Her smile and optimism: gone.
Impression
Is Chinatsu beyond saving? Chii-chan kind of scares me now. I really, really want to believe that she’s still a good girl somewhere in her heart, but it’s looking less and less likely with each passing episode. I’d like to sympathise with all enthusiasts of Chii-chan for her untimely demise. I mean, I’m a Chii-chan enthusiast as well, but… I’ve already given my heart to Hanna-sama, you know? And my body to Nanashi. I have allegiances now, and in light of how Hanna is getting cuter and cuter each episode they don’t look too likely to change anytime soon. She’s cute no matter what she’s doing – when she’s confused, when she’s out of breath and when she’s all flustered from her sister messing with her. Hanna-sama is actually a miracle of the universe. What this means, of course, is that if anything bad happens to her I am going to be very, very angry. And it’s not an impossibility regardless of how good at WIXOSS she is, because this entire franchise cares about nothing but the dual objectives of: (i) making cute girls suffer; and (ii) selling a real-life trading card game. It’s a little unsettling that (i) is being used to promote (ii), but that’s how the cookie crumbles. It’s also useless that Hanna can win battles if no-one is willing and able to fight her. All the Bookmaker has to do is to blacklist her within his network and everything will go to shit.
What’s also interesting is that Nanashi wasn’t willing to tell her anything about the true consequences of losing. She didn’t make any pained Hanayo faces like Ril did, but on second thought I’m not surprised at all. I had the impression that Hanna and Nanashi were on really good terms, but in the end I guess Nanashi is still a LRIG. She knew full well as to what would happen, but didn’t say a word – or perhaps she wasn’t allowed to by Piruluk whoever’s behind the current Selector system. I could easily see that being a mandatory condition that’s been implemented, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why as surely it’d just incentivise Selectors to battle even more than the coin erosion is already doing. At any rate, Hanna was able to confirm her theory by watching not!Guzuko scurry away after Chinatsu took pleasure in utterly decimating Sumida-san, so I suppose she got what she wanted in the end. I wonder if any of these former LRIGs with new bodies ever end up sticking around to talk to the winning Selector and anyone who might be around?
I was hoping the Bookmaker would be a kind person. Well… kind may have been asking for a bit much. A mysterious but helpful person who’s adamant that any favours must be met with compensation without fail. Let’s go with that. Instead, he’s a sadistic creep who finds a little too much fun in everyone else’s suffering, and gets what he wants by taking advantage of desperate little girls and threatening them with their own demise if they don’t do as he wants. Come to think of it, he really could be Chii-chan’s brother. The two of them are pretty similar. Except Chinatsu is just sadistic and isn’t a creep. He could also be a LRIG who took over their Selector’s body, which would explain why he knows so much about Selector battles despite not being one himself. What is really scary is not that he’s as manipulative as he is – rather, because his policy is that Selectors can’t refuse a battle that he’s booked between them and someone else, he could be responsible for sending people to their demise just like he did to Sumida-san this episode. I actually have a feeling he intended for Sumida-san to win (he seems to take particular pleasure in his suffering) and so he actually matched her up with what he thought was an innocent virgin like Chinatsu. Except Chinatsu didn’t turn out to be a virgin at all.
I felt quite sorry for Sumida-san. And even more sorry for Guzuko, who’s now stuck for life in that douchebag’s body despite her timid personality. Maybe having male Selectors wasn’t such a good idea after all. Chinatsu being an edgy bitch was something pretty much everyone (except poor Suzu) expected, but what really hammered it home was her odd fixation with trying to remove Suzu from her life as much as possible. It’s a complete turnaround from the Chii-chan who could only do her best for the sake of living up to the idealised version of her that Suzu admired – now she’s going as far as to torture Mel as much as possible during each battle (who is supposed to represent Suzu’s likeness) and was glad to see Suzu only so she could crush everything their childhood together stood for in front of her eyes. Chii-chan is brutal. I’m not sure if she’s a battoru addict because she likes to battoru like Ruu did. As Hanna-sama said, she’s as cold as ice even whilst on the battorufield – it didn’t look like there was excitement or thrill in it for her during the battoru itself. The only time she smiled was when she was about to cause Sumida-san to disappear. In other words, she’s in it to abuse Mel and to see her opponents suffer. Chii-chan is gone, and now she is become Chinatsu, destroyer of smiles.
