This one's longer than the others I posted so I made it's own post for it...
** Frontier Lord with Zero Subjects **
tl;dr - Age gap involving child ew. World doesn't make any sense. Also, colonizer. Meh.
That this decorated warrior was given a bunch of grass and no people or supplies or even an old bread crumb can to jack into is fucking dumb; and he's just, "meh, I'll give it a couple of days and then head home." Logistically, you're gonna starve and get ill without shelter, my guy. If you're gonna try, why commit to a few days and not a longer period. Politically, pretty sure the king doesn't just give you a domain to rule--which the world establishes brings taxes to the crown--and you fuck off and go back home with no consequences. So this entire world feels paper towel thin.
So I was willing to overlook the lack of supplies somewhat when it's clear that he's being mistreated because of his background as a commoner orphan. But then the fantasy natives come along and give this man everything he needs and it's so unsatisfying. Yeah, yeah, they are supposedly trading with him because he's soooo strong but the kingdom he's from is their enemy and they're too lackadaisical about it.
Then the fifteen-year old teenager falls in love with the dude and wants to marry him by the end of the first episode. Couldn't the person who falls in love with him be older? It's handwaved as "oh, you're so strong and that's all a woman wants" but it doesn't make any sense for people hostile to the kingdom to permit this no matter how many friendly-ass colors their horns want to turn.
And this is another age gap thing except super grody. This man enlisted and served for twenty years. He's no younger than thirty and that's IF I'm generous about how young he was when he became a soldier. Can we not do this? Couldn't this have been an older villager woman? If this were, like, a widow or a woman who left her husband, it would even make more sense because a lot of times, those types of women are seen as outsiders to their communities. The village head could've forced such a woman to babysit this dude and her falling for him would've been acceptable as he's essentially another "outsider". Even more so if she already had children because then, perhaps the men in her own community don't want her so she latches onto this guy. It doesn't make sense for the pretty, able-bodied little girl, which the other guys like or are at least somewhat possessive of.
Also, I was so caught up in the age gap and the other aspects that the whole Dances with Wolves thing went over my head. I usually give Japan a pass on that type of thing because while they have their own sordid history, they're so homogenous and I feel like the colonizer aspects should be more blatant to a Westerner. But it's still not a good thing to have in your show.
I really do like the idea of this absurdly strong meathead of an orphaned commoner being treated badly by the nobles and rewarded with a poor domain: resource-poor and filled with monsters with starving villages and hostile people nearby; and he needs to broker peace, prosperity and cooperation. This isn't that concept though. So, meh. I will say though, it wasn't completely unwatchable. I did sit through the whole first ep.
