And so we’re back to the utter insanity that is Punch Line. However, I have to say, this week, it actually let up a bit on the insanity and almost started to make a little bit of sense. Scared? I know I am. So let’s just jump right into it.
So the episode starts out with Ito dead on the ground at a shrine. The main ghost guy freaks out and uses the power of friendship to transport back in time a half hour before she dies.
To stop her from dying he possesses Rabura again and warns Strange Juice girl to stop her from going to the shrine.
She eventually convinces her to stay and begins to have a talk with her about her past. It seems that Strange juice girl was at a research facility when she was younger with a dude and another girl. The doctor of course was some crazy “I MUST CUT OPEN YOUR BRAINS FOR SCIENCE!” kinda dudes. Know what? Here. I’ll let him speak for himself.
tthhherree ya go.
Also we finally find out why Ito stopped going to school. One day she got a ride from a teacher and it made this one bitchy girl jealous and she made her life a living hell for no reason other than….she was a bitch. So Ito stopped coming to school and made a video stating that all the girls who were bullies would die. Unfortunately someone saw this video and actually started to murder all of these girls. And that’s why Ito was going to the shrine, to stop it.
Anywho, the time passes and nobody dies.
The next night we discover that the bear was taken by the same guy from 2 episodes ago (the fuck is with this bear?) and he wants to meet up with Ito using the bear as leverage.
Ghost guy tries to put together a plan but it fails spectacularly and random masked guy ends up getting shot and so does the robot girl.
However the shot guy sees panties and goes super saiyan.
And that’s where the episode ends.
This episode…..was an oddity when it comes to Punch Line. It was by far the most serious episode I’ve come across so far. And….with the level of strangeness they’ve put in this show so far….I’m not sure how I feel about that. When your theme song has the words “Panty Line” I…I’m not sure if I can take your deep character moments that seriously. For Christ sakes you had a ghost cat eating jello that looked like boobs, and now you want me to feel sad about a character that got bullied in an actually dramatic moment? I just…what do you want from me Punch Line?
This time around I feel like i’m beginning to understand the characters a bit more, only it has the same issue I had with it before. i don’t really care about any of them. I don’t feel attached to them no matter how much they cry or have flashbacks. We’re at episode 5 and the show has been too scatterbrained for me to even start caring.
I see where the idea and the concept is coming from, but this show leaves too many questions unanswered. And not in a good “Oh, mysteries we’ll learn about later”. More like “Questions I need to understand what the fuck is going on to enjoy the show.” Like here’s a question. Wasn’t he looking for a book like four episodes ago? The fuck happened to that? How come none of her friends are asking her why she has superpowers? Why does nobody care that they just found out that one of the girls is a robot? See, not questions that can be answered within the show, but more or less, questions that keep me from suspending my disbelief.
We are less than a day away from the Earth being destroyed by a giant meteor and for some reason we’re having a strange side story about a guy wanting to kill Ito and kidnap this bear because of a game list of bullies who died? I just…why?
As I said, this whole show seems extremely scatterbrained and leaves me confused. And honestly, I do not care if that’s the author’s style or intent, it’s weird and I don’t really care for it. If you’re a fan of psychedelic stories, good on you, but….not me.
However, I will say this. This was my far the most straightforward of the episodes I’ve seen so far. Of course, i don’t know how much that’s saying. It wasn’t a BAD episode, but we’re far enough in that I’m too lost to even begin to pick up the pieces. It’s going to take a lot more episodes like these for me to feel normal about it.
Episode 6/10
-Hideki