The following contains spoilers for Episode 10 of DanMachi IV, “Juggernaut (Destroyer)”, streaming now on HIDIVE.
There were so many ways to DanMachi IV to be predictable and after all, the show is literally a harbinger of the future for the last four episodes thanks to a character whose whole shtick is precognition. And even with that, Episode 10 has brought up a series of unfortunate events so surprising that the path forward is almost undecipherable.
Last week, Bell finally got some answers from a very angry Ryu about her involvement in the murders and discovered the real culprit behind them, Jura. And as if the wily rat wasn’t cunning enough, he and his associates set off a series of explosions so violent that it summoned a monster never seen before.
true terror
Part of DanMachiIts appeal is that, despite looking a bit generic and formal from the outside, it has a genuine heart for its stories and manages to keep the threat alive. Bell may be arguably overpowered, but given how often new threats arise – of various kinds – there is always some sort of hurdle he must overcome.
I criticized the first arc of this season as it seemed to sideline Bell, although that was in the service of increasing the supporting cast, which was phenomenal. This arc has allowed Bell to get back into the limelight, but the introduction of this new monster, the Juggernaut, is arguably the most terrifying and effective antagonist yet, and it’s only been one episode.
Part of this magic is in the violence. Fans who had read the manga warned that this season was going to be dark, but most had to assume that the darkness had already normalized. The Moss Huge’s victims were discovered limbless and Ryu’s torture methods alone were brutal, but it paled by the violence of this week’s episode.
It’s such a jump that it almost felt like the story was changing genres. It’s the kind of juxtaposition that other shows would use in their premieres to blow up a stark fantasy, but DanMachi has used it to turn the tables on a world already well understood by the public. And the way this revelation hits Bell is especially shocking.
A major disaster… Coming up?
Seeing bubbles somehow fall is nothing new, but he’s never taken a punch like he did on his first encounter with the Juggernaut. It’s such a surefire that the answer to “how will Bell recover” will be a huge factor in how well this arc succeeds narratively. But it will certainly be emotional either way.
But what does this shocking ending mean for the disaster that Kassandra saw? There is a moment when the party prepares to go downstairs to help Bell and the other adventurers before Cassandra stops them. It’s the moment when she confesses that she imagined something terrible. However, the way she talks about it implies that her efforts to change the future have worked.
Maybe they did, meaning she saved some people, but only changed who would die from an inevitable disaster. There is always a chance that the vision will come true, because many of the images in those nightmares have not been seen. There have been no crystals and Ryu’s meaning in the hunch feels like there’s more to it.
If anything was missing from this episode, it was a bigger moment for Cassandra. Given all she saw and how haunted her visions have left her, she deserved a moment to really let loose and tell the party what’s at stake. There’s probably nothing you can do to avoid the future, but it would be nice if someone recognized that Kassandra was right. Plus, she just deserves a hug.
On the plus side, this episode did a great job of expanding the dungeon knowledge. It has always been intriguing how it appears to be alive, reacting to the actions of the adventurers who travel in it. It’s the canonical reason creatures respawn similar to that of a video game, but the Juggernaut extends the idea of the dungeon feel in a very compelling way.
The idea that the Juggernaut is a defense mechanism against damage to the dungeon that he himself is not prepared for makes a great explanation for such an extraordinarily powerful monster. Jura has activated a security protocol intended to restore balance by eradicating what it sees as a threat to the stability of the dungeon.
There’s only one episode left before fans have to wait for the second episode, which comes in 2023, but where the next episode will leave viewers is anyone’s guess. It has almost become a joke how wrong predictions have been, and it is DanMachi‘s biggest success this season: never quite revealing where it’s going.
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