There’s been a change of scenery: the school and all its classmates have been transported to a new world. This dimension has the school floating in the middle of an endless ocean, with only a medium-sized island nearby. There are no ships, bridges, or other manmade structures.
This new world also comes with its own set of “rules.” For example, if something on the island breaks, it will stay broken permanently. Surely that’s the norm, you might be thinking. What’s the other option? Well, apparently both the school and students are in what Rajidani call “a state of stasis.” This means that they will renew themselves. Students can use the school’s power and water without worrying about either running low. The supply of emergency food is “all you can eat” because it will always replenish itself. Perhaps most importantly, if students get hurt, their bodies will heal themselves.
This is a very strange scenario to be stuck in! Asakaze has already done some scouting and determined that the ocean just appears to go on for forever.
Oh, and one more small detail: within the school are “gateways” to other worlds. Some students, including Nagara, have ventured into these worlds, but they are always forced back into their school in their current dimension.
So how to escape? Since the students got into this water world due to Nozomi by falling into the black void in the last dimension, will they have to fly into the sky to escape this world? Dive deep into the ocean? Use one of the mysterious portals within the school?
Rajidani also points out another big distinction – the school is in its own dimension, as is the island. This is why he’s theorized that the school is “drifting” through different dimensions, different worlds. But why are they drifting? And what was the catalyst for the school to start drifting in the first place?
A female student using a stolen lipstick is burned by blue flames, and then later the same blue flames burn down some sort of structure on the beach. Who has the power to control blue fire?
Together Nagari, his friend Hayato, and the girl who got burned hypothesize that items which Mizuho’s power has produced are what’s been going up in blue flames. (We had seen in the first episode that she lived in a room filled with items one would never see in a school, plus tons of things ordered from Nyamazon. Her secret power appears to be the ability to summon or create items at will, whatever she wants.) But why would Mizuho’s generated items suddenly be spontaneously going up in flames??
Meanwhile there’s been a student council election, but Hoshi has helped Pony rig the results so that she would win. The students are upset about this and quickly pick up that the election was a sham. Mizuho has also been posting about Pony and the election on the internet, which upsets her and causes a confrontation between herself, Hoshi and Mizuho.
There are so many layers so this series and I’m really enjoying trying to unravel everything! Sometimes information has been left out due to, I’m assuming, the shortness of the series, but I hope the production team has found ways to add it in later. More information about Mizuho would be nice, for example.
Side note – it appears that potentially one male teacher got transported along with the students, but we don’t know his name or anything about him yet. Since he’s referenced in past tense during one scene, maybe it’s possible that he’s not alive anymore? More information about him too would also be appreciated. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to tell what’s a flashback and what’s in the present, since there are no effects or anything to note that a scene is actually a flashback.
Later, Nagara finds a dead bird that flew into a school window. Nozomi finds him and reminds him that he left another bird to die, back on the day when the school first started drifting. Nagara makes up a weak defense, then gets irritated with Nozomi for grilling him about the past.
You know, I’m not a huge fan of Nozomi because of her unpredictability, but I also don’t really like Nagara much either. He’s so flat and emotionless, a real bore of a character. He has virtually no personality except to do the easiest thing possible when going with the flow of the situation. He helps out, but only because there’s nothing better to do, not because he wants to actually help his classmates. He leaves the dead seagull outside until Nozomi finds it because he knows he can’t do anything to help it. Is Nagara depressed? Has he always been like this? What’s your issue dude?!
The brains of the student group, Rajidani, has set up a new makeshift work area and is analyzing the items which burned earlier in the episode. In the ashes he found a brand new Game Boy in perfect condition. But why didn’t it burn too? Rajidani theorizes to Nozomi that because the items was traded fairly between himself and Mizuho, some unknown rule of their current dimension determined that the item would be left untouched.
In the evening there is a confrontation between Rajidani and the girl who got burned. She still thinks Mizuho is at fault for the blue fires, and Rajidani insists that it’s not her. While the other students split up and take sides, Nagara finds Mizuho’s missing (and injured cat) and vows to return it to safely. Nozomi offers to tag along.
Although I didn’t initially catch on at first, most of the island ends up burning down in a mass of blue flames. This is because Mizuho caused money to rain down upon the island (due to her item-generating power), and then the dimension’s rule about fair trade caused all the money bundles to catch on fire.
Nagara, Nozomi and Mizuho lament that they can’t stay on the island anymore because with the trees now gone, they can’t make any structures. Then suddenly in the blink of an eye, the island is repopulated with trees and other greenery. The students think that Asakaze’s ability to manipulate the elements and put the flames out is the cause, but Nagara and his friends speculate that the island was able to rejuvenate itself. Another rule from this dimension?
The next day, Mizuho apologizes to all the students for setting the island on fire because of the money she willed into existence. She makes sure to clarify that she’s not responsible for the blue fires or any of the other issues on the island.
After she stomps off back to her castle to be alone again, Rajidani explains to the other students about his new app: Hyo-Ryu-Coin. If students download and use this app when trading each other for assets, ensuring that money is being spent to trade, then the island’s rule won’t cause their items to go up in blue flames. Poor Hayato had to lose his glasses the hard way though. ^^;;
Once the app goes into widespread use amongst the students, Mizuho is able to set up a shop so she can create items for the students to buy. Mizuho’s gonna be a real mob boss at that rate. ;D
At the very end of the episode, Nozomi shares with Nagara and Rajidani that she can see the reality they are supposed to return home to. It is the reason she jumped off the school in the previous episode; but in this dimension that dimension “gate” is merely a pinprick of light in the sky. She tells them her ability is called “Compass.” Guess Nozomi’s not so useless after all.
Waaaah I could talk about this series for forever. I just want all the information about the series RIGHT NOW, but since I gotta wait, I’ll just look forward to next week again.
