I thought last week's episode was pretty weak, and was thinking of dropping the show. This week's episode, OTOH, I really liked.
I like Maihime's character, and I thought this episode did a great job of showing she was deeper than just the ever-cheerful type. When Hotaru tells her that they're alone, she's able to let down her guard and cry, which she obviously needed to do, but then once she's done she finds the strength to put her face back up so she can help others. It might have seemed like it was a really fast transition from tears to straight faced, but I know people IRL who are like that - they're super vulnerable, but they're so practiced putting on a strong face for others that sometimes they forget how to show their real emotions altogether, and they can put up their defenses faster than you can drop a hat.
I thought it was pretty apparent right from the first episode that there was a big mystery going on. Why so many children and so few adults? How did 'world' appear out of nowhere, and why on earth are the students ranked? What's up with the no-entry zone? All hints that the children are being manipulated. In episode 4 we learned that the children can be sent 'back inside' if they don't perform well enough (was that the term used?), which seemed to me to be pretty suspicious. This episode we saw that interaction with the adults in which they literally stated the kids 'didn't need to know' something. I like that the mystery keeps getting deeper, but it could be going a little faster IMO.
I liked that this episode we were sortof introduced to the students in positions #5 and #7. That just leaves Kuroe Karasuma, Hirokazo Utsugi, and Hoshihiko Washio to be shown on screen, although with only 7 episodes to go, I doubt any of them will get any character development.
I think it's almost a guarantee that Hotaru will die next episode. There was the pinky swear as a pretty big foreshadow, but I think the biggest foreshadow was when she and Maihime were talking alone, and Maihime expressed that she was able to be strong because Hotaru was there. I hope to be pleasantly surprised, though, because their romance is cute <3
Remember that in the first scene of the show, the 'inciting incident', there were two key details shown on screen. First was Canaria telling Ichiya that everything would be fine because she was there, and second was Ichiya saying "that was the first time the world ended". I assume that means that in order for Ichiya's arc to be resolved, he will need to learn to feel safe without Canaria around, foreshadowing either that she will be separated from him and they won't have won against the Unknown by the end of the season, or that the final act turn will happen when he turns on god mode. Something tells me that neither of those predictions are correct, though, so I'm probably missing something. The second line indicates that we will see the apocalypse happening several more times before the show ends: based on what we've seen so far, I predict that the six main characters will be the only ones left at the end of the show, although how many of them will make it to the end is unclear, since Canaria's apparent death was unexpected. I'm still expecting Canaria to show up again in some form, though, and will probably continue to expect that right up until the last episode.
Last episode I was really curious what Aoi's world was, since it was stated that it was really powerful and had a boosting effect similar to Canaria's. This episode when they said they 'changed her code', I wondered whether Aoi's world would have changed as well. It will be interesting to see what happens to her next episode, and I'm wondering what her motivation is for refusing to spill what she knows to Hotaru.
Lyrisia said:And I still wonder why in the first ep, they said Chiba dude was only sub-head thanks to his lil sis when he's obviously the one who does everything... oh well doesn't really matter I guess. It's because the heads/sub-heads aren't determined by how good they are as leaders, but by how powerful they are as world users. If it were the logical way around, Ichiya never would have made it into leadership, and Canaria would have been the Tokyo head. Chiba's sub-head is in the triple digits in the list, which means he's basically categorized as useless (although it's probably because the categorization scheme isn't set up to account for his strengths). |