That last scene in the aqueduct was just a tease; we actually had to wait until the end of this episode for the Posse of Disgruntled Mutants to escape from Goran Academy. The hitch in the plan turns out not to be any kind of security, which the school apparently lacks, but in the resolve of some of the posse’s members, which in turn causes Ai to waver.
She’s only been outside of her village a half-month (which actually sounds about right to us), after all. What does she really know of the world? Sorry, worlds…as her new friend Alice explains, there are two, the objective and subjective. While Ai isn’t sure how she’s going to save the world, he knows how he’s going to save his: by destroying it. How and why, he’s not kind enough to say, but such a position surely portends a rift in relations with Ai; we’re certain she doesn’t want to destroy anything. Maybe Alice is just being overly ominous?
Anyway, as we said, the very large suspicious-looking gang does eventually escape from Goran, which by default makes this episode better than the last, but that wasn’t all we liked. Most of the gang are still flimsy caricatures, but they were less offensively vapid this time around, and were mostly in the background as our favorite of the bunch, Tanya, was the focus. She has a good, serviceable story: born blind, wished for sight, got the Reirigan instead. Her parents were fine with it, the village wasn’t.
Rather than cause her parents—her whole world, as Ai remarks—trouble and pain, Tanya chose to separate herself from that world. Ai’s wide-eyed optimism starts to overwhelm Tanya, but Ai’s zeal and persistence eventually wrests her from her self-imposed limbo, despite Ai not having any solid argument beyond “C’mon, it’ll be fine!” By piling into Yuri’s microbus (great timing!), Tanya and the others are choosing to believe they can make it in the world beyond Goran. If all else fails, they have a couple of skilled marksmen on their team.
Rating:7 (Very Good)
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