Rolling Girls – 04

Being plopped in the middle of a whole new setting with an entirely different political system and set of customs was as overwhelming for me as it was for the Rolling Girls last week, which at times threatened to rival Gundam-G levels of Proper Noun Onslaught (PNO). The crucial difference being I eventually understood Rolling Girls.

Turns out Thunderroad’s second-in-command Noriko wasn’t taking the girls to be executed, but breaking them out, and letting them crash at her lovely house, where Yukina had actually been before when she had longer hair, glasses, and cuter clothes.

The fact remains, they’re only safe for now; if and when they’re caught, they will be tortured and if found guilty, they’ll end up in the cut, where butlers and maids serve around the clock without rest. It’s a cosplay cafe HELL, and when the reality of their potential fate starts to weigh on them, tempers flare.

Nozomi prefers to stay and clear Chiaya’s name; Ai thinks that’s foolhardy. Their spat is interrupted by Chiaya, who feels bad that this is all happening because its her stone that ended up lost. In other words, the group hits its first rough spot where nobody is in agreement what to do.

Of course, we the audience know that’s all moot, particularly when Thunderoad decides to only sell Momiyama one stone: hers, not Chiaya’s. She races to Noriko’s to deliver it back to its owner, but trips on one of the city’s ubiquitous Roombas, and the stone slips of of her hand, off a balcony, and into the dense city night.

Nozomi, meanwhile, calls home to tell her mom she’s alright, and not hanging out with any boys. The call is both practical and touching, then interrupted by Noriko’s mom insisting on re-spraying Nozomi’s bike, which she really doesn’t want.

The girls then settle in for the night in the room Noriko gave them, having their first sleepover as a group…

…then inexplicably change back into their street clothes to receive Thunderroad. They either thought it would be disrespectful to be in their jammies/underwear, or assumed she was coming to arrest them…or the animators messed up! Either way, Noriko and the girls alike are surprised to find Thunder apologizing to them for suspecting them…and for losing Chiaya’s stone.

She also points out what I thought had been obvious: the stones give their owners superhuman strength, speed, and stamina.

A city-wide search of all Roomba’s progresses, but then a report comes in that one such Roomba has been rigged with a bomb that’s going to go off in five minutes. The people who sent it out—disgruntled Comima security guards—didn’t know it had a bomb until they read the note it came with…after launching it. Oops.

No biggie; the heart stone eventually pops up, and even though Nozomi doesn’t notice it, Thunder’s crow Garm does, and flies it to her so she can power-up in-transit. The Roomba grows limbs and starts evading her, eventually landing cruelly in the afro of her beloved Rickshaw statue.

Rick assures her it’s okay, as he was never a character to put his life above others, and Thunder brings her sword down on the Roomba, detonating it in a brilliant explosion. In the end, Thunder did the right thing…except for selling her own stone, which was supposed to be her first step towards retirement.

Noriko, the Girl’s gracious host this whole episode, then confesses to being Dynamite Bombers; a group she invented out of thin air in order to give Thunder a reason not to retire, so much had she enjoyed serving with her. Thunder agrees not to retire, but installs Noriko as the new captain, preferring to serve as an ordinary solider so her delusions and greed don’t overcome her again.

Chiaya, exercising the very opposite of greed, is impressed enough by Noriko’s gesture, and grateful for her hospitality, that she gives her stone to her. They’ll find other stones on their travels, and right now Noriko needs it more than her (though the Dynamite Bombers don’t exist, so I don’t know who her other enemies are).

After a call to her mom, the president (who wants her Home This Instant but is in no position to be making demands, considering she seemed to be more interested in the stones than her daughter to that point), Chiaya rejoins the others on their trip across Japan, substituting for Maccha Green, and they all realize they like the same band Ai happened to be humming.

While singing “It’s a nice day” over and over again makes for a lame ending theme, the closing montage of their adventures in Hakone and Fuji add some nice texture.

Rolling Girls – 03

Rolling Girls episode two was going to be a tough act to follow, and not even a visit to the towering “Always Comima” in Tokyo (which looks like a massive Big Sight) can keep the show from coming back down to earth.

That being said, it was still a charmer, with the hastily-assembled titular rolling girls off on their first adventure with no time wasted. It’s funny watching Nozomi gradually come to realize that she may have fallen in with a bunch of weirdos. Ai, Yukina, and Chiaya’s very different styles and quirks keep the ride interesting.

They arrive at a Tokyo on high alert after the Moonlight Stone (which they call a “Drom Beserker”) belonging to their local vigilante group’s Best, Thunderoad, comes up missing and assumed stolen by the Knights of the Twin Towers’ rival group, Dynamite Bombers.

The painted, washed out city vistas look pretty, but they lack the visual oomph that a fully-rendered bustling cityscape would provide. But then, perhaps our “yokel” girls from Tokorozawa are so overwhelmed by their surroundings they’re filtering out most visual information.

When they show Chiaya’s stone to two passersby, they trip their “security charms” and have the girls arrested. They’re brought before Thunderoad and her pet crow, who Ai immediately challenges to a fight (the girl, not the crow) and is promptly defeated by a devastating forehead-flicking.

Still, Nozomi manages to smooth things over to the point Thunder gives them till sundown to find her stone, and she’ll give theirs back. She may have a future as a peacebroker after all.

Back home, Nozomi’s parents worry about their daughter’s first big trip abroad, but all they can do is hope she’ll be okay and come back safe. That’s all Masami can to do, since without her stone and in the shape she’s in, she wouldn’t be able to help Nozomi.

As the girls comb Tokyo in vain for the stone (leading to Nozomi inexplicably vomiting), we cut to the Tokorozawa capital, where the president seems to be hoarding the damn things. We also learn that Masami may be “beyond recovery”,  and Chiaya is the president’s daughter, which explains how she got her hands on a stone and is looking for more of them.

We also learn that Thunderoad wants her berserker back so she can sell it to one of President Misono’s buyers, so she can buy a life-size rickshaw figure, presumably to sit in and laugh. In a country of cosplayers and collectors with very exacting tastes, such a specific goal makes sense.

Even when she finds the berserker she lost (the crow hid it in the rickshaw boy’s afro), she still has to part with both her’s and Chiaya’s, since she accidentally overbid on the damn rickshaw, and must now pay double!

When the Dynamite Bombers attacked, Thunderoad originally asked the buyer to delay the transaction, but she ultimately had to choose between being the Best who protects the city and fulfilling her rickshaw figure dream.

She picks the dream, not only giving up her stone but Chiaya’s as well, in a clever reversal of the “do the right thing” trope. Here I thought Nozomi would use that stone to kick ass. Now it will join the others President Misono has gathered, to be used as currency to pay for undisclosed “peacebroker activities”. It’s a very fishy business.