I saw The Mighty Men on Amazon Prime, and figured that it was about "the mighty men of old" mentioned in Genesis 6:4 -- a verse that always gave me a little stirring when I was a kid sitting in Sunday school or the morning church service.
Mighty Men -- like Hercules on Saturday morning cartoons:
Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs,
Virtue in his heart, fire in every part
Of the Mighty Hercules.
Virtue in his heart, fire in every part
Of the Mighty Hercules.
Could we go back to the iron in his thighs again?
By the time I figured out that it was The Mighty Nein, I was already invested.
Scene 1: Some veiled beings with cow-ears gather around a giant pulsating gem, and an Orc (Graham McTavish) holding his dying wife. There's always a dead wife.
They kiss; she swears that they'll be together again; he grabs the ceremonial knife and kills her.
Priestess: "As the body dies, the soul lives on for eternity with the Luxon."
The gem absorbs her soul. Husband: "I can't wait to see who you will become." Is she getting reincarnated or moving on to the afterlife? Make up your mind.
Scene 2: Priestess yells that they've been breached -- "protect the beacon (gem)!" A cultist grabs it and runs to a vault with a statue of another husband and wife. The beacon cleverly hides the husband's crotch.
He hides it and closes the vault -- just in time to be eviscerated by three warriors, Astrid, Dain (Matthew Mercer), and Eadwulf (Redchild). They grab the beacon/gem, eviscerate some more guards, conjure a shadow-being to subdue the rest, evaporate doors, jump over tall buildings, and vanish another dimension.
Scene 3: Next stop, a wooden fort in the forest. But their horses are supposed to be ready. What's gone wrong? Eadwulf and Astrid investigate. Dain stays behind with the gem/beacon. But he makes the mistake of looking at it (haven't you read any heroic fantasy? It will possess you!).
Meanwhile, Eadwulf and Astrid notice that everyone in the fort is dead. "The Kyrin are here! It's a trap! Run!" Too late -- the whole dimension explodes!
Some viewers may recognize the thieves from their many, many appearances in tv series, webseries, podcasts, video games, and online Dungeons & Dragons games, but I didn't, and it's not really necessary to understand this installment of their adventures.
Opening: Cut to the opening sequence, five-minutes long (which is standard for Japanese anime): a fort on fire; a wounded guy sinking into the water; everyone smiling; a muscle guy; the Tarot card Death; a goblin jumping over its opponents; a redhead fighting; an Elf crying; a muscular tightrope-walker; a pink bunny pulling on a female being's antlers; an old guy, probably their Gandalf (I mean Dumbledore); a group shot.
We only get the stories of three in the first episode. All interspliced, but I'll separate them out.
Caleb (Liam O'Brien), the redhead, is being bullied by two teenagers (Yuri Lowenthal, left, Rowan Atkins Downs). He uses his magical powers to scare them off, then tries to pick the lock of the Mystic Banshee shop.
Uh-oh, a Goblin picks his pocket. Caleb chases it down, but it claims that it was just trying to help: the lock is booby-trapped, and would have killed him. "Refill my flask, and I'll show you how to break into the magic shop."
The Goblin, Nott the Brave, is actually a halfling rogue/wizard under a curse. Presumably there will be a big reveal at some point.
It is voiced by Sam Riegel, who looks like a lady with a beard, but is apparently a cisgender man.
Caleb and the Goblin wait for the owner of the magic shop to lock up and go home, and break in to look for the unspecified thing that he wanted: something guarded by a scary bat-being. Hey, Caleb uses German words. Shouldn't they all be speaking Westron or Elvish or something?
Uh-oh, the Goblin sees a poster: Caleb is wanted for murder, with the reward 100,000 gold pieces. Should they turn him in? Too late -- the shop owner returns and chases them out.
They bond, and Caleb tells his back story: he and his friends Astrid and Eadwulf (remember them?) were students at the Magic Academy (and also in a three-way bisexual romance, but that isn't mentioned here). The evil headmaster Ikithon had indoctrinated them so severely that when he ordered them to murder their parents as a final test of loyalty, he did. Then he felt guilty and stumbled out into the night.
Beau
Beau, the guy in blue on the far right, examines the destroyed wooden fort where the thieves who stole the gem/beacon were splattered. His Dwarf supervisor argues that it was "the damn Kriks," a racist term for the Kyrin (the cow-eared elves who kill their partners so their souls can be absorbed).
Beau uses his psychic powers to see the three thieves being splattered. One of them, Astrid, survived the blast, and is watching. Plus he finds two green gems that are used to intensify magic. "This wasn't a Kyrin attack," he exclaims. "It was someone from the Magic Academy!"
