The Vermillion Mask Opens On Masks, Grief, And A Slow Transformation
The premiere leans on standard shonen battle fantasy beats and dialogue lore-dumps for Peru, but the transformation imagery given to Sonarue is the episode's strongest material, and the review suggests her arc carries the social commentary the show has not yet developed.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime Feminist.
Episode 1 introduces Peru, apprentice to a mask maker killed along with the other apprentices by the mask maker's own greatest creation. Peru sets out to destroy his master's remaining masks, while a girl named Sonarue, apparently a deposed princess, wants some of them for her own ends. The episode ends with Sonarue possessed by the Mask of the War God.
Peru grew up as the apprentice of a great mask maker. That mask maker and all his other apprentices died in a freak accident caused by the mask maker's greatest creation. Peru now wants to destroy every remaining creation of his former master.
A girl named Sonarue wants some of those masks for her own reasons. She appears to be a deposed princess, removed by the current ruling tyrants in an imperial campaign. By the end of the episode she is possessed by the Mask of the War God, and the imagery around that transformation is the most gripping sequence in the premiere.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime Feminist The Vermillion Mask – Episode 1