This week focuses on Makina and Yumiko, the childish aloof and tsundere murderess respectively. Neither story is earth-shatteringly interesting and neither reveals much about the mystery of the school itself and why everyone is there but they are charming, well timed, and thoughtful.
Perhaps more interesting than either story are the short flashbacks of each girl’s arrival at the school from Yumiko’s perspective. The are brief (they run during the credits) but they establish almost as much about the characters and their class-relationship back story as we’ve seen developed during the meat of the show. Telling us Amane is a Biker Gang member, truthful or not, is an amusing proposition regardless.
In the first act, Yuuji stumbles upon a sleeping Makina. After checking her pulse and inspecting her partially eaten apple for poison, he let’s her sleep. When she wakes up, he casually follows her and is bemused as she feeds fish and has it out with a ‘claw fish’
They bond and become friends, which surprises everyone else. Without knowing enough Japanese, I’m wondering if this show just made a self depreciating joke about Engrish or not. Either way, the scenes are cute. Almost funny.
only one fan service scene this week… butt it’s a big one!
Much of the rest of the episode is devoted to Yumiko and her wish to stab Yuuji. Up to his arrival, she’s been the mother figure of the student body. Sorta. And Yuuji’s presence does not set her at ease.
Unfortunately, Yumiko does not appear to be an assassin (nor even on the level of Amane) and she is totally useless at attacking Yuuji. I can’t rule her out as being some sort of nasty weapon for hire or some other form of underworld miscreant, as the show implies everyone here is. However, it would be funny if she was the only one who was not…
This week took a mild but more than a little awkward dip into ‘cutesy’ style. Not enough to make me angry with it, nor really can I fault it per say: Yumiko’s attacks on Yuuji are pretty silly. Childish, even. Making fun of them makes sense. It’s just a dangerous line to toe.
GnK is not the kind of show that I would watch if it got to silly.
Last but not least we meet JB, Yuuji’s immediate employer. She’s a sexy bombshell who drives a fast yellow car and she annoys the hell out of him. Frankly, she annoys the heck out of me too. She’s just a dull character, fraught with cliché and a unnecessarily pointless story thread.
Additionally, making all the girls jealous (even if it’s just an act to lull us and Yuuji into a sense of ease) came off as silly. Sillier than Amane’s footsie play earlier in the episode at least — AND THAT WAS SILLY TOO!
In shot: GnK still worked. The mystery is still interesting, still unrevealed, and even though we got very little, we got glimpses of motivation and setting. Episode 2 was far less unsettling than the first but, I’m hoping, this is all going to plan.
Till next week, don’t enrage any girls with exacto-blades!
RABUJOI - An Anime Blog 