THE HECK DID I JUST WATCH???? This episode started off pretty wholesome and then it got REALLY weird halfway and especially at the end. I definitely expected something bigger to happen… but I digress. The majority of the episode gave me a lot of Tome feels I didn’t expect to get. Tome was one of those characters that I mostly viewed through a comic relief kind of lens and really didn’t think too much about her. However, through out this episode, I definitely felt more sympathetic towards her in this episode. While her want to see UFO’s was silly (initially), there was still passion behind it and I could definitely empathize with how down she felt when her passion was met with indifference. She was already feeling down and to her, it probably felt like the others were just pitying her.
Not only that, but the group ended up getting into one mishap or another, nothing was going right so I totally understand why she would be so disheartened over the whole thing. I do feel really bad her, especially when it seemed as if they were just getting her hopes up just to let her down at the end. Though I do wonder why Takenaka didn’t just show her his powers sooner. Especially when it feels like they could have avoided Tome having this emotional breakdown if they had shown her prior. That way at least she would have believed that Takenaka was a telepath.
But UGH, Mob is such a sweetie. Offering a hand to try and lift her spirits, what a gentleman. We didn’t get too much from Mob this episode, so I’ll take what I can get from this boy.
Speaking of a sweetie, Takenaka ended up being one as well. Despite how extremely stuck up he came across during his formal introduction, he actually turned out to be a lot more thoughtful than one would give him credit for. The fact that he spent the entire night studying how to summon an UFO. Even going as far as to memorize the freaking chant despite how embarrassing it must have been for him considering he tried to cover it up by just accidentally oversleeping. But he went above and beyond because he wanted to do all he could to help since the three of them were genuine in wanting to do something nice for Tome. It was honestly a very sweet gesture from him and I may or may not ship him and Tome a little now because of it >_>.
And then he finally demonstrates his power by reading aloud Tome’s thoughts. Which I still feel like he should have showed her earlier, but I guess they were going for the heartfelt moment timing, but I digress. Tome definitely has a lot of insecurities about her fascination with extraterrestrials, I mean, for good reason, but she most likely feels guilty for making them come so far with all of these mishaps along the way. It was really sweet how the guys reassured her that they weren’t forced into coming but they honestly just wanted to make one final memory with the club before it officially disbanded.
And while the book they used to research on how to summon an UFO turned out to be fake, the fact they were all still able to have fun on the journey and make precious memories were what really mattered. Not to mention that was their whole premise of why their club shouldn’t be shut down in the first season, to make youthful memories together and they finally accomplished it. Not to mention that this was probably the first time that they actually pulled together and worked hard to do something. It took a lot of patience and endurance to get on top of the mountain and for a bunch of lazy bums, that is an impressive feat. In the end, Tome had fun with all of them even if it didn’t end the way she had hoped… That is, until aliens actually freaking showed up.
This is when the episode went from incredibly wholesome to incredibly weird. Mob is already a really strange series, but this was just BIZARRE. The fact that aliens were added to this world feels really odd to me. Sure, this world already had the supernatural, but this feels a little too far. For a moment I thought they were fakes that someone or something conjured up… but apparently they were actually real and I don’t know how to feel about this. Though it was rather cute of them to just kind of hang out and have fun with them late into the night. And while this whole thing was a bit too absurd for me, I did feel happy for Tome since she finally got to see her wish fulfilled. Something I can assume she never actually expected to come true. And what a way to end their little adventure by greeting the sunrise of the New Year.
…As if things weren’t already weird. IT GOT WEIRDER. Inukawa got freaking taken away by the aliens and had to live with them for who knows how long. He went on this whole journey on his own and I’m just… flabbergasted at it all. Also I am very worried at what transpired during certain events… <_< This whole thing felt so unsettling and weird that I’m just speechless. Like, WHAT???? I know Mob can be a trip and a half, but this was on a whole ‘nother level. Why did they even take him in the first place??? I have so many questions!
All I can think of is.. why??? What kind of mini arc… I have no idea what the heck I watched, but this didn’t feel like an episode of Mob. The first half of it did… but then the second half completely lost me. Besides that weird alien subplot, the animation in this episode had a different feel to it as if it were rotoscoped for most of the parts. Which was interesting since the designs for the characters are very simple compared to the typical anime style and it was interesting to see how that animation technique translated onto them. Though it was a little distracting when so many of the faces were just blank in long distanced shots. I feel like they were cutting a lot of things to preserve time and budget, which makes me wonder what they have in store for us in the coming episodes.
I feel like I appreciate Tome more as a character coming out of this episode and I was actually able to really empathize with her. Takenaka also ended up being pretty endearing, though part of it is probably because of my weakness for middle parted hair. But he definitely proved to be rather sweet and from the preview, it seems as if he’ll be showing up again.
I’m still very confused by this episode and I don’t know how I’m going to recover from this.
