I'm a Mighty Behemoth Living as a Kitten with an Elf – Episode 4
This is easily the best episode of the series so far. It's not that this episode does anything drastic, but it was clever in a few places. Am I crazy, or did it feel like they heavily toned down a lot of the off-kilter humor that the first three episodes seemed to be leaning into?
Considering one of the series' main gimmicks is Aria wanting to bang her cat, I was surprised we got almost none of that this whole episode, even though there were multiple opportunities to tell such a joke.
Ace Adventurer
There are moments where Aria acts a little motherly and territorial. If I didn't know any of the previous interactions or odd moments from the other episodes, I would just think she was an overprotective pet owner. Also, she felt much more lively in this episode than in the previous ones.
We learn why she's so determined to become an ace adventurer. Her village was attacked when she was younger, and she wants to do her best to not appear weak since she's so used to being saved by everyone.
That's pretty solid and almost makes me overlook the fact that it's implied her near-death experience at a young age might have contributed to her having such an intense fetish for cats. The show doesn't lean into it when I thought they were setting up that joke, and I hope that's a sign that they won't go in that direction. Still, there were a surprising amount of cute moments, like Aria and Tama having a picnic together. I can get used to more of these wholesome moments in the future.
Stella
Admittedly, we do get a good dose of cat-banging in this episode, but not from Aria, but from a new character named Stella. However, I dare say that the way it's handled in this episode is very meaningful and surprisingly clever. In this episode, we learn a lot about the lore of this world regarding some of the beasts and their unique abilities.
It turns out that reincarnation is an ability that is acquired and not something that just randomly happens in this world, and humans aren't the only ones capable of doing it. Humans can reincarnate into beasts, and beasts can reincarnate into humanoids.
Just like Tama has retained many of his knightly and humble qualities from his time as a human, this new character, Stella, has retained many of her simple-minded beast qualities from her time as a dragon, and like many animals, she desires to copulate with a strong partner. On the surface, it looks like another humanoid wants to bang this cat, but it's more akin to one animal wanting to mate with another animal.
Conclusion
I'm curious to see how this dynamic will play out, especially if Stella is the only one who can understand Tama through some sort of telepathy. Will they end up covering for each other?
Will there be a danger of one revealing the other's secret? And how will this new member of the family affect the future?
This episode wasn't great, but it gave me a lot to talk about and surprisingly had a few moments that were good.