Impression
Yaya, a machine-doll is you! To be honest, it’s not all that much of a surprise, especially given her status as a heroine (if we can call her that). It certainly lends more credit to Raishin’s claim that she’s the “best automaton in the world”, although at this stage it’s more like Yaya’s hidden potential is locked away as of now, only to be released in times of danger or apprehension. While Shouko’s personal agenda is as dubious as ever, it’s further testament to her ability that she’s able to successfully create machine-dolls (not only in Yaya, but probably in Irori and Komurasaki as well). It’s something even Magnus failed to do – it seems like the objective he alluded to of “creating God” is in fact his goal to create a machine-doll of his own, presumably using Nadeshiko’s body (it’s still a pretty scant reason for deciding to massacre your family). But yeah, I never would have thought the six automatons he had were in fact failures who ended up as mere Ban Dolls, powerful though they may be. Succeeding can’t be easy – the result would be just shy of what an actual human would be, plus the power of an automaton. In light of all the flesh parts Yaya has though, I’d say Magnus’ attempts are along the right lines.
I sorta expected our protagonists to defeat Sin with their strength in numbers, although in hindsight that might have been slightly too optimistic. Sin took a magnificent beating from Yaya both before and after she went berserk – he was definitely feeling the pressure until his master saved him in the nick of time. Or is it his mistress? From the way he properly introduced himself as a Bernstein butler once they were alone, I’m pretty sure Alice is masquerading as Cedric Granville rather than the other way round… or maybe she and Cedric are one and the same. Who knows? That girl seems like she’s devious enough to do a lot of things, including manipulating the government to have them subsidise the cost of a new Clock Tower. She even got herself in the Evening Party as the elusive #87 – no way should she have such a crappy ranking in reality. While she might have trouble against Magnus, Alice is Rounds-level at least.
Overall Thoughts
So, we’ve come to the conclusion of Unbreakable Machine-Doll! Thanks for staying till the end. Going in, this was one of the series I had fairly high hopes for – and on the whole I wasn’t disappointed. I felt it was a fairly innovative take on the “magic high school” concept that seems to be very popular in light novels these days (we have Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei in Spring) – it had fun characters, wasn’t too predictable and kept a good balance between action and comedy. Though then again, I really should question whether it’s a story about sexual banter (with action just fitting around it) or vice versa. Mind you, it helps that the banter is carried out between likeable characters – Charl will always be best girl, and Raishin (who is arguably a harem lead) is actually aware of the girls around him but is too asexual to do anything with them. Yaya has drawn in a lot of mixed opinions – I even know people who dropped the show just because they didn’t like her. Personally I’m fine with her… sexually aggressive tendencies – while perhaps a bit obsessive, it’s affectionate, and I’m okay with that. At the very least she’s better than Kouko (of Golden Time) whose clinginess I find to be far worse than Yaya’s.
This show ended on a decent note – it’s answered enough questions for now, but there’s lots to expand on. I wouldn’t have minded a second cour to be honest, especially as there are 12+ LN volumes out in Japan!
Also, dat maware. And dat nurse outfit.
