A beach episode, finally something light and happy in this show. If that’s what you were thinking at any point during this episode, then you are obviously watching the wrong series. While the girls are having a good time, which Aya and Yatsumura are smiling for the first time in the entire time they’ve known each other.
A deeper, more horrible plot is brewing under the surface. The obsessive Nijimin fanboy that’s been in the background of the previous episodes has decided there is clearly only one course of action. Kill the man who defiled his beloved Nijimin. Take a knife, track down Kaname Asagiri and kill him. It’s a great plan honestly, except for the part where the obsessed fanboy didn’t factor in the fact that Kaname would steal Nijimin’s magic stick and use it’s mind control powers to drive him to his knees and verbally destroy him.
I’ve been saying for a while that we should keep an eye out for Aya’s brother, i’ve had a bad feeling about him from the beginning as something more then just a threat to Aya and a way to create more pain in her life and backstory. He manipulates Nijimi into telling him about Magical Girl site, about the sticks and about how Aya and Yatsumura stole her stick. He also manipulated her into telling him what the power of the stick was.
So while all of the girls are enjoying their time at the beach. Kaname sneaks in to the locker room area, where Yatsumura stored the stick to keep it safe from Sarina who she thought might come to try and steal it from Aya’s house while they were all gone. He breaks open the locker and steals the magic stick. Nijimi thinks it’s for her and is very happy, but of course, we all know it’s for his own purposes.
So when the stalker approaches him. He drives him to his knees, verbally assaults him, even gloats that he’s wearing Nijimin’s panties. Wonderful, fan-disservice…nobody wanted to stare at this jerks bulge in a pre-teen girls panties.
He commands the stalker to take the knife and then walk into the ocean. When he gets to a certain amount of water, he commands the fanboy to stab himself. Leaving the fanboy dead in the water. He reflects and says the odd part is that he doesn’t feel bad
Aya watched this whole thing and catches on that her brother has the magic stick. She wants to hide this from all the other magical girls, which is understandable since they would probably want to kill him if they knew. Yatsumura is already running over who it could be that stole the panties, the site admins? Sarina? Another party?
Unfortunately for Aya, she forgets they have a mind reader on their team now.
Kiyoharu is using her power and knows that Kaname has the stick and the leak of the information came from Nijimin herself. So at least they are forewarned, sort of. I still can’t trust that nothing bad is going to come from him having this power. In particular, since he meets up with Nijimin and goes to say something to her and we get cut off from information…again.
Meanwhile, the site admins are gathering and discussing how busy they are. What they need if they want to usher in a new world with Tempest. They are going to need more despair from the magical girl sticks.
Overall, this was another really good episode. Aside from the distinctly uncomfy moment of having to see Kaname in the underwear. There are a lot of cute character moments between Yatsumura and Aya, and watching these girls who have all suffered enough to be chosen by the magical girl site have fun and make good memories before the end of their short lives is rather plesant. I couldn’t help but feel a little choked up at the idea that Yatsumura is dying very soon, and having Aya make her promise to come back to the ocean again together with her sometime. Since, realistically, it will never happen.
There is a lot to be tense about as we reach the series ending. I can’t say i’m expecting a happy ending, but I at least still hope that Kaname gets what’s coming to him. That’s all I can really ask of this series.
This episode IMO has raised a pretty good question about stick usage – if guys can freely use stick powers, then why do admins mainly focus on giving sticks to girls (and female-identifying transgenders)? You’d think they’d try to diversify their despair sources from both genders.
I’ve tried checking the source manga, but there’s still no info on why this is so. Even the mystery white-haired girl in stasis who is likely connected to the admins doesn’t seem to exist in the manga’s story yet.
Hmmm, that is interesting. this does bring up a good point, if sticks can be used by guys…why not gather despair from both genders? Doesn’t make a lot of sense. You’d think the Site Admins would want to corner that market. Also, hmmm, I don’t know about the mystery white haired girl in stasis either. We’ll have to see where this goes.