After a delay in getting episode ten to air due to a tennis match taking up the animes air time. We get to see what’s going on at last and finally we’re getting some Ata development. We start with our student council president having a nightmare of when he was still a child, he’s running after Ryoma and Kyōtarō, running towards their retreating backs as they laugh and walk away from him. He trips and falls, being left behind and wakes up in a cold sweat.
We cut to the boys in the bath, talking as per usual about what will be the set up for this weeks episode. The topic? Being an old man. They discuss that Kyōtarō already acts a lot like an old man. Which plays pretty heavily into the rest of the episode as the rest of them struggle as the Monster of the week makes them older, but Kyōtarō for the most part is totally unaffected by it. Which angers Ata to no end, he wants Kyōtarō to suffer most of all. He is so frustrated by the fact that none of these monsters seem to be doing anything to inconvenience or hurt Kyōtarō.
So while Taichi struggles with his failing eyesight, while Wakura suffers with his aching bones, Ichiro suffers with memory loss. Kyōtarō is mostly fine with becoming old and just let’s it all pass him by, he pulls up a blanket and takes a nap. The Monster gets progressively more and more annoyed that it’s being ignored and Ata gets progressively more and more annoyed that Kyōtarō is fine during all of this. When the Monster screams at them to notice him, they realize ‘oh yeah, we gotta make it happy.’
The best part about this chunk of the episode is the old man transformations and using the rod to make them happy. Transforming doesn’t magically make them young again, so they still look like little old men as they are transformed and Kyōtarō can barely lift the rod to use the attack to make him happy.
Even the music is old and tired and not that into it.
So they transform him back into his student form and his issue was that he looked pretty old for a high school student. His name even roughly translates to old man…who names these villains of the week? Like, do these parents think these things out ahead of time? Your kid is bound to be picked on with a name like that even if he looked like a younger man. Karls uses the happy powder to return the boys and the rest of the school to their younger selves and the group begins talking about how they want to go take a bath now that they’ve worked up a sweat in battle.
Kyōtarō turns and looks at Ata and asks if he wants to come along to the bath.
That’s it, that’s the final straw for him. He’s tired of this, tired of being treated as an afterthought. He is so full of anger and rage, that Funari jumps right on it and imbunes him with a mass of power. Turning him into a monster in his own right. The rest of the student council looks worried and concerned for him, which is valid, since they have mostly been playing along with this whole thing for his benefit from the start. So watching him fall into the depths of his own pain and suffering must be hard for them.
At last, we’ve hit the central conflict of the plot. Now i’m excited! How will this go? Will the other members of the student council back the powered up Ata? Will they help the defense force and try to save him from the pits of anger and unhappiness?
Will Karls and Funari’s father get involved? What really was the inciting incident between Ryoma, Ata and Kyōtarō? We’ll have to wait to find out.
A week longer then we should of had too…stupid tennis.
Finally thanks for an update on this.