My, my. To think we’d be alive for the moment when Smeagol became a focal point for an anime in discussing isolation and desire. How lucky can you get?
I liked this episode a whole lot more than the last one and I’m pretty sure it all comes down to how well you can relate to the subject material, which isn’t actually all that surprising. I can identify with seclusion much more than with body/eating disorders, just from my own personal experiences. I’ve also started to really get a kick out of the μ song that comes on at the climax of each episode. The lyrics have been targeted for the specific issue we happen to be dealing with and it just adds a lot more to the scene. It’s just good music.
While I don’t doubt there will be more violent, action centered episodes in the future, based on the blond lady surrounded by Digiheads, the fact that they’re showing that there are alternative solutions to overcoming personal setbacks is notable and appreciated. Sometimes, just offering to talk or eat lunch together can be enough of a starting point for change. I don’t buy into the whole ‘Smeagol was just lonely’ bit they tried to use, but the message came out loud and clear which is the important thing. Honestly, hearing a Lord of the Rings reference to any degree is just a nice bonus.
They got everyone together a lot quicker than I thought they would. They even went through the trouble of skipping the explanation of the mobius system and the reactions to it, flashing forward to everyone accepting it as truth. In an anime attempting to cover so much ground, it’s definitely a good sign for time management. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve watched a show that has insisted on repeating information over and over again despite very obvious time limits.
I’ve had to do this in the past too, but I’m starting to enjoy the show more now that I feel like I finally understand where it’s coming from. It was unclear to me from the first few episodes whether or not this was supposed to be sci-fi, psychological, comedy, action, etc. Now that I have my expectations aligned, I’m starting to take more pleasure in watching the new episodes. Like I mentioned before, I think being empathetic to the particular episodes content is crucial in the viewing. Considering this show seems to be a shout out to mental health in general, empathy is probably a pretty important concept in general. Being so familiar with Suzuna’s trauma in this episode has made me reconsider not liking the last episode. Due to not connecting with it, I kind of wrote it off. Now, I like to think that empathizing could be a key feature of this series. And they say you never learn anything useful from watching TV. Pfft.
Because of the general nature of the show, it’s hard to know how much time has passed since Shougo has been ‘awakened’, but how the hell do him and Aria not have a plan for how to escape? Aria even says she’s 1/2 of the system (or used to be, most of her power is gone now). You’d think she’d have some way of communicating with μ. And μ is so dense, saying she doesn’t understand why they don’t like it here! Gosh, I don’t know. Being chased around by former friends turned monsters, finding out my world is only half built, and having my reality crumble around me seems like a great way to spend a weekend…
I know she’s being manipulated by the musicians, but this seems like something a small sit down and chat session could clear up pretty darn quick!
Also, I’m aware it’s kind of cheesy, but I like the idea of channeling the negative feelings they have accumulated to create ways to fight through a feeling of catharsis. Aria said Shikishima wasn’t ready yet, but I’m hoping they’ll all get their own versions of personified catharsis soon. Assuming each character gets their own episode, there are still 3 or 4 episodes to go and then maybe escaping from mobius will become the main plot. I know this all has been more or less laid out in the game that this show is based on, but I’ve never played it. So, everything here is new to me and I’m super interested in seeing how far the show takes it in the coming weeks.
Matrona is teaching Diane to dance and we get to find out a bit of what happened to Matrona after she supposedly died when Diane was branded as the Sin of Envy. I just love the chain of events that basically saved Matrona’s life. How it was actually Diane that ultimately saved her by having mercy on some of those savages back in her flashback, who she threw into the lake instead of killing them. And because of that, one of the savages that was spared came to help Matrona when she was dying of poison. Not only that, Diane also saved Zalpa’s kids. If she had killed him when she was supposed to, those two adorable children would have been orphaned. Diane’s kindness literally saved not one, but FOUR people. That’s a pretty big accomplishment if you ask me. It was also her kindness that ultimately changed Matrona for the better. With the series of events, Matrona was actually able to see how far Diane’s kindness had gone and the good that came from it.
However, with the Ten Commandments on the loose, things can’t stay happy. Especially when a demon flies over and spreads flyers of a tournament that is offering one wish for the winner, catching the eyes of many, including Meliodas and company. This part was pretty silly and cute, especially when Gilthunder just really wants to enter with Meliodas. Such a fanboy~ The two behind the tournament turn out to be the blue giant and pink haired guy (I’m not sure if his name was dropped yet so I guess I’ll call him pink hair). And boy does he drop a couple large facts being he and Meliodas are friends and the name of the giant, Drole who Matrona prayed to, which was a pretty shocking moment and well executed.
The fight between Fraudrin and Denzel was pretty exciting. Especially since we haven’t really seen a good sword fight in this series for a while. But Denzel’s ability that has the person’s he’s stamped be haunted by the spirits of the people they’ve killed is really interesting and also very terrifying. Though I had to chuckle at how somewhat sassy Denzel is. When Fraudrin tried to hit him with his attack, but he just stood there, cracked his neck and then moved before the attack hit the spot where he stood. Turns out it was Deathpierce’s ability that delays attacks. I wasn’t a big fan of him when he first appeared and this episode essentially cemented the fact of my dislike for this guy. But I’ll get into that a little later.
So, at the end of the last episode the villains attacked the training camp. Setting a poisonous fire to the forest and begin attacking the students and pro-heroes alike. The extra lessons group receives word about the attack via telepathy and Aizawa runs out of the building to enter the fighting frey. Dabi quickly intercepts him and takes him out. Which is unfortunate, I’m hoping he’ll get up and enter the fight later on. I get that the villains would try to zone out the pro’s so they can take care of the kids more easily. Still, I don’t enjoy seeing powerful characters taken out in such an easy way to create a sense of suspense. In the USJ arc, Aizawa fought until he was almost dead and severely strained his quirk to protect these kids. I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of him for this arc either.
