Who is best girl, and why is it Mari?
Impression
If you were wondering why this episode was so fluffy… well, let’s just say that it’ll be a zero-sum game. All this will be balanced by a requisite amount of darkness very, very soon. But for now, we can bask in the perfection that is best girl. Were you ready for Mari? Funky, cute, cool, smug, feisty Mari? I didn’t think so.
You’re welcome. At the cost of compressing a lot of the less important stuff, most notably all the Lapis scenes, we are now done with almost all of Volume 2! I do actually approve of the way they’re doing this, because it’s all for the sake of the climax of the volume. It’ll be like the last ten minutes of last week’s episode, except this time there’ll be an entire episode dedicated to the insanity. I can’t wait. I was really glad that they properly animated that scene of Mari getting framed though – last week it felt like she just randomly collapsed after being arrested. And they even had Haunted using his Belladone Garden to kill the poor victims who managed to find them! As you can probably tell from last week’s episode, Mari was not too happy about working with Haunted. Her goals are to eradicate the prejudice and discrimination surrounding magic, and to show everyone that it can save people as well – but it’s very easy to guess why she’s with Haunted despite that. And it’s also very easy to tell why Haunted is still around her – because Mari has a happy ambition, and it’s that crazy pervert’s wet dream to watch her despair as she’s forced to work for Valhalla and do the exact opposite of what she wants to do. As the next episode is all about Haunted, let me propose a drinking game: every time he mentions despair, take a sip. Every time someone dies, down it.
As representatives of the never-ending war between plot and justice, Ouka and Mari basically have a love-hate relationship going on, which has led to a lot of smug and many humiliated faces. And a Takeru whose face basically screams, ‘not this shit again’. I loved that face. I also really love Mari’s muffler and hat. A best girl must have the best fashion sense, after all. And the cutest smile. And the cutest embarrassed face. And a scene where she misses throwing a can into the trash, and walks over to pick it up. Lapis does overtake her in best girl points later on, but as that’s a long way away Mari is the correct answer for now. They seem to be skipping a lot of Lapis scenes for some reason, although at least the words ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ made it into the anime. The fang is anime-original, but holy shit it’s a fang. I don’t always agree with the choices Silver Link makes, but when I do…
As for all the new characters, a lot of background information was again skipped, although there was enough to make it possible to infer who they were and what roles they play. An important guy is Kurogane Hayato, the guy with Sougetsu who looks like a police officer (which is basically what he is). I want to marry his voice. I was so looking forward to hearing what he would sound like, and that deep, manly voice is just what I was hoping for! It’s perfect! He’s one of the two Inquisition members who are investigating the Mari case (along with the other lady, Oonogi Kanata) and they were practically waiting for Valhalla to turn up and try to rescue Mari once she was off-campus. Which is not Haunted’s style at all. Why would he try to rescue her when there’s hardly anyone around? That minimises the number of potential casualties! Kirigaya Kyouya is the sweet, summer child who provoked Takeru before the tournament started – a member of the high-ranking 15th Platoon, and also another important guy. He’s in the OP with his waifu, after all! And as the 35th Platoon have indeed managed to make it through the first round, they’ll be up against Kyouya next week. Note that, even though there’s a school battle tournament just like there is in Asterisk and Rakudai, in AntiMagic no-one has really given two shits over it. In the other two, the tournament essentially is the story, whereas here it’s just a thing that happens to be occurring at the same time as the story. It’s not being dragged along by a sandbox tournament storyline – instead, it’s the one dragging along the tournament, mixing its school setting with real-world problems.
Are you ready for the despair?
P.S. If you’re a light novel reader, Volume 11 Chapter 4 is now translated, up on the usual site!
Ah, the season of the LN! How wonderful! I can feel good about doing as much reading as I am watching ^_^ Of course, only enough to get to where the latest episode ends. I’ll have to start doing that with this since I’d rather not miss more of Lapis!
Good episode. Love Mari, although, it saddens me that Haunted seems to outdo her when it comes to magic even though she’s the ‘witch’. Of course it may be that she is superior and simply isn’t around to try and hard-counter his killing of innocents, as well as simply being caught off guard when he knocked her out… Haunted must be pretty stupid (wow it’s been ages since I’ve used that word) if he didn’t expect her to be captured, or perhaps it was the memory-wiping he didn’t expect.
As for Kirigaya Kyouya and his “waifu”, I’m rather curious to know what’s up with them given the alternate personalities in the OP. Frankly, I’m more scared of the girl in this instance.
If you can resist reading ahead, that is! The turning point is Volume 5. I mean, dark stuff happens in each volume, but from then on it practically becomes a competition to see which character can get shit on the most as they sink further and further into despair.
