Episode 5 of Tomb Raider King errs on the side of reckless acquisitions and hostile takeovers.

I’m going to be honest with you all: I’m trying my best to check my biases at the door. This isn’t my kind of show; we’ve established as much with the opening episodes. Rather than spend the whole season bashing the show for the same issues week in and week out, I’m going to try and take the show on its own terms and evaluate what it’s attempting rather than what I’d like.

With that in mind, I think this is a more interesting episode than what has come before. Clearly Joo-Heon is out to get as much as he can as quickly as he can and establish himself before his previous future comes to pass. This week Joo-Heon got closer to that goal by acquiring a lot of new relics – and I do mean a lot. I had lost count about halfway through the runtime myself. Joo-Heon actually had to go back and list the dozen or so relics he had already acquired, and I had to play it twice to make sure I caught them all. He is picking up two or more mystical items of ancient power per week at this rate. It’s a good thing Joo-Heon has picked up some assistants in this to carry all his treasures.

The relics were far more fleshed out this week. The Code of Hammurabi is a pretty key relic, not just because of its fame but also because it clearly gets its own hype activation sequence. It does look great seeing the giant stone pillar rise out of nowhere and get all the flashy effects when Joo-Heon uses it. I’m also tickled by the fact that the power is a reflective shield of sorts. I can certainly see the chain of reasoning that gets to that effect, but I find it interesting since if I were asked to come up with a magical power for the Code of Hammurabi, I don’t think I would have settled on this as an idea.

Similarly, the affinity and dominance aspects get more nuance too. We find out that relic poisoning was killing Joo-Heon in his past life, and that’s why he was bound to TKBM. Dominance also being less potent if something rattles you or throws off your mental state is also a neat idea, as it certainly reflects why Joo-Heon is constantly cool as a cucumber. These little wrinkles add texture to the world and give it a sense of place and specificity that goes a long way to making this setting stand out.

Rating:

Tomb Raider King is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.

Entertainment news website Deadline reported on Thursday that Viz Media and the Gotham Group have signed an agreement for the Gotham Group to develop film and television adaptations based on Viz Media‘s original properties, including titles from its Viz Originals graphic novels and the RWBY franchise that it had acquired.

The RWBY animated series has a 10th volume greenlit.

Viz Originals include Devil’s Candy by Rem & Bikkuri, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, Lynx by Sam Sattin, and Galaxic Baseball League by Acky Bright.

The Gotham Group is a film and television production company that has produced such titles as The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Maze Runner, Stargirl, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians, among others.

In July 2024, Viz Media acquired the RWBY series following Rooster Teeth shutting down. Viz Media owns the rights for future distribution, production, licensing, and consumer products. The company stated at the time that it was exploring the production of new chapters in the series.

The original RWBY web animated series by the late creator Monty Oum follows four girls with unique weapons and powers who are training to hunt supernatural “Creatures of Grimm.” Rooster Teeth produced nine volumes and 117 episodes. The ninth volume began in February 2023 and ended in March 2024.

Shaft’s RWBY: Ice Queendom television anime for the RWBY franchise premiered in Japan in July 2022. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan, and it also streamed an English dub.

Viz has published manga for the RWBY franchise, including Shirow Miwa‘s adaptation of the web animated series in Shueisha‘s Ultra Jump magazine from November 2015 to February 2017. Viz Media published the manga in its English edition of Weekly Shonen Jump magazine beginning in October 2017, and also published the manga in print. The company also published Bunta Kinami‘s RWBY: The Official Manga manga. Kinami launched the manga in Shonen Jump+ in December 2018, and ended it in June 2020. Additionally, Viz Media published the RWBY manga anthology series.

Rooster Teeth (RWBY, gen:LOCK) revealed in March 2024 in a memo from general manager Jordan Levin to its staff that, after 21 years, it was shutting down “due to challenges facing digital media resulting from fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms, advertising, and patronage.” Rooster Teeth had stated at the time that its parent company Warner Bros. Discovery would explore options for its IP such as RWBY and gen:LOCK.

Source: Deadline (Denise Petski)