Midoriya, being Midoriya. Claims that he will save Kota, no matter what. This fight is amazing, the raw emotion I felt when Midoriya was being pinned down by a pure ball of muscles. As he apologized to his mother in his head, as he thought of All Might. As he embraced the idea that he might die in his duty as a hero. As he takes advantage of the one moment of weakness that the villain shows. Everything about this is just pure amazing and I felt like a child deep inside rooting for Midoriya and quietly screaming “Yes.” as he pulled into the power of One for All and pressed it beyond. Straight beyond to Plus Ultra levels! Using his broken arm to keep going and punching the villain.
The fight itself was fine, they actually retained a bit of the game by making Kamoshida’s gross monster form in CG, which I think looked nice to me. Ren’s Persona fusion happening during the fight and not before or after was actually really cool, it added a bit more tension and “NANI?!” moments that kept my attention. I’m actually kind of glad that they didn’t spend too much time on the action, because so far from what I’ve seen in the anime, the action scenes can be a little clunky. They still added the all-out attack in the end, but it wasn’t as awkward as all the other times. Also, they kept in the game OST like Blooming Villain, Last Surprise, etc., which is always a huge plus. Ann confronting Kamoshida after the fight was good too, but I felt like she shined more after, when the day finally came when Kamoshida barged into the assembly and confessed in front of everyone that he was physically abusing the volleyball students, and sexually abusing the female students. Wanting to kill himself from his guilt, Ann stepped up and told him not to run away from what he’s done like a coward. Considering Ann is one of Kamoshida’s victims, it was very brave of her to fight him and confront him in the Palace while also speaking up to him at the school assembly. It’s definitely not easy for a victim to go up against their abuser, but Ann is a very strong-willed girl despite how she was in the beginning. And thankfully in the end, all ends well when she texts the boys that Shiho woke up from her coma, which again we didn’t see in the game, and seeing Ann breaking down into happy tears really touched me.
For now, things are better as the Phantom Thieves have saved students from more pain and trauma. We also got some more tidbits, such as the code names for the characters while they’re in the Metaverse, and with Ren a.k.a. Joker being pretty special. He can posses more than one Persona, as we saw as he met up with Pixie, and that he can create a whole new Persona through fusion with the help of Igor. It’s a mystery as to how he can do all this and it certainly caught the attention of Morgana, and also got him his code name, Joker. The other code names are pretty obvious.
Yuuga and Eia find out pretty quickly that Seiya isn’t Yuuga’s slave anymore and ownership has been transferred to Ryuuou. The website Yuuga showed them was some pretty creepy stuff, but it reminded me we met Julia in the short after credits scene in episode 1. It’s interesting to see the limits of the device, although I have a couple of comments about those limits that I’ll mention later on.
Nakano was adamant about becoming Shiori’s slave and she even said that she would let Shiori go if she happened to win, but it really shocked me to see Nakano was really serious about winning! Wouldn’t she tried to lose on purpose if she really wanted to be a slave? That was pretty suspicious to me.
Either way the episode ends with Zenichi losing and a lot of things being in the air as to how the duels will continue. It was a really intriguing episode with some nice strategizing, but also questions keep popping up about how all these characters will converge, if we’ll see previous characters at all again and what’s the deal with Ryuuou’s who we have yet to meet.
It was cute to see Pin practice with Hinako, but he was so shy about it that he couldn’t even face her. In fact it was nice to see more of his shy side, especially the conversation where he thanked her over the phone. He said all the things he wanted to say to her, making us wonder if he really did realize it was her. But my goodness, there were moments when I experienced second-hand embarrassment on Hinako’s behalf. Pin is not shy in praising her beauty, and I was just waiting to see the girl melt into the floor.
The primary reason why I decided to give it a second chance is because I realized even though Mitsuyoshi and Teresa have not been not in the spotlight since the first episode, there is in fact a purpose for it. Both Mitsuyoshi and Teresa are more or less benched for the purpose to to observe what is going on around them. Although we have yet to see any signs from Mitsuyoshi himself, we have been seeing a subtle development on Teresa’s end. Since episode 2, Teresa has been quietly observing/experiencing what is happening around her. Particularly in episode 3, we see that she is slowly but surely developing a crush, followed up with last week’s episode where she was conscious of experiencing an indirect kiss with Mitsuyoshi after he had taken a sip from her cup. This week at the end of the episode, we see her muse about how love is complicated, and reflects on her own secrets she is keeping from the others. All of these things will affect her future decisions, or so I would like to believe that is the writer’s intent.
I feel bad for Hiyajo as she grows more and more about Okabe blurring the line between Amadeus and the real Makise Kurisu, I get the feeling she’s come close to this herself. The brief flashback of her crying at Makise’s funeral is heartbreaking. Despite the fact she wasn’t in the first Steins;Gate or even mentioned is almost sad. Because I feel like even from these first three episodes that her and Kurisu had a close and perhaps almost sisterly relationship.
This episode suffered from a lot of, underable, mood whiplash. Where parts of the episode felt bright and happy, other parts felt like pure despair. These people who are suffering so deeply are just trying to live their lives at least, in Okabe and Hiyajo’s case.
The competition begins, with guest star: Mozart!
As I previously mentioned, the piano playing looked cool overall, despite the minor disrupting of the CG. I do want it to go further though. The show uses light and unique scene creations to really drive home the beauty of what the kids have been doing so far. It would be a shame if that was lost in the competitions. Being able to see the actual playing of all the notes is certainly something that I enjoy, but I need a but more ‘oomph’ to really get invested in it.
