Sorry for the delay, the subs came out a day late and I was only able to get around to it now.Much to my relief, last week’s episode was listed as 9.5 so I decided to skip it altogether and hope it was not going to count as one of the final three episodes, and fortunately that was the case.
Honestly god, I can’t tell you how exasperate I am about this episode. I have so many emotions, and it’s not necessarily good emotions, they conflicted emotions. After taking about ten – twenty minutes to piece together my tangled thoughts, there are four points I want to address.
The Prince must save his Princess
I absolutely despise the fact they flipped around so that Koharu was the one who had to be rescued, when in the game, IT’S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. IT IS KOHARU WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE SAVING KAKERU!
While they were able to create some interesting- so speak original material to create this ‘mission’ for Natsuhiko and Mikoto off the air (which I will address in a moment), in my mind, it was not worth it.
I was never particularly a fan of Koharu x Kakeru to begin with, I was neutral about their relationship. But God damn it, they turned this couple into what was already a mushy love story into a cringe-worthy and infuriating one. Holy shit, I kept up on yelling, “OH MY GOD KOHARU WHY ARE YOU STANDING THERE WHY THE GUY IS BEATING UP YOUR BOYFRIEND?” Then they put in all these stupid lines- which aren’t really stupid, it’s just cheesy as fuck- and it annoys the hell out of me because Koharu is put into this tragically useless position. And on top of that, anyone who played the game was probably expecting *THAT* to happen, so were probably yelling along with me of, ‘OH MY FUCKING GOD, KAKERU TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING EARRING, THIS WON’T END WELL!’ only to discover *THAT* thing never took place, which is quite frankly a lost opportunity for Koharu to be epic and shine.
Mikoto & Natsuhiko’s Off-Screen Mission
Did anyone find this to be extremely stupid? I sure did. The reason why it is such a joke because we didn’t get to see anything except for the deactivation process for two seconds. Meanwhile, we see Kakeru being superman, bathed in action scenes.
Okay so here is the thing. Natsuhiko intends to not only kill Shiro but blow up his weapon factory while he’s at it. He doesn’t give a give a fuck, but is compassionate enough to give Kakeru one hour in attempt to save Koharu and kill Shiro in his stead. When we do see them, they are in the core- their sole job was to deactivate Shiro’s army of robots before they blow up the place. I can’t tell how much I wished we were able to at least see some original material of Natsuhiko and Mikoto fighting their way to get into the core, you know- THAT would have been nice and also fun to watch. It is infuriating how little screen-time these two get, while that other bullshit scene was taking place.
TROLOLOL Moment
The writers absolutely trolled us real good there when Natsuhiko and Mikoto were preparing to leave the facility since it’s going to blow, and then Sakuya fucking appears and all the sudden in a split second it looked as if Mikoto was going to have to choose, but then- holy shit, someone takes the shot in Mikoto’s stead and…
It wasn’t Sakuya, but Natsuhiko who took the bullet! I am sure I wasn’t the only who had this reaction:
OH SHIT OH SHIT MP UPI FICLOMG LODDOMG NO YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME- NATSUHIKO WAS SHOT TO PROTECT MIKOTO INSTEAD OF SAKUYA WHAT THE FUCK- It’s not where his heart is, so he should be okay, right? RIGHT?
Despite the way they have been handling this episode, this is one thing I have to hand it to them, that was well played. In fact, it was kind of brilliant. But dear lord, Natsuhiko better be okay, and he should be okay since it didn’t shoot him in the heart- THAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, and he is now being brought back for medical attention. So as long as Natsuhiko survives this, hopefully everything will be fine. It will definitely create an eyeopener in perspective for Sakuya, as he just witnessed him protect Mikoto. The question now is, well- if they intend to do the reset, then as long as Natsuhiko is alive he is going to do what he can to stop them, even if it means killing them. But if they choose not to, then it will be interesting to see which path Natsuhiko will take. Whichever path he chooses will influence whether or not Mikoto will choose him or Sakuya. But at this point I stopped caring so much about who will be her lover, I am happy with the little bit we got.
And finally, Shiro’s Cheesy & Underwhelming Defeat
I was taken aback in the manner which Shiro was ultimately defeated. So for most part it was Kakeru who was fighting him, but then Koharu finally steps up and joins him- doing virtually nothing but call his name and burn Shiro’s coat, and… somehow, someway, Shiro was defeated when Kakeru created a gigantic cherry blossom tree for Koharu. That is basically what happened. It was so ridiculous. Don’t even get me started on how conveniently slow the process of the effect of the dam being blown up took to finally threaten the trio having their own fight. Of course having Akito appear at the nick of time is good and all, I suppose for sanity sake we have to imagine he was the one holding the water back in desperate attempt to buy them time.
Amidst the chaos and cheesiness, there is one crucial piece of information which was released this episode.
The reason why Shiro was trying to pull off his selfish plans to sacrifice humanity to constantly trigger resets, in hopes he can finally find his wife’s identical reincarnation. He wants her to be the exact same person to be reborn, her soul, her body her environment and the time they lived. He has hope for this to happen because of Sorata.
Sorata’s DNA is said to be the perfect match and likely to be a reincarnation of the scientist who created Aine. Meanwhile Shiro is no longer human he once was, he is now just a robot carrying the man’s wish and consciousness. Now that’s irony for you.
But at the same time, Shiro’s wish though it was stupid, was also something Aine/Aion herself too perceived as a flame of hope. She deeply desires to reunite with her creator whom she loves so much, and that is why she cares for Sorata.
Next week, it is the semi-final episode where it is time to determine whether or not to perform what would be the last reset (due to Aion’s age and condition). Gee I wonder how this will play out…
I am fully expecting them to… (warning: major spoilers)
[spoiler] I am fully expecting them to show us or at least devote most of the episode to Akito and Nanami and their journey into the past and Nanami fighting to keep Akito from being trapped in the past.[/spoiler]
I’m watching it too, and getting terribly confused.