Metallic Rouge – 07 – Grinding Gears

After six episodes of both showing and telling us that Naomi and Rouge were buddies, now we’re supposed to accept that Naomi is actually the “Divine Facilitator” of Ochrona, who informs former vice-director Gene Jundhardt that she’ll be “dealt with appropriately”, which I can only imagine means “disposed of”. That’s bleak, I tellya.

I’m just glad I didn’t play a drinking game in which I take a shot every time someone mentions gears, or I wouldn’t be alive to type this. Suffice it to say, the metaphor is used so often by everyone in this episode it becomes comical. Except that everything about this episode is dour and bland; people sitting and standing in rooms blathering on about authority and procedure.

The episode’s primary sin is never having Naomi and Rouge in the same room together or saying so much as a word to each other. Way to ruin the best part of the show, show. We’re also made to believe that half the passenger manifest on that transport to Wellstown was composed of Alters. There was Rouge, and Eden Varock, and now we learn Jill the photographer is also one of the Immortal Nine.

Naomi is content to keep Rouge locked up naked in a tube, but Jill is kind enough to free her and give her nectar and clothes. Unfortunately, she’s only doing this because she wants Rouge to fight by her side in her struggle to free all Neans of the Asimov Code preventing most of them from harming humans. Jill, AKA Silvia, isn’t subject to that code, and her violence and brutality scare Rouge off.

She ends up rescued by Aes and Alice, who as it happens are two personalities within one body and also a member of the Immortal Nine. They and Rouge hide out at Ash’s cigarette butt-filled apartment. Aes wants to give Rouge a chance, but Alice doesn’t see her as anything but a mindless assassin who thinks she’s the “good guy”, and leaves. At least Ash doesn’t think Rouge is the one who killed Jung anymore.

That blue-haired variant of Rouge the Puppetmaster extracted a couple episodes back? She’s out and about, humming Clair de Lune, which is becoming almost as overused as the misaligned gears metaphors.

And as I suspected, Giallon did not die, but simply fell through the atmosphere and was lucky enough to land on dry land. He’s found by a guy named Grauphon, who I have to assume is one of the Immortal Nine, because everyone kinda is, apparently?

I dunno … this was simply not a particularly enjoyable episode. I constantly felt like I was being jerked around. Despite the generous volume of dialogue this week, shockingly little actually meant anything to me. Rouge seems to be listlessly going with the flow, and for the life of me I simply do not get Naomi’s whole deal. Make it make sense, Metallic Rouge.

Classroom of the Elite – S3 08 – The King Must Remain

Suzune assumes leadership of the class and declares that the person they can do most without in their class is Yamauchi Haruki. When he protests, she not only points out how he has the least ability, but has also been conspiring to get Ayanokouji expelled. When blaming Ike doesn’t work, he throw Kushida under the bus, which was always going to be a bad move.

No, Yamauchi is a mere mouse in the corner, and Suzune is a snake preparing for a swift and efficient kill. But to Yousuke, it feels like she’s a cat playing with her food. He finds this whole exercise distasteful to the point he completely drops his nice guy façade, tells her to shut the hell up, and vows to give her his negative vote.

But as Chabashira-sensei adds after this heated exchange, this special exam isn’t meant to be cruel, and anyone who sees it that way is simply being immature. This is a school that produces leaders, and it becomes necessary at times for leaders to cut someone loose. Suzune is making the best of a bad situation and making the hard call, while Yousuke clings to naive idealism.

Meanwhile in Class D, Manabe Shiho teasts Ibuki Mio about her bud Ryuuen’s imminent expulsion, while Ishizaki urges her to take Ryuuen’s private points off of him before it happens. Ibuki meets Ryuuen that night by the water, and Ryuuen agrees to give them to her.

When he wall-or rather pole-slams her and blocks her defensive kick, only to withdraw, saying he likes her belligerent side, but leaves “too many openings” to ever have a chance at beating Suzune.

Meanwhile, Honami calls President Nagumo to ask if he even likes her, to which he says he wouldn’t offer her the deal if he didn’t. That said, she hangs up without agreeing to the deal quite yet, as she want to keep her options open until the last minute.

