Man, was this one of Akatsuki no Yona‘s best episodes yet or what? Great character comedy, some cuteness, ideological and thematic tension, a new character, plot progression—it was all here and with the freshness that only a new setting can bring. A port town is the perfect place for a stare down between destiny and freedom and I’m incredibly excited to see how Yona brings Jeaha into the fold. (Oh, and the new OP got me real hyped this episode—consider acclimation complete.)
At this point, our main cast has evolved into a truly lovable bunch of fools and episode 17 did about a good a job as any episode thus far at balancing serious versus silly, blending them together, and generally making good adaptive choices. There were a boatload of small jokes and funny faces this episode (including some that let us know about some really interesting character dynamics—like Hak internally looking to Yun for advice) and it honestly feels like director Kazuhiro Yoneda has finally found his comedic stride with this series.
It’s also cool to get a large chunk of the episode episode of Hak as the viewpoint character, as he’s one of the most nuanced, interesting and entertaining characters of the entire cast. As a soldier, he’s been trained to be observant and insightful, which means his thoughts follow a logical pattern unique to him (great on a character level) and allow us as the audience to hear more about the world around him than we would otherwise (great on a storytelling level). The two big observations we get from him this episode are on Port Awa itself and on how much freedom means to Jeaha. The first, obviously, is later echoed by Yona—demonstrating just how much she’s grown up (surprisingly without Hak noticing that because, of course, he’s limited by what he perceives Yona to be). The second sets up a cool opposition between Hak and Jaeha’s respective brands of freedom.
If you’re excuse me for “going Catholic” here, part of the Catholic teaching on free will and sin more or less articulates that by “binding” ourselves to God’s rules, we are freed from the cycle of selfishness and sin to be good—we become “free to do good.” Said another way, you have to choose to be good constantly, but it’s easy to become “trapped” by the cycles of selfish interest.
After Hak tells Jaeha that he serves as a bodyguard (and this is all framed within a comedic context using chibi characters—an effective way of not beating us over the head with the ideological conflict), Jaeha’s first reaction is sympathy: “How awful for you!” he cries. But Hak replies, “It’s not so bad. It was my choice.” As we see in Jaeha’s later predictions as to what he would do if confronted by King Hiryuu, such a mentality is utterly beyond his selfish ability to comprehend. Is Hak really without freedom because he is Yona’s bodyguard or does the fact that he chose this path for himself mean that he has merely subordinated his freedom to another for the sake of “doing good” (preserving Yona’s wellbeing and life)?
Of course, it would be an oversimplification of Jaeha’s position to condemn him for desiring freedom in contrast to Hak’s choice. Jaeha, after all, has been shackled (as he sees it) by destiny.
There’s a level, though, of hypocrisy in Jaeha’s reveling in his power—”This power is the greatest”, he crows in the middle of a fight—a power that brings him the esteem and admiration of his friends…and one that calls him to a greater purpose than his selfish indulgence in the pleasures of life. He’s accepted the power, but refuses to accept the responsibility tied to the power, the responsibility through which he has been granted the power in the first place. But even that indulgence is nuanced by the fact that Jaeha is currently using his power for the good of others. This isn’t such a simple situation as a man with great power lazying around and using his power for his own gain versus a grand destiny. Sure, Yona’s journey is ostensibly to save the kingdom (but does it really need saving?), but Jaeha is working on a more immediate, symptomatic level.
Even in terms of a divinely ordained quest, Jaeha has no real reason to follow Yona. Unlike Yona when she accepted her quest from the priest, he doesn’t really lack a purpose (although perhaps we’ll see a deeper existential emptiness in him than we have yet) right now.
It should be clear by this point that the whole scenario of Jaeha’s recruitment is incredibly complex, far more so than any other member of Yona’s party to this point. Hak is motivated through personal reason to follow her; Yun out of affection and curiosity. Ki-ja was, more or less, groomed to follow her from the moment she appeared and Sinha had a terrible living situation to escape. Jaeha has no such reasons to go with her, and even the grand destiny of Yona’s quest has been called into question by the two episodes we’ve just finished with Soo-won. Yona doesn’t know yet, but we do, that Soo-won is no tyrant—he is, in fact, a good king. Recruiting Jaeha to overthrow Soo-won (presumably Yona’s eventual objective, even if she isn’t sure of it yet) tastes just a little more sour having seen what we did in the past two episodes. Plus, there’s the added dimension of the recruitment being reversed in Ginga’s order to Jaeha to bring Hak to their side.
I’m told Pierrot, which has otherwise stuck closely to the manga, changed up the order of Soo-won’s adventures with the Earth Tribe to put it ahead of this arc and, right now, it looks like a brilliant choice. There are levels and rings in this narrative that expand far beyond the characters’ ability to see, but we the audience are privileged to see the impending contradictions and ideological conflicts on the horizon. All this adds a layer of subtle tension to the proceedings of each episode, giving us many more things to consider beyond the simple “Find the Dragons” quest Akatsuki no Yona appears to be on the surface.