Dwarf Supervisor thinks that this theory is ridiculous. "The Magic Academy is in our country! Why would you attack your own people?"
Left: Omidi Abtahi, who plays the bartender in one episode. I was looking for nude photos of the actor who plays Beau, but it turns out that she is a female character, played by a woman. She has appeared in many D&D games, podcasts, and so on, so regular fans already know, but for new viewers it will be a Big Reveal later on.
In some of the stories, Beau gets a girlfriend, but there's no mention of same-sex interest here.
More after the break
Back at the Cobalt Soul, a society of monk librarian/ detective/ ninjas, the Head Monk -- played by Jonathan Frakes, Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation -- yells at Beau: "You were here to observe and learn, not come up with your own theories!"
"But you paired me with a Dwarf Supervisor who's an idiot! I found green crystals that prove that someone from the Magic Academy caused the explosion!"
"You should have told your lead investigator!"
"Oh, he wouldn't know a clue if it was cupping his balls." The other monks gasp. Frakes banishes her to the stacks (this is a library-monastery): no more fieldwork because of your arrogance!
They stomp off. Dairon, another person who looks like a boy but is female according to the fan wiki, tells him that he should have fired Beau. "I wish I could." So Beau's daddy is a big investor?
Later, Frakes heads off through town on a mysterious mission; Beau tails him, and follows him into a clothing store, but he's not there. The clothier brandishes a crossbow, but Beau annihilates her and finds a secret door that leads ... an underground meth lab?
Actually, it's gnomes making the magic-enhancing crystals. Frakes yells at a human-sized woman: "Your idiots left two crystals at the trap I hired you to set to explode the three thieves!"
Beau then tails the woman, but she notices; they fight, and Beau is bested.
She awakens to a guy's face in a room full of books and weird shapes in jars. "You some kind of serial killer boxer?" Beau asks.
"I'm Dairon the detective/librarian/ninja monk." The one who told Frakes that he should have fired Beau, now being helpful? Turns out that Dairon is investigating corruption in the librarian/detective/ninja monastery, and thinks that Frakes is involved. Would Beau be interested in working undercover to take him down?
The Bad Guys
Ikthion (Mark Strong, left), the Magic Academy Headmaster who told Caleb and his friends to kill their parents, is teaching a class: "Fear is the strongest emotion, because it reminds us that we could die. We will do anything to stay alive."
He turns off the fear center of a tied-up Orc -- it may be the husband from Scene 1 -- and it calms down. Then he eviscerates it. When class is over, he repairs its fear center.
The King (Graham McTavish) summons him and plays a hologram accusing their Kingdom of stealing a valuable gem/beacon from the Krym Dynasty next door (the cow-eared elves). It is important to their religion -- sort of like the Ark of the Covenant in ancient Israel -- so they must return it, or there will be war.
"Our problem is, we don't have the gem/beacon," the King explains. "We have no idea who stole it."
"This is bad," a bureaucrat continues. "The Bright Queen has been aching to attack -- she just needed an excuse."
"Let's prepare for war," Headmaster Ikthion says.
On his way out, Archmage DeRogna angrily yells at Headmaster Ikthion: "The king wants the librarian/detective/ninja monks to investigate the theft of the gem/beacon. Will they succeed?"
"Nope." Ulp, he planned the whole thing to start a war with the Kyrians!
Cut to Headmaster Ikthion trying to cure Eadwulf (one of the thieves), while the others look on in concern.
"In spite of the explosion (that I caused, mwah-ha-ha), you survived and we got the gem/beacon. The Kingdom will be forever grateful for your patriotism." "
Eadwulf dies, and the gem/beacon absorbs his soul (like it did with the Orc's wife in Scene 1).
While they are grieving, The Headmaster tells them that this is a joyous occasion, because the gem/beacon "is the key to everything. It's not a religious artifact, it's a weapon!"
The end.
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Beefcake: Some shirtless guys. The gratuitous Orc and human captives below are from Pixiv. Later we'll be introduced to two more muscle guys in The Nein:
Mollymauk, left, a circus acrobat with a mysterious past.
Essek, right, a drow wizard searching for a cure for his mother's fatal disease. In some of the stories he romances Caleb.
Gay/Bi Characters: Astrid, Caleb, Beau, Essek, and Mollymauk, but nothing is mentioned here.
Heterosexism: No one expresses any heterosexual interest here, either.
World-Building: This series is based on Campaign Two of the D&D game Critical Role, set twenty years after the previous Critical Role series, The Legend of Vox Machina. Characters appear in other campaigns and one-shots. You can go on and on.
Nein: It's never explained.
My Grade: B, unless future episodes depict some same-sex relationships, instead of straightening everyone.
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