The more I watch this arc, the more I really wish that we had a full season for NoWaYu. It’s just so disappointing because I feel like there hardly was enough build up and time for Chikage, though it’s easy to put some things together. But that doesn’t matter, the show should be showing us why Chikage has such a weak mental state and what their powers do to them properly. Without all of that, this episode just ended up being overly dramatic.
I understand Chikage, though. Obviously Chikage grew up in a horrible environment with a drunk father who may have been violent, and I’m not exactly sure about her mother but she didn’t seem like a good one either. The visuals of the home was good enough with all the trash and beer cans everywhere that we got a good idea of the home life. And living in a small village, rumors spread quick and I guess her mother’s affair became public. I don’t understand the whole taxing thing, but amazing that other people will gladly write whore and slut on a house because someone had an affair. Why would you care? I don’t know, there’s probably sooooo much they left out that I kind of have to piece things together myself. It also appears that Chikage already was mentally weak from the bullying she endured from her classmates and village, so having that on top of losing two of her friends horrifically and the general public talking smack about them put her on the brink of insanity. AND…their powers. Their trump card, the black haired girl with the red ribbon said. Which…did they ever introduce us to her? Who is she? This damn season…
So this trump card power with the 180 timer we saw Takashima use is what I’m guessing she’s referring to. It seems to be their version of a mankai, but instead of damaging their body and/or taking a bodily function, it seems to affect the user mentally with side effects. So of course that makes me worried for Takashima, but it looks like it’s taken its toll on Chikage.
That is to say, I’m guessing she’s used that power before? Again, I’m guessing they skipped so much from this arc but the fact that girl even brought it up and what Wakaba said later does mean that Chikage has used this power before. But us as an audience, we barely saw her power at the end of the episode.
Again, this is super frustrating. We don’t have that proper build up or even know the characters all that well to REALLY care. I do think this episode was okay in us getting to know Chikage and her background more or less, and I felt horrible for her. I completely understand her anger and frustrations, but the pacing this episode was still bad. Her slow degradation of her mental state was okay too and I felt so bad for her. One thing I also didn’t like and I wish we had time to flesh out is Chikage’s fixation with Takashima. Her suddenly wanting to kill Wakaba just so she can be the one to be with Takashima’s side felt like it came out of nowhere because that one flashback scene just wasn’t enough to really show us how much Chikage really appreciated her. Because other than that scene, the only other scene where we saw them interact was in the school when they first met and they barely spoke to each other. It’s just not enough. I wanted to see them at school, training together, playing video games together and having fun. But since we didn’t get any of that, all of this is just…happening. And it’s hard to feel anything about Chikage in the end there. We don’t really know what kind of relationship Chikage has with Wakaba either. We know that Chikage is envious of Wakaba for being praised by others while Chikage was always bullied and shunned, but is that it? Who knows.
A decent episode, but again this season is frustrating and weird. I feel like this arc is going to be completed in the next episode, and if not the next week then the one after that. And after that, what will we get next? Sigh…