Both Mari and Haunted are witches – anyone who can use magic is classified as a ‘witch’. As for her not doing anything… well, the first reason is that if you think about why she’s working with him (a good clue would be the kids she had a flashback to) it becomes clearer why she can’t just oppose him so easily. And the second is because of Belladone Garden itself (the magic Haunted was using). They have a description of it in the LN, but basically once the poor guy was caught in the thorns, he was done for. The thorns are designed to cut into him the more he struggles, and he didn’t stop struggling despite Mari telling him to stay still. She did try to help but couldn’t undo the magic in the end.
The memory wiping was Haunted’s fault too – remember, Nacht said to him that he should have blown her up instead of just wiping her memory. As for Kyouya. Well, I mean… the first frame has the entire 15th Platoon with Kyouya in the middle. Then everything is dyed red, and everyone is gone except Kyouya who is covered in scars and a certain girl who looks very sadistic. Gee, I wonder what happened there!
(I am of the belief that Kyouya did nothing wrong, by the way. You’ll understand soon.)
:v Not sure how I messed that one up, but I’m still wondering why he was surprised at what happened. Maybe Haunted has never met a group who didn’t straight up kill a ‘witch’ upon getting a chance to do so. In any case, thanks for that interesting bit of insight as to the term ‘witch’. I’d wondered about the possibility, but then I also wondered why males wouldn’t just be called wizards or warlocks. Meh, necromancer and witch are more intimidating in the end.
🙁 Hmm, I can feel what you mean by “Kyouya did nothing wrong”, sounds like another Goldov situation in a sense. (I say that, but my entire understanding of Goldov is going to be very different a few sentences from where I currently am in the LN)
I think I’ll be able to be a good boy and just read enough, otherwise I’ll be late to posts again like I was recently due to Rokka no Yuusha 😛
I’d say it’s just because he didn’t expect them to find him. And remember, killing witches upon sight isn’t a goal of Inquisition! Ouka was demoted for killing too much. It’s primarily the recovery of Magical Heritages and the detainment of witches in contra-indicated areas like the place Mari was in – there is a reason as to why they imprison them, but that’s not important quite just yet. It’s not because of ethics though, I can tell you that.
I say that in a similar vein to ‘Slaine did nothing wrong’, by which I mean that it’s an unpopular opinion I hold (at least, it was unpopular when posited to fellow light novel readers). I just want to give Kyouya a hug, tell him everything’s okay and maybe pay for an anger management class or two on his behalf.
Good guy, Vantage. No, really, I’m very appreciative of viewers like you… Some of us are disturbingly bloodthirsty when it comes to fiction =.=
Um… no, my intentions aren’t that benevolent. It’s because… this series already makes its characters suffer that much, to the point that no-one wishes for it to be any more bloodthirsty because it goes above and beyond what anyone ever thought it would do in that department. On its light novel translation site, people have nicknamed the series ‘darkness’. It’s like how, in Tokyo Ghoul, the one single thing the fans are all agreed on is that they want Kaneki to be happy and that he needs no more suffering in his life. It’s that sort of thing. I probably shouldn’t say any more.
I really do covet Mari’s scarf. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve been trying to hunt down a reasonable facsimile, but with little luck. Sigh.
It’s in the colours of the old Dutch flag! So you might find something if you search for national flag scarves online, although I don’t know how much provision there is for former flag colours.
It’s okay, no need to be embarrassed. Mari-chan is perfect after all, and why be embarrassed about perfection? 😀
Good point! I’m certainly not ashamed to be a huge fan of Mari. Good pointer on the color issue — I’d actually searched for scarves with the national colors of the Netherlands but no luck so far in terms of a match. But that’s ok. Mari wears it so perfectly how could I compare? 😉
I was scared that a lot of people didn’t read the LN’s and consider this adaptation a big mess. Thank goodness I was wrong. Kurogane’s voice is absolutely amazing and Kyouya’s voice is perfect for him. Too bad we don’t get to see them that often.
It’s a big mess either way – it’s just a much bigger mess if you’ve read the LNs. Hayato and Kyouya do have perfect voices – Hayato’s is deep and manly, and Kyouya has that typical asshole voice. Both of them are really cool side characters, and I like them better than most of the main cast.
Kyouya did nothing wrong, and truly he is the hero the AntiMagic world needs.
[spoiler] Kyouya is a bastard, he murdered Kiseki once (and I’m a Kiseki fan, I think it’s adorable that she tries her best) and tried to steal the soul transfer tag from Takeru even though he wasn’t entitled to that salvation. But at the same time, he’s doing it for his waifu, and his anger and hate all stems from wanting to protect his waifu. I can’t hate him for that, especially when Takeru is just as selfish. Kiseki doesn’t want to be saved, and yet he’ll save her for his own sake and not hers. In the end Takeru and Kyouya are just the same, and that’s what made their rivalry so hyped. [/spoiler]