more of whom die with every letter he receives. The distance between power’s application and impact is also a classic Urobuchi frustration – whether it’s Madoka or Psycho-Pass or Gargantua, the people setting the rules of these societies are never the ones who suffer their consequences, and it is ultimately necessary for someone within the lower, purposefully powerless class to rise up and shatter their system, replacing it with one guided by those who actually suffer the brunt of injustice

“This country’s governance needs to be reformed right from its very foundation.” Wan Jun Po is certainly setting himself up as a classic Urobuchian hero, so much so that I suspect Urobuchi is actually leading me into a trap

Yeeep, he’s actually leading them to the Order of the Divine Swarm, having decided that the Divine Swarm’s leader is the only one capable of bringing about a just era. Dude, the group’s name is “The Order of the Divine Swarm,” and their closest allies are demons

“I’ve already abandoned the divinely appointed emperor. What else could I do but seek salvation in the greatest depths of darkness?” I feel like there surely must have been some middle course of action

Lin Xue seems mostly amused and perhaps even invigorated by this development, eager as he is to meet this villain who put even Shang on the back foot

“To excise the rot that has eaten away at this country, I will accept all manner of blasphemy!” Even as an antagonist, Wan Jun Po is still very much an Urobuchi hero, taking all of the sins of the world upon himself

He even very reasonably points out that Shang could likely have righted this country with the power of his Sword Index. Shang chose prudence even at the cost of innocent lives, but Wan Jun Po’s greatest loyalty is to the people of his nation. Conflict born of equally sympathetic yet contrasting goals – that’s the good stuff, the raw ore of dramatic tragedy

And Done

Dear lord, things are developing fast! After two episodes of rambling across dimensions, our heroes have found themselves in the very lair of the Divine Swarm, facing off against a man who’s already proven himself Thunderbolt Fantasy’s most honorable villain. With the field of conflict having stretched to include the fate of an entire nation, Thunderbolt Fantasy is beginning to resonate with the critiques of civil order at the center of so many Urobuchi dramas. At the same time, delightful flights of nonsense like Lou Zhen’s retractable hand are still cropping up all the time, assuring us that Thunderbolt Fantasy remains as lighthearted and energetic as ever. Shang makes a policy of going all-out as infrequently as possible, so I’m eager to see his full strength arrayed against the gallant, self-damned Jun Po!

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