If I had to use one word to describe this show, it would be “insane.” I know what i’m watching, but at the same time, I have trouble REALLY understanding what exactly is going on. What exactly do I mean by that? Well let’s just review this episode and see if you can get understand what i’m trying to say.
So the episode starts up with our main character seeing on the news that some girl from high school died. He’s shocked by this as the girl was listed on his video game as being dead. The reason he’s worried about this is that one of the main girls had her name listed on their too. So he decides he has to warn her. But since he’s a spirit, he can’t really do that.
Actually, that turns out not to be entirely true as the cat spirit neglected to mention that once he reached a certain level he could possess living people for a short time with spiritual power. And it so happens that the only one with spiritual power is the fake psychic (you know, kind of like Whoopi Goldberg from ‘Ghost’)
He proceeds to take over her body, but before he can warn the girl, all the girls begin asking her stupid questions like “what’s your favorite snack, flower, etc”. He tries to answer them quickly, but by the time he does, his possession ends.
It turns out that the reason they were asking all of these questions is because she was going on a date with a guy and the guy asked her friends these questions so that he could buy her things.
When she comes back to her senses and sees the fact that he bought her smelly flowers and turtle food however, she freaks out.
But that’s not the weird part. Because then we find out that this guy was actually an agent from the NSA in America and the reason he got close to her is because he knows she’s friends with a master hacker….I forget which one it is. Either the robot or the one with the bear. I really can’t remember. (Goes to show you how much I care about these characters)
It turns out they need the hacker because apparently there really is a meteor headed for earth that’s going to destroy it, and the USA has a bunch of missiles set up to destroy it, however, the terrorist group is going to stop them from destroying the meteor by hacking the missiles so the world will be destroyed. Okay. You get all that?
And trust me, this is me trying my best to gather all the story I can. The way this show is presented it’s more like a fever dream.
the psychic girl gets understandably pissed however that’s when the masked guy from last episode pops out and tries to beat the NSA guy up. but then the psychic girl tries to beat HIM up, but then the robot girl tries to beat the psychic girl up and….I don’t even know what happens at the end of this episode It’s a big mess of people trying to beat people up and we don’t know why.
Oh, and the Strange Juice girl apparently has heart attacks if she doesn’t take pills. they kind of just…tacked that on the end of this episode with no explanation.
And that’s pretty much where the episode ends.
This show is just….it’s all over the place. After every episode I watch of this show, my head actually kind of hurts. There’s no consistent tone, the characters are not really characters they’re just kind of…there, (oh god, I sound like the bunny girl from Etotama), and I don’t know what this show wants me to feel.
This show isn’t funny like Etotama can be, it’s not sweet like Ore Monogatari, hell, it’s not even super fanservicery like Triage X. It’s just kind of….there. I’m able to understand the bare basic plot of trying to save the world from a giant meteor, but they’re really not making it easy to follow the secondary plots like, why does Strange Juice have powers? Hell, why does the main character have powers? Who is the masked guy? Who possessed the main guy’s body? How come we never see the main guy’s body interacting with the girls? Will he ever find that book he kind of gave up on looking for? Why is the bear cub important? Who’s killing people that died in a video game?
There are so many questions this series brings up and it hasn’t answered really any of them.
It’s hard to get sucked into this show as nothing feels real. It feels like you’re watching a series with a writer who’s never seen a story before and doesn’t know how to write a coherent storyline. All the females are one dimensional, the plot is all over the place, the story doesn’t go anywhere, even the end of the world doesn’t even really seem to have any weight behind it, and overall it’s just a strange show that just leaves me scratching my head.
Hopefully next episode will explain a little bit more, because as of right now, i’m just….i’m not there with this show.
Episode 3/10
-Hideki
Maybe it’s because I’m familiar with the screenwriter, but I’m not bothered by the fact that questions are raised and not immediately answered, or that that the ‘truth’ must be questioned because many people (or governments, organizations, etc.) could be lying. He’s got a good track record of tying the ends. ^^
As for some of your questions here, a lot of them are given possible answers by the show itself. How does Strange Juice have powers, why does she take pills? The beginning of this episode makes it clear she (and others) were once lab children under experimentation. Whatever they did likely both gave her powers and affected her health. Same is possible for Yuuta, whom we know very little about other than his relation to a (yet unseen) older sister. The white-haired hijacker in the first episode also recognized Strange Juices flower tattoo, which all the children at the lab had. Interestingly enough, one of the children was white-haired as well.
The Qmay terrorist group was mentioned last week, and said the governments of the earth were covering up this metor destined for earth. This week, an ‘NSA Agent’ says that’s not true, and that the USA has been doing stuff on the down-low to stop this meteor, but that the satellite that could stop it has been hijacked by a virus. Then Miya-Ken (lol, masked hero named after a famous poet/writer) asks a very bizarre question about the atmosphere in space, then the Agent (for some bizarre reason) freaks and JUMPS OFF THE ROOF OF A TWO STORY BUILDING wtf man, he’s basically supposed to be a glorified tech guy. Then when Rabura attacks the ~crazy~ Miya-Ken to let her man escape, Meika (robot girl) stops her, saying – for whatever reason – she trusts Miya-Ken. (Meika didn’t randomly punch Rabura, she stopped her from attacking someone she trusted, who was in her eyes doing what must be good work.)
^ If we take all that there, what’s possibly going on is that the NSA Agent is fake, possibly isn’t entirely human, and wants Meika for nefarious reasons. Also, he’s anime Robert Downey Jr., rotfl. Miya-Ken knows more than we do, and, since Meika trusts him, might be part of this Justice Punch her Professor mentioned would appear. Speaking of, we’ve probably got our answer for how he somehow could foretell the future – Rabura’s possessed child self apparently faxed a whole bunch of information to a ‘professor’ including what could be plans to build an android, likely Meika herself. And if she’s possessed by a ghost, then it would be easy for a ghost to know the future – they’re not bound by time, after all, although they’d have to be quite powerful to travel so far back.
So… yeah. Show’s a bit crazy and anything goes, but it’s besides the random bits of comedy it’s not entirely senseless. Putting together the pieces provided is one of my favorite activities, if you couldn’t tell. :p
(Omg, sorry for the block of text COULDN’T HELP MYSELF I GUESS orz)
Well, I’m usually make some comment in eva’s review of Pretty Cure. But I think if you have some spare time for game, you could try Ever17, Remember11, and I/O for PC, 999 for DS, and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward for 3DS if you have it. Why I recommended this? Well, other than Remember11 and I/O the one behind these games is also the one who responsible for some strange thing in the show, Uchikoshi Kotaro. But Remember11 and I/O is created by his teammate, Takumi Nakazawa. And I read that Nakazawa will create the game based on this anime. Well I think you better read those after you finished this anime, so you maybe will appriciate how insanely genius Uchikosi is. After all Ever17 is the game that bring Visual Novel Boom outside Japan and pretty much people said it’s the best VN, even if some people say it’s overrated. All of them Visual Novel by the way.
Sorry if you already find out about it, but I like to give some commentary about this anime because his refrence from the last works apparently started to show up. And even if you say Punchline is garbage, keep in mind that Ever17 is Uchikoshi best work, and next one is 999. Sorry for my word.