“I only have a single wish. It’s my reason to live on.”
Summary
Akane needs to improve her grades before the next exam season rolls around, and so the Vividteam decide to hold a study session at Akane’s house in order to help her out, inviting Rei along as well. Rei ends up agreeing after realizing that Kenjirou was the inventor of the Manifestation Engine, and nearly discovers a few secrets after finding Kenjirou’s corpse still in the fridge. When an Alone attacks, the Vividteam intercept it easily until Rei arrives and powers it up, resulting in the Alone firing a surprise beam at the Vividteam and shooting down Akane.
Impression
AKANEEEEEEEEEE ;_; Oh god, she was actually shot down! She might have been able to fully block the blast had she been docked with Himawari-chan in Vividyellow Operation, but by herself it seems that Naked Rang isn’t sturdy enough to take direct hits, being mainly focused on attack after all. And this is the upgraded version of the Alone that Rei managed to power up at the last minute – the original version managed to easily take out tanks and aeroplanes with its electromagnetic pulses, while its beams pretty much destroyed whatever it hit. It’s not likely that Akane’s going to die in such a scenario, but it’s pretty heart-stopping all the same to see Akane fall, with Aoi displaying that horrified expression. For an Alone that caused so much collateral damage as it made its way to Blue Island, it was definitely odd that it just floated there and took all the hits the Vividteam gave it (I love that term, by the way xD) and now that Akane’s gone, the other three girls aren’t going to have a fun time fighting against a giant cannon of doom, with no way to perform a Docking as far as we know.
As for Rei…I wonder how she’s going to react when she realizes that the Alone she powered up has taken out Akane. All four girls in the Vividteam have shown Rei quite a lot of kindness, none so more than Akane, who refuses to give up in trying to befriend her. And Rei’s putting up quite a lot of resistance – though she joined their study group, she only did so in order to try and find out more about Isshiki Kenjirou, after realizing that he was the creator of the Manifestation Engine. I did laugh at how she somehow found out the location of Kenjirou’s real dead body, which appears to still be perfectly preserved – hopefully she doesn’t go around snooping so much any more. Aoi spoke about the “vivid” feeling of friendship that Rei might just be experiencing, which may be why she ends up hanging out with them more than anything despite arriving at Akane’s house with dodgy intentions. Rei’s quiet anger and determination towards fulfilling her own wish seems to take priority over making friends with the Vividteam though, which was symbolized by Rei accidentally crushing Akane’s offered tomato of friendship. Indeed, she shouldn’t be wasting food…especially when it tastes like rainbows ^_^
Lastly, the bird made an appearance yet again, which didn’t sit well with me. It’s very ominous that their “agreement” had a specific clause concerning Rei attending school all the time, which “they” (probably the top brass in control of the bird) have enforced. I can’t help but think that they have ulterior motives in forcing her to do so, especially since the destruction of the Manifestation Engine means that there’s not going to be a school left for Rei to go to. Maybe there’s something at the school that the bird has its attention on, but is not willing to tell Rei about? Or alternatively, what if Rei attending school means that she’s going to be out of the way for the majority of the day, so the bird can conduct all of its shady business without running the risk that Rei discovers it’s evil. Though to be honest, with it continually torturing her she must really be fixated on her parents and her home world to not even think of going against it. It’s hard watching Rei act out the role of the antagonist, especially as she’s a good person (deep down) who can smile and happily feed kittens. Someone like that can’t possibly be a bad person.
