No need for any little introductions. I begin this week with Harukana Receive’s Emily looking like a bad-ass, for a change.
I suppose we all saw the Eclair vs. Harukana match coming; it would have been a bit of a cliche if they ended up facing Narumi and Ayasa again. High-school champions against some rookies? I know we all love an anime happy ending, but let’s be realistic: Narumi and Ayasa would chew them up and spit them out if they played a proper match (unlike the last time).
When I first found out that these two pairs would ultimately face off, I didn’t even care who would be the victor, as I love all of them. In the red corner has been the mainland girl helping out her Okinawan cousin and letting her come out of her shell, while in the blue corner has been the American twin sisters who found themselves a home kicking butt in beach volleyball in what seriously looks like a paradise, and now I understand why the Japanese love going there for vacation.
This week’s episode begins their match, with it continuing on next week. We see a very different Thomas twins, but we also see a very different Kanata, which pleases everyone. It was originally Claire and Emily who were concerned on why she stopped playing, and so to see her in her serious mode makes them realize that they won’t just be facing any other opponent; they’ll be facing the girl who beat them when they were younger and had just moved to Okinawa.
Unfortunately, HBO, Showtime, Sky, or any other pay-per-view service out there didn’t want to seize on the opportunity of airing the Eclair vs. Harukana match-up, but I tell you something, Crunchyroll would be fools if they chose not to charge extra for their subscribers to watch the upcoming Ayano vs. Nagisa bloodbath in Hanebado!
Unfortunately, episode 11 of Hanebado! is being delayed due to the recent earthquake in Hokkaido, and thus I won’t have the opportunity to talk about it in this week’s column. All the more reason for me to speak a lot about how the two of them are going to go for each others’ throats for next week. Of course that can wait, because dealing with the issue of an earthquake in Hokkaido is far far more important.
And so onto Asobi Asobase. This has been quite an insane trip, but I’m glad I picked it at the last minute (Hi-Score Girl, my original choice, is being licensed by Netflix, and won’t see a Western release until December).
This week’s episode centers a lot more on one incident involving Kasumi. It starts when she is blackmailed by a student into helping her keep Olivia’s secret about not knowing any English and moves on to trying to suppress any thoughts she had when another student kisses her.
This student is, in fact, someone who has been in a past episode. Aozora turned out to be the center of attention in one sketch when the three believed she was a guy in disguise. Even though that was disproved, it emerges that she does in fact have a big crush on Kasumi, and even though she’s extremely naive when it comes to love and emotions, Kasumi doesn’t exactly hate her, so she’s put in an awkward spot. And with this lingering thought that they thought she might have been a guy, she goes into overload, given her phobia of men. It’s rather funny and sweet to watch, and Kasumi has nothing to lose by staying friends with her. I hope that this plot point will stick around for a little longer, even though we only have a few weeks left in the season.
Moving on, the Pastimers Club need to advertise their club for the upcoming Cultural Festival, and so instead of making a factual movie about traditional games and pastimes, they choose to make…a sci-fi movie. Just because…
I wonder if this will end up cropping up in a future episode as well. I mean a Cultural Festival is usually something that goes on for more than one episode in a lot of shows, and regardless of how weird this show has been, things needn’t be that different. I’d actually like to see how Kasumi, Olivia and Hanako actually try to advertise the club…and likely get kicked out of their room again by the student council.
Finally, to the classic/out-of-season show:
I think it is from this episode onward (episode 10) when everything in Serial Experiments Lain comes around full-circle, and (nearly) every mystery is explained to us. Following on from the previous episode, Eiri Masami introduces himself to Lain as a god of the Wired and the creator of Protocol Seven, which she finds a little hard to believe. But it soon begins to hit her when her real world life begins to crumble around her. Her school no longer notices her as a student, and she returns to an empty house, save her father, who tells her that he, along with her mother and sister, were just people who were brought in…and have no biological relationship with her.
Discovering that the only reason Eiri is considered a god of the Wired is because the Knights worship him, Lain decides to deal with them once and for all and leaks a list of their names to the public, which has some real world consequences with either them committing suicide or the Men in Black dealing with them.
Have I enjoyed Serial Experiments Lain now that I’ve had the opportunity to watch it? It’s been a difficult and strange watch, and although I know I’m not done with it just yet, I already know the ending (sort of), and so I’d like to see how this apparently omnipresent Lain character has a happy ending, or if she will even get one.
The end of the season is approaching and I have already picked my Fall season shows, and not just that. This column will be doing something a little different in a future season. Let’s just say that some of the others here on OASG have taken note of how I sometimes react to shows…
In the meantime, how did this week fare for you? Do you want this season to end sooner than it’s meant to, so that we can get stuck into any new shows? I know some of you out there are itching for season 3 of Sword Art Online, even though I certainly am not. We added a like button to the column too, so feel free to hit that button and air your opinions in the comments below…