Episode 10
Sorry I couldn’t post last weekend, a single-day icestorm wrecked havoc over here and knocked power out for 6 days. Luckily for me, I didn’t miss too much last week as Episode 10 was a very simple but cute episode. Mashiro suggested they throw a welcome to the team party for Tsubasa, and they decided to make one of his favourite snacks Yaitai, which in Skyland, is more or less the same as Taiyaki. The only difference was really the taste of the filling. Sora and Mashiro were trying really hard to recreate that flavour of home for Tsubasa, but they weren’t really able to land the mark. However their efforts were not in vain. Tsubasa really enjoyed having the chance to taste a variety of different fillings, and it was the whole experience of doing that together gave him the feelings he has when eating Yakitai with his family back at home. So it was a really wholesome episode, added with some hilarity of the girls just being done with Kabaton’s, to the point they even point-blank ignore him when he tries to provoke them. I find this bit actually quite entertaining, considering we don’t usually see the protagonists shrugging off the antagonist, no matter how foolish they may be acting.
Episode 11
This was another episode where there’s really not a whole lot going on. The main objective was to give Tsubasa a chance to spend time with Ageha to get to know her. Since Ageha’s personality can be rather rowdy and pushy at times, Tsubasa wasn’t particularly happy about be paired up with her because he doesn’t do well with those types of personalities. It overwhelms and exhausts him, leaving him feeling frustrated and at loss of what to do because he can’t keep up with her.
But I’m going to be real with you, I thought they botched this episode. Pairing Tsubasa and Ageha together to solve these riddles just felt so forced, that it made their interactions felt hollow and for the lack of a better word, “meh”. In fact, they really didn’t do together at all for that matter, and there really wasn’t much of a team-work sort of thing going on to figure it out. I just thought the way they went about it was weird, and they should have just went with something else to plant the seeds to their friendship. Unfortunately, while I sort of see (barely though) what they were trying to accomplish here, I consider this a failed approach.
Apart from that, Ellee was back with the group this week, and as soon as I started hearing those baby noises I realized I really didn’t miss it last week. Though hilariously it actually didn’t hit me until I saw this episode that realized Ellee didn’t actually have much presence in previous episode. Though frankly I could really do without those squeaky baby noises (it’s hard on the ears, for me anyways). But babies be babies right?
And finally, it looks like Kabaton’s boss finally ran out of patience and is demanding results or else she’ll cast him aside. She has no need for useless pawns after-all. Whether that means we’re actually getting our first mini boss fight next week is a bit up in the air, mainly because Kabaton has decided to challenge Sora to a one-on-one duel. I have my doubts he’d actually play fair and square though. We’ve seen him pull underhanded tactics– look no further than today’s episode with how he used Ageha and Ellee as Human Shields to prevent Tsubasa from landing his attacks. So perhaps something else will happen besides his obvious buff up, though whether it’s a power-up that will be granted by his boss is still left up in the air. At the moment, it doesn’t look like she’s really inclined to help him redeem himself, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s on his own on figuring out how to turn things around for himself.
I did not like how Ageha got away with her actions in the end. Not once did she apologize and they all expect Tsubasa to deal with it as she’s older and such. She never even noticed how uncomfortable she’s making him and she’s just like “Meh, you’ll get over it.” For someone wanting to be a teacher, she’s really bad at understanding someone’s feelings.
Heck, Mashiro was like “Ageha’s just that sort of person. Please try to understand her.” It felt like gaslighting in a way.
I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was that was bothering me, but you nailed it on the head there. There’s no acknowledgement of the fact she was making him uncomfortable. They really messed this one up.
They’re likely setting something up here. Like Tsubasa’s frustration builds up over multiple episodes and explodes, forcing Ageha to take him seriously (and use his goddamn name for once).
Notice: Ep 12 entry will be released as a double-post next week with Ep 13.
Notice: I’ll be doing a triple post with Ep 14 instead since I really don’t have much to say for Ep 12, much less ep 13. Thanks for understanding.