Shangri-La Frontier – Season 1 Episode 12 Recap & Review

Episode 12

When fighting Wethermon, episode 12 of Shangri-La starts with him using a skill that makes all players be level 50, at the max. Meanwhile, he stays at level 200. That’s why player skill is the most important thing when fighting. However, it’s still recommended to be level 50.

Sunraku and Katzo, who are far below that, need to grind in the Iron Ruins. They enter the area following a map Pencilgon gave them. It’s full of black panels and it feels like a different game altogether. 

Sunraku asks Katzo what is his level, and he says twenty-five. The protagonist mocks him, saying he’s already level 31. Emul, not understanding, says Sunraku is worried about how frail and helpless Katzo is. At that moment, a red panel descends and attacks them.

Katzo says he’ll handle that alone. When it is about to attack, Katzo uses his skill Repel Counter, followed by Crush Uppercut, and destroys the enemy. He says the red aura in his hands gives him more strength and vitality. He is a “spirit fist user” Monk. Although he can’t equip weapons, he gains a lot of buffs in exchange.

They keep following the map until they find a weird and deep hole in the ground. Katzo jumps to see if it’s safe. When Emul says Katzo is an admirable lady, Sunraku tries to find a way to explain the character is a woman but the player is a man. He decides to say that sometimes a person looks like a woman, but has the soul of a man, which impresses the little rabbit.

Sunraku jumps too and sees a beautiful lake in front of him. Their mission is to fish many Lifestide Lake Serpents. Katzo succeeds in his first try and they start fighting. Sunraku reveals his other set of new blades: the Empire Bee Twinblades. Bilac made them for him. When she was explaining how to use the weapon, he thought he would have to manage affection levels with all the bunnies in Rabituza. That spiralled into him having flashbacks of an awful trash game in which he had to date 12 girls.

One of the blades has a corrosion effect, but not only that, it also grows on the target’s body, making it even weaker with time. That allows Katzo to create a weak spot in the tough creature, which will help them hit many criticals. Emul rushes to help them, but the monster focuses an attack on her.

Sunraku is too far away to help, but, thankfully, Katzo defends Emul. When they defeat the monster, they gain more experience than expected. Katzo gets a four-level jump and new skills. That’s when Sunraku learns you can link skills, buy grimoires, have sub-jobs, and join guilds. He almost goes crazy thinking about how much he lost by not doing the tutorial.

Pencilgon arrives and tells them they need to find an NPC before fighting Wethermon. Setsuna of Bygone Days, which she calls Set-chan.

The Episode Review

This episode was incredibly funny, probably the best in that department until now. When Sunraku explains Katzo’s gender to Emul, and she says life is full of mysteries with sparkly eyes, that’s great. It’s hard not to laugh at it at all. This episode is full of great jokes. Sunraku not wanting to hear everything he missed out by skipping the tutorial is also a good example.

That also represents another element this anime always nails: the aspect of it being a game. Who never skipped a tutorial thinking it would be boring and lose important information? Even the other joke about Katzo’s gender is relatable. It’s very common for people to use characters with different genders if they like their design better or for other reasons.

But the best part of it is their dynamic. You can easily see you with a friend there. Bickering about levels and skills, trying to show off, and more. It’ll be awesome when we have the entire team so we can see how everyone will react towards each other.

Now, about the fight, although it’s quite simple and fast, they already are paying a lot of attention to Emul and the fact that NPCs die forever. You can see Sunraku’s desperation and how Katzo protects her with his body so she doesn’t get any damage. And nothing is said about that. It’s so well done, that you can easily understand all the intentions behind it.

The next episode will focus on Setsuna. That will be very exciting. Shangri-La Frontier hasn’t been focusing a lot on character drama and it doesn’t seem like a strength of the series. However, if it handles that well, the anime will have another good element at play. Let’s wait and see!