Once everyone has voted, Yamauchi tells everyone that Sakayanagi promised that Class A would give him positive votes to keep him from getting expelled. But in a previous scene we see that once her plan was exposed she shut that plan down, as she promised Ayanokouji she’d accept the loss of their competition if she indirectly casued his expulsion.

Ayanokouji is the top positive vote-getter, followed by Yousuke and Kushida, while Yamauchi gets the most negatives and is expelled. When he doesn’t accept this and starts crying and shouting, Kouenji provokes him into violence. Chabashira breaks it up and escorts Yamauchi out of the class. In Class A, some nobody got expelled (Sakayanagi decided Katsuragi was too talented to drop), Manabe Shiho is expelled from Class D, and … no one is expelled from Class B.

So Honami caved and made a deal with Nagumo, right? Wrong. Well before the vote, Ibuki and Ishizaki reached out to Ayanokouji for a way to save Ryuuen. They needed positive votes, and Honami needed about four million points to keep someone from being expelled. Once Ibuki got the points from Ryuuen, Ayanokouji served as the go-between for a mutually beneficial deal.

I love it when a secret Ayanokouji plan comes together. Indeed, I pumped my fist emphatically when it was confirmed Honami wouldn’t have to sell herself to that prick Nagumo. As for that prick Ryuuen? Like Ibuki and Ayanokouji, I don’t mind keeping the guy around.

Hell, not only has Ayanokouji proven his intellectual, strategic, and physical superiority, but Ryuuen’s now indirectly in his debt for putting the deal together. That said, Ayanokouji is modest as ever in victory, giving credit to Ryuuen’s associates for wanting to save him in the first place.

As for Sakayanagi, the moment the book closes on the special voting exam, she’s texting Ayanokouji, no doubt to tell him that their competition is back on like Donkey Kong. I say bring it on … whatever it is.

Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun 2nd Stage – 08 – The One Who Gets to Choose

Mizusawa takes Tomozaki to Gumi’s all-girl’s school festival to observe, to absorb, and if possible, to flirt. He gets things started by effortlessly acquiring the contact info of one of the first cute girls he sees. By being a little goofy, a little charming, and 100% confident, he tells Tomozaki that attractive people can make themselves even more attractive: a “hotness spiral”, if you will.

They check in with Gumi, who is as apathetic about school festivals as she is about work. She can guess why two guys came to an all-girl’s school festival, and when she learns Tomozaki doesn’t have a girlfriend, he wishes him good luck with the girls in her class. Tomozaki doesn’t feel ready for this kind of thing yet, though he does manage to get a selfie with Mizusawa in “glasses.”

His last selfie is almost as easy as Tama’s. After having so many (earned) kind words about her story, Fuuka agrees to be in a selfie with Tomozaki. When they bump shoulders they both blush and Tomozaki apologizes, but it’s fine for Fuuka. I’m sure she’s nervous and shy (and indeed would prefer if he didn’t post their photo), but it’s clear she’s excited by this sudden development in their friendship. A selfie with Tomozaki is as big a deal as a selfie with her is to him.

Hinami congratulates Tomozaki on completing his photo checklist, but asks if he really has been giving the dating goal any thought. If he’s honest, he hasn’t. But we’ve known for a while now (since the first season, in fact) the two girls he wants to get closer to most. That’s Fuuka and Mimimi. Mimimi even foreshadows a later declaration by telling Tomozaki he’s “the only straight man for me,” albeit first in the context of him being in a comedy routine with her for the festival.

As Fuuka begins the task of adapting her short story to a script, she’s still struggling with the ending, which has a direct parallel to Tomozaki’s situation. She’s not sure who among two characters will end up with the hero, and what will happen to the other one. He asks who she’d choose if it were her, but she doesn’t want her personal feelings to affect her story.

Then Fuuka asks him: if there were two special people in his life, how would he choose one from among them? His answer—that he’s not in a position to make such a choice—clearly disappoints Fuuka, and probably for more reasons than one. If she’s trying to find out if he likes her, this line of questioning didn’t work.

