Insomniacs After School – 02 – Going Legit

After waking up and making himself and his dad lunch, Ganta arrives to find Isaki’s friends wrapping her in the classroom curtains. When she suddenly emerges, she looks like a perfect princess. Ganta desperately wants to say good morning, and she prepares to do the same, but he gives her the cold shoulder.

It’s not that he suddenly doesn’t like Isaki—far from it. He explains through texts that it’s in both their best interests not to draw too much attention to their sudden buddying up. Rumors could spread like wildfire, both about them, their hideout, and their insomnia. Isaki agrees, and everything stays their little secret.

The two agree that the observatory could be comfier, however, so Isaki brings a bunch of games and toys and such that will create an environment conducive to sleep. On the physical comfort level, they luck out when a cushy red leather chair and couch are due to be tossed. They start with lugging the chair up to the observatory, which proves so taxing they don’t bother with the couch.

Of course, that means playing rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets the chair first. Isaki wins, and immediately wants for a leg rest. As gunta is pulling a table towards her, she playfully rests her legs on his back, briefly using him as an ottoman. He protests, but methinks he doth protest too much. If a girl is comfortable enough to rest her legs on you, you’re doing something right!

When they hear the door to the observatory creak, they hide behind the chair, wondering if it’s an intruder (or a ghost), but it turns out to be a bicolor cat who has been wandering the school grounds. It makes itself at home on the chair, and Isaki draws close to admire one of the “grandmasters of sleep”. My own cat was in a nearly identical sleeping position not three feet from me as I was watching this.

Isaki buys ice cream for herself and Ganta at the school store, but while she’s gone, the cat returns to the observatory with a piece of lettuce … from Kurashiki-sensei’s sandwich. That brings her to the door that Ganta is currently repairing, and just like that, they’re discovered.

Ganta at first takes full responsibility, saying he acted alone, but when Isaki happily returns with the ice cream, Kurashiki-sensei not unreasonably asks if they’ve been having sex up there. Ganta tells her the truth: this is the only place the both of them can get proper rest.

But even if their intentions and actions are totally innocent and Kurashiki-sensei agrees it’s a hell of a hideout, it’s still her job to report this to the faculty and their parents. Absolutely crestfallen, the two eat their melted ice cream in silence, with Isaki unable to hold back tears.

So that’s it, right? After just two episodes, the dream is over, right? Well…not quite. When Kurashiki-sensei mentioned that the school was considering reviving the observatory for astronomic purposes, Gunta is quick to offer to join the astronomy club. But she questions his motives, and the next day he and Isaki are called to the faculty lounge fearing the worst.

Luckily for them, Kurashiki-sensei is cool. She told her higher-ups that the two of them offered to revive the astronomy club, which is exactly what those higher-ups wanted to hear. The vice principal also remarks that this will put to rest rumors about the student who died haunting the observatory…ya know, the rumors Isaki started.

The news that they’ll still have their palace of seclusion causes such a release of stress and tension that as soon as the two leave the lounge, they start running down the hall smiling and laughing their asses off. It’s a testament to the character design, quality of animation, writing and voice acting working in unity that after so little time I am totally invested in these two adorkable kids and would glad fight a war for them.

That said, they actually will have to do astronomy stuff, so Ganta obtains a basic toy telescope and assembles it on the roof to observe the moon. Isaki repeats her earlier praise for Ganta’s affinity for mechanical stuff, but wait till she learns the guy’s a great cook too!

Once the telescope is assembled, Ganta and Isaki take turns looking at the moon, even bumping heads due to lack of coordination. But when it’s Ganta’s turn to look Isaki aligns herself so the moonlight hits her just right, and she’s a magical princess again, this time telling Ganta “If I end up on the moon, then I’ll wave down to you.”

Ganta at first thinks she’s joking about the ghost again, but Isaki shoots him a far more serious and earnest face than he was expecting. I gotta say, it was the first time I worried this show might eventually enter Your Lie in April territory with Isaki, but I prefer to be more optimistic and upbeat with these too. After all, they fought the law and won!