Every dragon Yona collected leads her one step closer to becoming a revolutionary against a good king for personal and divine reasons. That’s really, really amazing stuff. Man, oh man am I excited for the upcoming episodes of this show and man, oh man am I dreading the end of it.
Oh, and Captain Ginga is amazing.
Mage in a Barrel 
Well Jaeha is a heck of a lot more moe here than he is in the manga, going by your screenshots anyway. And I will defend the original manga’s order once this arc finishes but it should be pretty clear by the end of this arc why it did what. 🙂
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He alternates between very “cool” looking and quite “moe” in his chibi/comedy forms. I like both sides of him a lot—I think they round out his personality really nicely.
I mean, I’m sure the manga’s order is good—but I do really like the structure of the series now. Although, they are in the Earth Tribe (where Soo-won just was), so maybe we’re about to see them run into their old friend, eh?
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Trust me, I’m gonna make a good argument for it (and ahem, my FIRST comment was about moe screencaps too you know!)
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Yeah, but you didn’t threaten to sue me! ^_^
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Well Its been hinted in the episode that Jae-ah was chained up in his village and probably had a similar experience to Shin-ah, but he was able to escape his village and enjoyed the freedom he probably didn’t have in his village. If your coming from that context its understandable why Jae-ah is very adamant on being able to make his own choices since being the dragon of destiny was not a choice he made for himself. As for Yona wanting to get her kingdom back hehehe I won’t spoil that for you but it should be obvious at this point her only concern is finding comrades whom she can trust and help keep both her and Hak alive.
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Oh, yeah, I’m sure Jaeha’s backstory will further nuance and complicate his character and I’m very much looking forward to finding out more about what makes him tick. If you ask me, Yona has nailed every backstory it’s done thus far and I expect that to continue with Jaeha.
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Do you want to make me die of moe? If I die, I’ll sue you and your blog, iblessall! Just you wait!
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Spend a couple hours writing a post about the complexities of the characters and the plot, third comment is about moe screencaps…
Is aniblogging really worth it, I sometimes wonder. ;_;
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At least it wasn’t “first comment!”
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I see some disagreement. 😛 Well, put me in the camp of manga readers who are down with the decision to move the chronology around a bit. Given the time constraints of the anime, the decision seems a logical and appropriate one to me. And as you mentioned in your breakdown of episode 15, the juxtaposition between the sick villager’s criticism of King Il and Soo-won is a smart narrative choice.
The only thing that bums me out is that the anime won’t go beyond two coer. I feel like the story only gets better after the main cast has been assembled. Yona isn’t just about Yona going around adding members to her dream team. But we might not ever get to those other parts, and so I am not able to refute those people who say that Akatsuki no Yona is just a Fushigi Yuugi redux.
And a small, nitpicky complaint: The score is gorgeous, of course, but I feel like the music editing has been a little weak the last two episodes. Like the music maybe should not have been matched with certain scenes.
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I’m definitely interested in hearing about what the original order was once things have played out here, but overall I’m really liking the structure of the show. Soo-won’s visit to the Earth Tribe was always going to be a bit of a speed bump for the show, but I think they minimized the damage by putting it where it was.
We can always hope for more cours! Despite the fact that doing so is…probably just setting us up for disappointment…
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It’s interesting that Jaeha seems okay with being instructed to “secure” (Shanghai) Hak after all that big talk of freedom.
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I realize now, “Secure” could just as easily mean convince as abduct. Good luck trying to abduct Hak.
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And “convince” is actually the language Jaeha uses at the end of the episode when thinking about recruiting Hak.
Attempted abduction would be…foolish.
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I find the green dragon to be cute how he flatters himself lol
Im really enjoying this anime
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Heh, yeah, Jaeha’s self-flattering moments are great (especially the one where he “mishears” Hak during their first encounter).
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I’m happy that Yona returned to the usual formula!
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That makes at least two of us!
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Jaeha may be chained down in ways he doesn’t realise. Funny that he’s contrasting himself with Hak, and seems perturbed by Hak’s declaration of “it was my choice”, when he’s probably in a similar situation himself. By allying himself with Gingas pirates, he’s more than likely sacrificed the selfish freedom he believes himself to have. I’d guess he’s loyal to their cause in the same way Hak is to Yonas. I’m very interested to see how his plays out.
Also that really awesome screenshot of Jaeha flying through the sky.
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Yeah, it’s funny that Jaeha basically in the same situation as Hak, only he doesn’t realize it because he somehow has convinced himself that he is free because he made the choice and has instead jumped to the conclusion that Hak is doing his job out of mere duty.
& yeah, the episode looked great with the cool stuff and with the chibi/comedy stuff.
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