It’s great to see that Kana has found her people! It is a place that positively sees her ability as a true talent. Kana’s memorization ability is nothing to sneeze at, and we got to see it coming in clutch again this week!
When it comes to the training process, it’s very much in Hitomi’s character to just wing it rather than read the books (which,now also explains why she has difficulty with understanding BROOM’s software). She’s very spontaneous out on the field, and usually coming up with things on the fly and following her instincts. But not everyone can learn that way, and we saw that with Kana. Learning how to fly the BROOM was a disaster. She just kept crashing into everything. But that’s only to be expected, because Kana’s the complete opposite of Hitomi, which is why she makes the perfect partner to balance her out. Kana’s more patient and is book-smart, which gives her the advantage to understand and memorize BROOM manuals in ways most people can’t. This is Kana’s strength, and that’s why Boss Man rightfully told her it’s a great talent to have.
Today, Kana’s first mission involved assisting Hitomi with a Structural Parasite that has taken over an entire floor of a build. Since the Kaii has gotten out of hand, Hitomi and the others didn’t feel it was safe for Kana to participate in the fight just yet (especially since she has yet to even practice cast magic). However Kana took it upon herself to come to Hitomi’s aid when she noticed that Hitomi’s BROOM was malfunctioning. It had a crack, and not only was the magic power leaking out, but it also was struggling to hold the weight of two people. And to make matters worse, the BROOM she was using was an outdated model, a temporary replacement due to her last one that was destroyed in the beginning of the first episode. With the permission of Boss Man, Kana took a leap of faith in herself of believing she can pull off casting a magic spell to blast the Kaii based on the literal instructions she memorized from the manual.
This is where being surrounded by people who are open-minded and flexible enough to make these decisions as a complete newbie. Even Boss Man was happily crying over the fact she had the nerve to disregard her senior’s order and firing unpractised magic on the spot. He was so proud of her, and happy to have her on the team because she’s the perfect fit for them, which leads me to the next point.
The other benefit to this particular start-up is that Boss Man doesn’t abide the usual conventions of the Magical Girl industry. As result, he gets chewed out for it, but he doesn’t care. That said, I’m not even sure what the “usual conventions” are, apart from conducting proper interviews and vetting process, as well as providing training period for newbies. As we saw, Kana didn’t have to go through any of those. Since she showed interest, she was hired on the spot. Training? Leave it to the books. Junior sees a problem that puts the Senior at risk? Ignore orders and adapt to the situation accordingly. Actually now that I think about it, being adaptable is undoubtedly another one of Kana’s greatest strengths. It’ll be interesting to see how flexible of a fighter she’ll be come when she gets the hang on how everything works.
We got also got to meet the last member of this start-up, and that is their developer Kazue Nikoyama. very passionate and excited about the new special effects he had implemented. Apart from his mildly overbearing excitement, he seems to be a pretty good guy, also level-headed enough to tell Kana that Hitomi’s reckless antics are not to be encouraged and safety is always paramount.
And finally, we need to take a moment to appreciate Boss Man for positively building up Kana’s confidence. She has been down in the dumps with her list of failures of getting through the interview process, but this guy sees and reminds her of her strengths. He’s definitely a softie at heart as he gets emotional about having a new member on the team, but the most important and invaluable part about him is the fact he’s a boss that cares.
In all I really enjoyed this episode! I think the transformation sequence was probably my favourite part! The fact they pulled away to the perspective of an onlooker was so funny, especially with Kana’s interrupting the whole thing with, “WHAT NOW!?!?!”
I’m pretty much set to commit myself to this coverage, so depending on how the story unfolds I may have to resort approaching this coverage in a biweekly manner as I had done with Spice & Wolf. As usual, if I feel I need to save it for a double or triple post, I’ll let you know!
