Is Miura kill?
Impression
Fuck. Rinne, what have you done? I love you, but… it’s a really bad habit to seriously injure all the cute girls you end up fighting, you know? I have no idea what Mid-Childan technology is capable of exactly, but it looks like poor Miura’s ribs were completely shattered at the end there. I’m not sure why I’m even surprised at this point. I guess it’s because I thought Miura actually had a decent chance against Rinne. Unfortunately for her, it’d be a bit too much to hope that she would actually win, but I had enough faith in Miura and her abilities to not start thinking up some hospital jokes the moment I saw she was up against Rinne in the very first round. Even if we didn’t know what she was capable of from ViVid, Miura currently has a higher world ranking than Vivio – those rankings may not completely be reflective of strength (as demonstrated when Rinne wiped the floor with that purple-haired girl with the lewd outfit from a few episodes ago) but Miura has a healthy rivalry with Vivio for a reason. I thought it would be an interesting match at the very least, and certainly didn’t think it would end up… like that.
Rinne was holding back, right? Was that the implication from her statement that she would defeat Miura using only strikes, i.e. only what Miura herself has trained and specialised in? It’s like Rinne’s aiming for a total victory over her opponents, and tanked all those hits from Miura on purpose – it’s like she wanted to see how far she could push her newly-enhanced defence before delivering a quick turn-around and ending it all before she ran the risk of suffering a third down. No matter how waifu-tier she is, I have to admit it’s slightly chilling that she has such an intense desire to crush her opponents to that extent. I’m also not sure whether she broke her self-imposed rule when she grabbed onto Miura before mercilessly ruining her martial arts path for the next few months at the very least. And Miura looked perfectly ready to fight back – that’s another reason why it was such a shocking ending. I thought she’d make one final stand and that everything would end at a cliffhanger, but no! There was even blood everywhere! I won’t lie… I wanted Rinne to win, but not like this.
As for Fuuka, she made my heart skip a beat for the first time this episode. Her Sky-Severing Fist was so cool. I also want to feed her. I wouldn’t mind watching an entire episode filled with nothing but Fuuka’s reactions to different foods. The tension before her match came from the fact that she’s basically an unknown, even to us – although she may have ranked first in the qualifiers, up until now we had no idea how she’d fare in the main tournament. With a full-length transformation sequence, I was mentally prepared for a long, drawn-out fight that might have lasted the entire episode – and yet it was over in a flash. It’s also nice to know that Rinne is willing to fight Fuuka if she loses to anyone from Nakajima Gym – actually, it may not be so nice if you interpret those words as her thinking she’ll never lose, and so it’s okay to agree to whatever because something like that will never come to pass. She’s not wrong to only worry about Einhart, though. For Fuuka to get a chance to fight Rinne, she has to beat Vivio first, and that’s an awfully high hurdle in itself.
Man, I really don’t want Fuuka to end up winning against Rinne because of how contrived and flat out vanilla it would be. Yet, I do want to want to see the classic Exterminatus evel befriending attack that puts the cast of DBZ to shame.
Part of me kind of wants to see Rinne continue to wreck everyone, but I also want to see her smile again. Whether a win by Fuuka will be contrived depends on exactly how strong she is, and it’s a pity we won’t be able to tell until she fights Rinne because she won’t be going up against any of the ViVid girls before then. Given that she still seems awed at the level of power that someone like Einhart can display, I’m not sure whether she’s Rinne’s match. They’ve been doing their best to keep her power level vague.
And Rinne isn’t evil! Rinne is cute! CUTE!