Perhaps she’s simply talking hypothetically, but her faces and reactions suggest otherwise. But I also don’t know if she’d have any more success if she simply asked him, “Me, or Mimimi?” All I know is, it’s the rare meeting with Fuuka that ends with both of them feeling down. Mimimi spots him after school, and can tell even from the slump of his back that something’s bothering him.

She surprises him with a hearty slap on the back, hoping to cheer him up. She asks about Gumi, then why he went to an all-girls festival, and when he puts himself down, she tries to point out that he shouldn’t do that. She then proceeds to tell him all the things she likes about him, jokes about him thinking it means she likes him “that way”, and then admits that yes, she actually does like him that way. Not that I had any doubts!

The animators took special care to make Mimimi look more lovely than ever, while her seiyu Hasegawa Ikumi knocks it out of the park with her vulnerable earnestness. There’s no “psych!” or “just joking!” after she essentially confesses to Tomozaki. She simply says “See you later” and skips off, her ears burning from what just transpired. Here’s hoping Tomozaki interprets this for what it is and doesn’t misunderstand: He’s been given a choice, and he’s going to have to make one.

Gushing over Magical Girls – 08 – The Fault in Our Stars

Sayo owns up, at least partially, to her recent shortcomings as a member of Tres Magia. Without going into the sordid details, she tells Haruka and Kaoruko that she fought Baiser alone and was “totally dominated.” She never wants to feel that defeated again, so she asks them to help her train harder and become stronger.

Meanwhile, Utena, Kiwi, and Korisu are ordered to transform and report to Nacht Base at once, where they’re hastily introduced to the founding members of Enormita: Lord Enorme, Leberblume, Sister Gigant, and Loco Musica. They were just on a “Magical Girl Hunt”, and imagery suggests they are actually murdering girls—not what Utena signed up for … I-I mean, not what Utena was forced to sign up for!

Enorme believes they’re ready to conquer the world, which is at odds with Vena’s commitment to building up their numbers. Enorme decides to turn her back on Vena and Enormita and go it alone with her lieutenants. She then asks Sister Gigant to crush the newbies. She’s able to grow to super-huge size, breaking out of Korisu’s dollhouse.

Before Gigant can crush them between her boobs, Utena tells Kiwi to detonate all the explosives she’s got, then shields Kiwi from the blast at great personal bodily harm. The three and Vena escape the base, and Kiwi is beside herself with worry. But Utena simply starts laughing maniacally, declaring she doesn’t like this “Lord Squad” one bit, and she’ll see to it they’re all put down.

After excusing Kiwi and Korisu at the hospital where she’s healing up, Utena correctly deduces that Vena knew the Lord Squad would betray them. Utena also makes nice and sparkling clear that she won’t be allowing any further hunting of magical girls, which she believes to be treasures. It’s a passionate, fiery rant, beautifully delivered by Izumi Fuuka.

Loco Musica, not content to let the rookies off scot-free, asks Lord Enorme if she can go squash them like the weakling bugs they are. Enorme agrees, but warned Loco she won’t tolerate failure. When she calls the rookies out, Kiwi takes the bait, forcing Korisu to join the battle with her (and bail her out).

Both of them must then endure Loco’s absolutely dreadful singing voice (great work by the seiyu, who can probably sing for real), but with the power of teamwork, they’re able to use flash grenades to stun Loco and slip away. Kiwi and Korisu have a nice moment while hiding in the tree, as Kiwi apologizes for jumping into battle and breaking one of Korisu’s dolls.

Things do not go so nicely for Loco Musica. While she’s a deeply deluded and arrogant young woman who may well have murdered dozens of magical girls, I still don’t think she deserves the harsh punishment doled out by Lady Enorme.

Loco is made to strip, Enorme shoved the end of her crop into her mouth, and then she’s viciously whipped in a scene that frankly feels way too dark and serious for a silly ecchi anime. Maybe that’s on purpose: the kid gloves are coming off.

But the scene does establish one thing: Enorme rules with fear and pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if when she tightens her iron grip, her acolytes may just slip through her fingers, leaving her to contend with a seriously pissed Magia Baiser and her team all by her lonesome.