First of all, just getting this out there, if you’re hoping that this episode will bring closure to this battle…then…well.. sucks to be you because nope, this is just one of the episodes in the middle of this battle as they feel they have to keep stretching it out…with flashbacks I don’t care about. Yippee! Oh well…at least this episode has some good Konami scenes. That’s something at least.
So the episode starts up with the Konami gang talking to that guy who got captured during the battle with Afrokrator (That still sounds like the name of an old NES game to me). Konami basically tells him to stop trying to act so cool and show the boss more respect and she still blames him for them nearly killing Wet Blanket. Then the guy who always trolls Konami tells her that Jin said that Hyuse (the afrokator guy) must be very important to them. But then he says it was a lie. And then we get this face from Konami
Okay, so here’s where we get into what I believe is the biggest flaw of this episode. We cut back to the fight in the rain for the ranking wars, however, during this battle, we keep getting interrupted by flashbacks of the girl’s squad about how her parents are making her move.
See…I love minor characters. Don’t get me wrong. I think minor characters are what make a show. If you have crappy minor characters, it doesn’t matter how good your main characters are, because that means you don’t know how to world build or make endearing characters who make the world seem more open. Still. There’s a way to go about doing it. If you are introducing a character, who one of the VERY FIRST things you tell me about her is that she’s leaving the series…it’s really hard for me to really care. I didn’t grow with her, I didn’t have scenes with her, so why should I care?
I’m going to get flayed alive for this but i’m going to say this is parallel to Ace from One Piece. The dude shows up once in the manga to say like “Sup, i’m ace!” and then he basically goes and dies. They act like it should be all sad but then they flush out his backstory pretty much AFTER he’s dead. It’s like…okay that’s great, but that would have been nice to know before hand.
There’s an art to making a character who’s only on screen for a few minutes be endearing. From that same show, my favorite character is Johnny. Yeah he’s also a really minor character, but for me, he just sparked interest to which I want to know more. I don’t feel that way with this bitch. It’s like
“OH NOEZ! Bitch be movin!” If you interspersed these scenes EARLIER in the series I probably would have cared more. You could have put sprinkled them every once in a while so that I actually might have cared about her. The problem is, you introduced her basically with saying “Hi, my name is Bob, and i’m leaving the series”. So I already KNOW she’s leaving, so why am I going to care about anything you develop with her? I’m not going to become invested because you’ve flat out TOLD me she’s leaving. There’s so many characters in this show already that I can’t be bothered to learn about someone who’s leaving in 4 minutes. And once again, if her personality was strong enough to overcome that, that would be one thing. Characters like Raditz who are only onscreen for a few minutes have a presence about them that make me desperately want to know more. THIS CHICK is just a generic piece of ‘I don’t care’.
Anyway, enough of that rant, where was I? Ah yeah. So the battle continues, random mcleaving girl tries to get a shot off, misses Duckface, but doesn’t bail when he’s running after her and then gets taken out by duckface.
After the halfway theme song, (once again, thanks for that World Trigger) we cut back to the Takahoma branch where trolly mctroll tells Konami that the girl’s team leader can fire her hands out like rockets
And of course, Konami buys it because she’s adorable.
This is what I love about Konami. She’s a perfect example of a Faux- Tsundere. She acts cool, but really does care about the people she cares about. See, normal tsunderes keep their cold attitudes only letting them show through after big events or many episodes. Faux Tsunderes try, but fail at every opportunity to do so because their good hearted nature always breaks through. A good Faux-Tsundere makes every show better in my opinion. And here’s the thing. Even in a harem show, a Faux Tsundere (who never seems to get the guy btw) has the ability to move on with their lives if they don’t get the guy. Their entire lives aren’t dedicated to “I need that dick”. Yeah. That’s right. Fuck you Miia from Monster Musume.
And one more think before I get off this tangent. Normally a tsundere hits people and is violent to the point where people get a punch in the face or kick aka Naru from Love Hina style. However, Konami, who’s one of the best agents Border has, when she finds out she’s been trolled, does this.
See, he doesn’t even give a single shit except for maybe being slightly annoyed. That’s not hitting someone, that’s like “Nyeehhh you jerrrk!” light taps. There is a difference.
So anyway, the commentators talk about how the leader of the girl group has a lot of spirit but spirit isn’t enough to win battles, and then sleepy mccheatface beats the girl.
And the episode ends with them continuing the fight because lord knows we needed all those flashbacks.
This episode was just a long long drag. The only thing that made this episode worthwhile was the Konami interludes. Seriously, the series should have starred her. She’s far more interesting than any of the other characters. Everything else that happened, i’m going to be honest, I didn’t really care that much about. About halfway through the episode I realized that they weren’t going to finish the fight because they kept interrupting with flashbacks.
Look. If you want me to care about your characters, bringing your battle to a DEAD STOP to bring me flashbacks is a REALLY BAD IDEA. You intersperse development during the fight. You don’t just put EVERYTHING on hold to give me the story of how they had a sleepover one time. You’re in the middle of a fight. Get back to the fucking fight.
(Sigh) I hope this battle will wrap up next time. Well hopefully the new World Trigger series coming out will have a lot more Konami.
Yes…there’s another World Trigger series coming out and yes. I will covering it. Hooray?
Episode 5/10
-Hideki
I haven’t read any of your previous reviews, but I noticed this being posted on the tumblr WT tag so I figured it’d check it out.
We have different opinions, but hey, that’s normal, right?
For me, I usually don’t pay much attention to minor characters unless some amazing fanfic or art brings their A game to convince me that it’s something that could actually work (or is just hilarious crack). But WT happens to be a series where I literally love everyone. Like, EVERYONE. I find Ashihara’s characterization to be really amazing, because it’s different compared to other series I’ve seen. It’s kind of refreshing, in a way that a little hard for me to explain, but I digress.
I don’t know if you’re reading the manga, but this episode added in a lot of fillers about Nasu Squad. So maybe it’d be a little more enjoyable for you to read the chapter, if you wanted to. And for me, I actually don’t mind this approach to minor characters; Akane leaving gives us an instant view of what their current situation was, and why they felt the need to try so hard and etc etc. As for One Piece, I felt like the bg story for Ace after he dies kind of hits it home? It showed us just how important he was to Luffy and it’s also preventing the “flashbacks in the middle of battle” type of thing to happen, which would ruin the pacing.
Each to their own though! Hope you think the future episodes are paced a little better!