Vinland Saga S2 – 15 – Where People Don’t Need Swords

Whatever Gardar might be now—monster, madman—he is Arnheid’s husband, and she loves him. If he has wounds, she wants to tend to them. But when she arrives at the mercenary camp, Snake refuses to let her see him. His mistake is delegating her return to Sverkel’s to a subordinate … a subordinate who can’t say no to a woman. Arnheid isn’t even trying to convince him, but her eyes and flowing hair are enough to convince him.

When Gardar spots Arnheid, he apologizes and begs for her forgiveness for leaving her and Hjalti’s side. He promises things will be different. She need only untie his binds and the three of them can return to their quiet, peaceful lives. Arnheid breaks down and tells him she’s sorry, as he still remains ignorant to the fact Hjalti is no longer with her, but was taken away.

When the guy who let Arnheid see Gardar tells her time’s up, and places his hand on her shoulder, Gardar lunges out and bites his throat out. We get what I believe to be the first use of “Intertwined”, one of my favorite Yamada Yutaka tracks and first used to great effect when Askeladd meets with the Romano-Welsh in season one’s episode 12.

The other guards come out of the cabin, and Gardar urges Arnheid to cut his ropes … but that’s all we see of this scene. The next time we’re here, Snake has returned to find all his men killed, and Gardar and Arnheid gone. And since it’s apparent Gardar was wounded again, he can’t have gotten far.

The balance of the episode takes place at dawn, as Einar and Thorfinn wait for the sun to rise. Neither slept—Einar because he’s so frustrated by the whole situation with Arnheid and Gardar; Thorfinn because he was making sure Einar didn’t do anything reckless. For his part, Einar wouldn’t want to cause any more trouble for Arnheid.

The two engage in a dialogue about the possibility of eliminating war and slavery from the world. Thorfinn believes if you can reduce the amount of war, you’ll reduce the amount of slavery, since the latter is often the spoils of the former. He says Norse men celebrate war because their fathers celebrated it, and their fathers before them.

Changing what comes naturally and has become not just tradition or culture but possibly genetics is hard, but Thorfinn is proof it can happen. Every night those he killed visit him and ask him why he killed them, especially when he’d experienced what it was like for someone dear to him to be killed.

Thorfinn wants to grow more wheat then he trampled, and build more houses than he burned. He wants to create a place where swords aren’t needed, to which Einar asks, how do you defend that land? Sometimes violence is necessary to defend peace and freedom. But Thorfinn says that’s a trap, and he’s seen the hell it leads to.

As they talk, Thorfinn suddenly remembers Vinland, the titular paradise devoid of war and slavery, and when he talked about it with Hordaland, the former noblewoman who became a slave, to try to instill some hope in her. Back then in episode 8, Thorfinn wasn’t a literal slave like Hordaland, but he was shackled by his past and his pride, staying beside Askeladd until the time came to kill him.

Hearing Thorfinn not just speak of Vinland to Einar, but actually talk about what would be needed to actually make it happen, is thrilling. After wallowing on Ketil’s farm for so long, he now has ambitions to not just atone for all of the death and destruction he caused as a warrior, but to create a new place for the outcasts where swords really weren’t needed. A place that would make his father proud.

Of course, there are quite a number of obstacles in the way of that dream, first among them the fact Thorfinn and Einar are still very much slaves. Unbeknownst to them, Lief is smuggling Ketil and his sons home, while King Canute is preparing to requisition his land as a punitive measure for Thorgil’s treason.

Snake’s men rifle through the hay in Thorfinn and Einar’s barn. Gardar and Arnheid aren’t there, but Snake is determined to find and kill Gardar. What becomes of Arnheid thereafter depends on how much Snake, and more importantly Ketil, believe she had a hand in her husband’s escape.

And while we plainly saw she didn’t do anything to help Gardar, it simply does not look good from the perspective of those with power over her. I want to believe Arnheid isn’t doomed, but Vinland Saga has trained me to fear for the worst when it comes to its most goodhearted characters.