This episode did some jumping around but I think I understood almost everything.
For starters, Ms. Aki has arrived at the island world in the flesh, but she’s “different” now. Her temperament and personality are much more aggressive and dominant (compared to the teacher the students remember from their world back home). She tells the students that they can never go home, that Nagara is lying (about not being able to take everyone home) and that Nozomi is lying too (that their world is a light in the sky and she can see it). When the students ask Ms. Aki how she arrived at their island, she says “God needed her to.”
Ms. Aki brings forth additional new information: that apparently the drifting was caused by a student having their superpower and using it prior to the events of the series starting. No one comes forth and admits it, but if you think back to the first episode, you can guess who the culprit might be. (This explains Mizuho in the large school room full of luxuries. One mystery solved!)
Moreover Ms. Aki says that the “savior” (mentioned by Hoshi in a previous episode) is actually Asakaze. By turning a portion of the students away from Nagara and his friends and pointing to Nagara as being the reason everyone is still stuck on the island, Ms. Aki is dividing the students into those who support Nagara and those who think he’s lying. By stoking the students’ fears about never being able to go home and losing the lives they left behind, Ms. Aki is provoking the situation into something that could potentially be dangerous for Nagara’s safety. Heck, even in this episode Nagara’s (former?) friend Hayato doesn’t hesitate to push him to the ground. Who’s to say a group of students aren’t going to jump Nagara in a future episode and beat the tar out of him??
Thankfully Nagara is slowly acquiring a group of friends who are supporting him and standing by him. Nozomi protects Nagara from the angry students who blame him for not being able to return home, and she continues to gently encourage Nagara to open up and push himself out of his comfort zone. Rajidani Rajdhani cautiously tries to warn Nagara of the angry sentiments and toxic mentalities being felt by the students Ms. Aki is poisoning with her lies. And Mizuho isn’t hesitating to drag Nagara for being a spineless pushover when he’s being bullied, and also for running from a situation when he can’t find the energy to fight back against it.
We learn near the end of the episode that Nagara’s superpower of “world-hopping” actually might not be that at all. When Rajdhani, Mizuho and Nozomi go looking for Nagara after he poofs away from Ms. Aki and some angry students in another world, the trio come across an island world that looks very similar to the one they’re on now, but with one key difference: everything is burned to a crisp. Rajdhani theorizes that Nagara’s ability is actually to create new worlds, not jump to them. Everyone had thought that Asakaze’s power restored the island they were on (the one set alight by blue fire), but apparently this is a new island world altogether!
Nozomi’s “Compass” ability has also shown that the light in the sky only she can see, supposedly a portal or something leading to their home world, is closer than ever before. I sure wish someone else besides Nozomi could see it because I want to see what it looks like too!
I have lots of questions about Ms. Aki too. Is she really Ms. Aki?? Does she have her own superpowers too? If not, how were she and the students able to get from the other world back into their home world via that “open door” that parted reality in front of them? If that was Ms. Aki, can she control that power at will?
Oh, and the mysterious unknown male voice speaking to Hoshi also speaks to Nagara now too. Will everyone who can hear the voice be a candidate for “The Savior” Ms. Aki keeps talking about? But now there’s this false prophet that Ms. Aki is trying to mold Asakaze into. Will there be a final showdown be between Asakaze/Ms. Aki and Nagara??
Watch, we’re going to get to the end of the season and the whole thing will have been a reality simulation a la Matrix. ;D
Oo good thought, Matrix.
The Aki-sense introduced the idea that every assumption they’ve been operating on could be false. I do not know if that’s intentional, or beneficent. It could be complete unintentional and malevolent! Her invocation of “kami-sama” is interesting in this context. Is she there to help or hinder them? For their good? Or not? For certain we can agree she’s not there by chance.
So many questions, so much confusion! It’s a stimulating show, I’ll say that for it. The monkey thing last week left me with empty-brain. We’ll see where this goes from here!
Aki-sensei*
Damn I hate autocorrect
That’s a good way of putting it. Throwing doubts on their theories. I love Rajdhani’s character and the way he’s working to put together their group’s theories about how their powers and the This World works.
I wasn’t a big fan of the monkey episode, but I’m excited all over again now that Aki-sensei’s arrived. I love how the show makes the viewer try to put together all the puzzle pieces. A very stimulating show, as you said. 🙂
I think my guesses as to what’s going on are either supernatural experiment by scientists or some kind of Matrix.