Houkago no Pleiades Episode 10

I honestly don’t know how to react right now. I am frustrated and upset about what had happened to Minato but at the end of the day: I am truly at loss for words. I swear to God, they better have not killed him off. I mean GOD DAMN IT. There was a precious moment where Subaru went to the extreme to ensure that Minato recognized her as she recognized him, revealing how she actually remembers (which I am both happy and confused about- I will get to that in a minute), proceeded to undo her transformation in freaking space, and fortunately Minato went to save her by putting her into this protective bubble and pushed her away to protect her from the fragment coming at them only to be fucking impaled by it. See, I don’t know whether or not he is dead or not because he disappeared into butterflies like he always does when he vanishes. I imagine if had he actually died, his magic would have come undone (regardless of being cursed) and would have been a limp body stuck on the bloody engine’s fragment.

The writers threw out another twist, surprising us with how the same alien the girls are working with right now had met Minato first. Because like the girls, Minato has a star in his heart, he was able to see the alien and like we know from Nanako’s experience, the alien was seen through Minato’s eyes as a human boy. At the time, the Prez was gathering shards with Crystallized Potential. They are very different to fragments and have a sober meaning. Crystallized Potential shards are fated to disappear without being chosen. I won’t lie, the whole explanation of the Crystallized Potential was a bit difficult to absorb. The writers have no qualms providing us some complex cluster of details, but because it can be difficult to comprehend, a lot of the information wound up flying over your head. Anyhow, the two of them would go around and collect these Crystallized Potentials, but would go out of their way to avoid dealing with fragments. Then one day, everything went wrong when Minato saw a Fragment and wanted to capture it. By then he had already met Subaru and grew fond of, and wanted to grant her wish and help Prez fix his spaceship. But just when he went for the initiative, the magic came undone and that was it. He sees himself in the hospital bed and is then told it was all a dream (/illusion or something of the sort- I found it to be a bit unclear I wish they were more straight forward with the truth). Minato who realizes he is living a sad life, devastated by how alone he was, becomes desperate to find another world where he can change his destiny. Because he can’t accept his present self, the magic cursed him and that’s how he became the Dark Star.

The joke however is how he claims the Fragments belongs to him, but after all of this, it’s pretty darn clear it belongs to the Aliens. They need it for their spaceship, but Minato is just being plain selfish. When he had became the dark star, he was the one who made the alien lose his form, and turn into a rock or whatever- which is then later picked up by Nanako.

While for most part the episode was bittersweet or just plain depressing at times, it only gotten eerier when Minato told Subaru she is cursing herself too, by how she doesn’t want to stop gathering the fragments. He doesn’t want her to become cursed like he did, and ultimately- Subaru and the others have to return to the origin worlds at some point or another, otherwise at this rate, the entire group will be cursed.

The compelling ideas and unexpected twists are all there, but I feel the execution for scenes parts could have been done better. There were so many things happening within this episode, there were some things we were learning about for the first time and others were focused on connecting all the dots from the earlier events. I feel like they could delivered it in a better and less complex way. The one thing this show made itself known for is its lengthy mouthful explanations. I believe there were a couple of points which could have been simplified and straightforward rather than beating around the bush, failing to make whatever is happening a crystal clear fact. There were also moments where I felt the explanations didn’t make any sense or couldn’t connect the dots between two events. Like for instance, last week Subaru was crying and it appeared for both parties they had forgotten their memories of the exploration in space and their heartfelt reunion. But then all the sudden- this week, I don’t know if it’s because they both were faking it last week to make it less awkward for the other (I suppose that’s one way to look at it) or they miraculously remembered out of blue for the sake of convenience, it was difficult to tell so I can’t help but scratch my head about it. Sure I don’t mind shrugging it off, but it’s one of those little things that tend to bother me.

And here’s another thing that confused me. When Minato would talk about his ‘other self’, I don’t quite get it myself. The only way I can interpret this is either he is having an out of body experience, or his ‘other self’ he was referring is meant to indicate it wasn’t his origin world, or something else that I can’t describe because I don’t know what words to use for it. ANYWAYS, the important part of that scene was how the Greenhouse came to be. The Crystallized Potentials blossomed into a garden of flowers, and once again there he would meet Subaru, his shining hope.

Overall this was a good episode, a strong one at that- but they didn’t do a fabulous job with the execution of their ideas, so there were a couple wishy washy moments of confusion. My favourite part of course is how Subaru and Minato are always connected to one another, and Subaru has always been his hope. He had met her in different worlds, and in the end they would still always forge an unbreakable bond. Like I said last week, ALL I WANT IS FOR THESE TWO TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. Minato has been cursed, Subaru on the path of potentially becoming cursed as well, so now everyone needs to return to their respective worlds ASAP. I have no idea what else is to happen at this point, but let’s hope it doesn’t end tragically.