OreShura – 05

Eita receives a number of anonymous love letters. Masuzu is trying to wring info from him when her little sister Mana arrives with a warning of sorts that makes Masuzu shake in fear. Mana also kisses Eita. Masuzu won’t tell Eita anything, and the next day she’s out of sorts, tries to swim in the pool, and nearly drowns. Eita resuscitates her with mouth-to-mouth in front of the whole class, and later says Mana’s kiss didn’t mean anything, and has been “overwritten”. The next day he helps nurse Chiwa, who has a fever. He then confronts his seret admirer, Akishino Himeka, a chuunibyou who was enthralled by his performance at the station. Her embrace of him is interrupted by Masuzu and Chiwa.

Up till now, Masuzu has had leverage over Eita in the form of his incriminating ridiculous Chuunibyou ravings, but she ends up with a lot less power at the end of this episode. Just as she’s aware he’s the author of the note, Eita is now aware that she’s got secrets she doesn’t want anyone to know about, and unless she wants him to pry before she’s ready or willing to tell him, it’s in her best interest to lay off with the notebook. It’s a fair deal. But on top of that, they’ve clearly gone past fake dating – Masuzu isn’t upset about Eita paying attention to other girls because it goes against their “arrangement”, but because she’s legitimately jealous. Much to her dismay, Eita’s never had more girls hanging off him.

Enter the surprisingly aggressive Akishino Himeka. Such is the power of her imagination, she created entire past lives for her and Eita, believing the awakening of her love is only a case of her regaining her memories. Then there’s the whole can of worms with Masuzu’s family. Her sister Mana looks down on her despite being younger, and has no problem kissing Eita right in front of her just for kicks. Neither of these new additions is as compelling as either Chiwa or Mazusu, but it’s admirable that the two main girls didn’t get the short end of the stick this week, despite the new intros. They both had compelling little vignettes that served to reinforce the fact that they’re both in love with him.

Rating: 7 (Very Good)

Sasami-san@Ganbaranai – 04

Sasami plays a DVD in Kamiomi’s room entitled “The Sasami Watch Project”, in which he and the Yagami sisters tail Sasami around town as she runs assigned errands meant to embarrass her. The Sasami watching doesn’t remember. When Sasami in the DVD ends up at a VA show, all the attendees reveal they’re of the Tsukuyomi clan, including Sasami’s father, who removes the sarcoma that gave her a third arm. Tsurugi and Kagami intervene, defeating him. The watcher of the DVD turns out to be the Sarcoma in Sasami’s form. Tsurugi made the DVD to appraise her of the situation. Tsurugi hides it sarcoma in the body of Kagami’s pet rabbit, Meat, for safekeeping.

We find ourselves becoming very engrossed with this freewheeling, eclectic, downright loopy carousel of happenings that is Sasami-san@Ganbaranai. It presents a dizzying array of information at a very brisk pace, but manages to bring it all together at the end. It also makes brief synapses tricky. But the whole idea of having Sasami snoop on her brothers stuff – learning he and the sisters documenting her just as she documented her – only for her not to be Sasami at all, is quite a twist, and one that makes perfect sense once you go over everything that had happened. The video is clever in that it’s a prank, a piece of voyeurism, and a record of past events all wrapped into one. It was fun watching “Sasami” (really the Sarcoma) watch and get more confused.

Also, despite more than half of this episode taking place within a previously-filmed video, we’re constantly diving into it, with the narrators Tsurugi and Kamiomi providing punchy commentary and criticism towards Kagami, who just barely manages to get the job done despite much dicking about and getting sleepy. If there’s a weak link to the episode, it’s Tama’s part of the story, in which she’s captured by aliens but eventually befriends them, helping them defeat government agents. It was fun and nutty and all, but pretty darned random and so irrelevant as to be a distraction to the A-story. Fortunately, the episode cut to Tama sparingly, while the much funnier Kagami had a wealth of lines steeped in dry, ascerbic wit.

Rating: 8 (Great)

From the New World (Shin Sekai yori) – 18

Satoru reports to the joint committee heads that the Giant Hornets were completely annihilated by the Robber Flys. In light of very strange evidence, Shisei forms the theory that a human with a cantus destroyed the army. Tomiko refutes it’s either Akizuki Maria or Itou Mamoru, as she confirmed they were dead. At the summer festival, the Robber Flys, condemned to destruction, launch a surprise attack on the village, but Shisei eliminates them, removing his mask in the process. Tomiko vows to give Yakomaru a slow death.

The point when they queerats turn on their own gods came much more rapidly than we expected, and Yakomaru is almost certainly behind it all. There was always something about that rat’s eyes and in his weaselly words that we found unsettling. While he most certainly knows the surprise attack will fail, it is nevertheless a complex multi-layered assault full of feints and gambits designed to create maximum anxiety in the people, who had been previously enjoying their summer festival. Queerat infiltrators even disguised themselves as “monsters” (part of the festival) and handed out samples of poisoned sake.

Their assault may have been thwarted – and then some – by the awesome destructive power of the four-irised(!) Shisei, but the villagers are afraid, and that’s just what Yakomaru wants. Two committee heads are also dead: the most bombastic and overconfident head (who was playing a drum with his cantus when he was taken out by a queerat sniper) and the one head who called for the postponement of the festival until the Robber Flys were dealt with. Turns out that was a good call. Meanwhile, on this night when the dead return from the underworld, Saki has visions of her friends, whom Tomiko is positive they’re dead. But are they really?

Rating: 8 (Great)