Medaka Box Abnormal Episode 11: The End

“Clearly, this is the work of a third party. Oh, but please don’t jump to conclusions. They were like this when I got here. Therefore…it isn’t my fault!”

Impression

This is the first time a plausible case has actually been put forward (by Oudo, no less) towards Medaka for her to halt her crushing of the Flask Plan – look at all those supercomputers! Over 131,000 of them, which is what is required to analyze Abnormals, is bound to have been expensive to buy and hard to maintain, which would all go to waste after a period of Hakoniwa Academy’s 100 years if the Flask Plan is shelved. There are also over 100,000 people working within society that depend on the Flask Plan and the research tasks it provides them – crushing that would also crush their livelihoods. But I can understand Medaka prioritising the actual lives of all the Hakoniwa Academy students, as she’s the Student Council President after all.

Oudo’s second Abnormality was…well, it wasn’t a surprise, since I read the manga, but it would have been initially surprising to find out that he has a second, secret power that makes him even more overpowered than he already is – Unreasonable Taxation, the idea of transmitting EMP waves directly into a target’s heart, “taxing” their Abnormality and taking it through mutual interference, usually fatally hurting them in some way, like how Koga just went limp and nearly died. Koga turned out to be Naze’s one main weakness – Naze prioritises the well-being of her friend over any project or policy she has, and due to that she’s willing to swallow her pride and do anything, even asking her onii-chan for help if it means Koga will survive.

There was also a question raised on what it means to be human – Medaka argues that a perfect human is oxymoronic in itself, as humans cannot be perfect if they lack imperfections, upon which they would no longer be human at all. For Medaka, whose Abnormality “The End” allows her to learn and perfect any Abnormality she sees even to the extent that other people can’t (such as controlling it with an on/off switch) she’s beyond human, and is classified as a monster instead. Oudo cannot use other people’s Abnormalities to the extent that Medaka can – it’s actually for this sole purpose that he’s participating in the Flask Plan, to perfect this trait and make him ascend to the level of a king.  The monster within Kurokami Medaka subdued him really quickly though – they were really ambiguous on what that monster actually was, but it was hinted at to be some form of darkness so terrible that even Oudo ran away from it immediately after seeing it. That, and Altered God Mode resulted in his defeat, both physically and psychologically. It’s “The End”, both in terms of the skill and the arc!

I’m calling it now – the next season will be called Medaka Box Minus. Just sayin’ xD A Shounen Jump series of this popularity is bound to get a third season, especially with the introduction of Kumagawa Misogi, an Abnormal with a very different mentality to the vast majority of the other characters shown so far – if Medaka and the Thirteen Party are classified as Plus, then Kumagawa would be Minus. Even though he’s only appeared for a few minutes, you can clearly see that his personality is sick and twisted, having no qualms over destroying the whole of the Loser Team and the Plus Six yet cheerfully denying it even with his giant screws in hand. Both his seiyuu and design are slightly creepy, which I think adds to the overall effect given off by his character. Kumagawa’s been pitted against Medaka before when they were in middle school (after Medaka reformed Akune, who was being controlled by him) but this time it’s a whole season’s worth of a confrontation, in the Class Minus 13 arc!