Release The SPYCE

Hm... interesting episode. So we finally learn the story behind what happened two years ago and how Yuuki got her scar. And then Yuuki and Momo get some kind of clue as to Evil Lady's identity. Also, Mei gets a scene that makes me very suspicious of her possibly being the mole.

Regarding that, by the way, the show could do with getting to that reveal. It's been running around for a while and there's some tension about it, but it's starting to wear thin. Just a lot of teasing, very little actually happening. I hope we get to that next episode.

Episode 9:

Today's episode focuses on Yuuki's backstory and man... I feel bad for her mentor though who ended up sacrificing herself and so that's why Yuuki is a bit harsh on Momo's decision fighting with the old man which is understandable. Also, the real name of the current boss is Moryo is Fumiko who is a head of Kyuutei Science corp or better known as Tendo? Huh... Interesting. I thought she was originally a rouge Tsukikage member. Also, seems the next episode are where the death flags are raising and both Tsukikage and Moryo will have an intense battle.

For a twist they've been building up from the start, the whole thing with the traitor ended up being real boring

Otherwise, actually pretty decent, with some real surprises

I'm not buying what they're selling. At all.

Whie Mei is characterized as a free spirit, there was nothing to suggest that it went so far as to her being a sociopath. Also from a franchise standpoint it would basically be impossible for one half of a single unit to suddenly become a villain. Meanwhile, Mei specifically requested to hold onto Fuu, and the last show shows all of the other girls in same van as her, not to mention Hatsume was "finished off" with one of her own explosives. It's also a clear opportunity for Never Found the Body in full swing.

My fervent belief is that this is all a setup by Tsukikage to get them into Moryo's base, one that was possibly hidden by the mentors from their apprentices.

That was underwhelming.

So, Mei. I can see the narrative potential for it, but I am absolutely not buying the turn at all. That was a very sudden switch in character. On top of that, the entire traitor thing happened in a very predictable fashion, up to and including the obvious "character is seemingly killed but survives to save the others" with Tsubame. I mean, really? Throwing her in the water and then sending a bomb, and you just immediately assume she's dead? That was weak and you know it, show. Yuki, I'm a bit more curious about. I'm pretty sure the show didn't just kill her, but then I also find it weird they'd just shrug off a massive slice across the torso. Oh, and Theresia is now going to turn, as one should expect. The only thing that might stick is Byakko and Katrina dying in that explosion, mostly because they're very pointless to the story as it is.

Really, this episode was just kind of uninteresting. Very paint-by-numbers, even with the tired cliches and the usual problems they carry. I'm slightly disappointed in the show.

Interesting theory. I'm going to hope you're right and the show doesn't play this episode straight.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Dec 9th 2018 at 9:50:56 AM

Yeah, this feels really flat. Mei's just like "Lol, I'm totes evil btw, lmao!" and instead of shocked or outraged I'm mostly baffled. And on top of everything else she even drinks the totally not suspicious gelatin she's handled. The whole things goes down because Yuki can't keep eye on her opponent even when double dosing. Theresia still hasn;t turned, but is somehow shocked that Moryo doesn't trust her, even though they already implanted a kill switch in her before.

Honestly, the "triple agent" theory would just be better writing, because what we got this episode was just kind of... bad.

My issue with the whole traitor reveal is that they haven't really spent much time on the traitor plot throughout the story, aside from a brief mention of "oh yeah there's a traitor" every couple of episodes, and so when it finally happens then it feels out of the blue, which makes me feel even more like this is some sort of setup to a greater plan.

I feel like a subplot that's being ignored a bit is the past between Moryo and Tsukikage, and how there seems to a lot of mutual bad blood between them outside of the whole heroes vs villains bit. If comments about how 800 years of karma between the two would be decided and her Pre-Mortem One-Liner are indicative of anything, she may believe herself on the side of justice. An offhand comment back in Episode 8 also suggests that it was actually Moryo who first developed and used Spyce.

Also regarding the character page, I feel like there has to be a better way of identifying which one of them is The Mole while maintaining spoilers, since the trope being on their character page automatically spoils which one it is, which ruins the point of the spoiled text.

Edited by Uninstall on Dec 9th 2018 at 6:23:59 AM

Episode 10:

Man that was dark and damn... Mei was a traitor all along huh and seems that Moryo is on the front right now and wins against the Tsukikage force. Yuuki though and so does Hatsume... On the bright side, Byakko pulls a Heel Face Turn but the rest, man what a downer. It's expected from the creators of Akame Ga Kill.

The one thing I think which supports the triple Agent theory the best.

Is the fact Mei drank the gelatin.

That seems totally opposed to her stated reasons for being the traitor.^note I don't think I have to spoiler the she. I'm not sure this anime actually has a single important male character.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Dec 10th 2018 at 11:07:48 PM

Yes, there is! There's the... uh... hold on, gimme a sec...

Ah! The shopkeeper! That guy who gives Momo food once in a while! I'm certain he's the real traitor!

Anyhow, that does seem like a solid reason to trust the triple traitor theory, totally true.

Either that or she has short-term memory issues. Or maybe that thing is just that tasty.

Although now I'm not sure if making this a triple cross makes things better, because one way or another, that was a very shoddy episode that made us go for the triple cross theory immediately just out of expecting something better, so really, that's still a major issue with the whole thing. It just kind of makes the villains stupider if it is indeed a thing.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Dec 10th 2018 at 10:43:36 AM

Much surprisingly, the reviewer from ANN seems to have found this episode really good and effective, even praising the very things we criticized here.

Anime News Network are well-known for being plebeians. Clearly they can't engage with the medium on the same level as me, the classically educated anime connoisseur.

No but seriously some of their reviewers just summarize the episode as the review which is not good review writing, they really phone it in.

Anyway, there's further evidence for the theory about the true motives of the traitor. In the scene where Mei is selling Fuu's information to Moryo, her profile lists Fuu's sizes as 80-54-83. I know that Fuu is a Master of Disguise and all, but if she's a D-cup then I'm the bloody queen of England.

Edited by Uninstall on Dec 11th 2018 at 9:20:42 AM

The secret was in her bra all along!

Heh.

I dunno about ANN's reviewers, but the people in the forums sure act like they've never seen a show before. There is one reviewer there I usually agree with quite a lot (currently reviewing Gridman, I think), but I never paid enough attention to see if the others knew what they were talking about. Only been reading their reviews since the start of this season, anyway.

I found the reveal bad because it's so thinly motivated that it comes off as lazy writing. She basically goes "Lol I'm evil now!" with nothing connecting it to her previous characterization. It feels like they just threw a dice to decide who is the traitor at the last moment.

There are actually a few hints that Mei is the traitor if you go back and look at some key details:

• After the team defeat the Moryo operative in Episode 2, in another shot his cellphone is actually missing, and Mei was the only one in the building at that time
• When Momo first licks Mei, she notes that Mei seems a bit "off." Later on, Mei jokes that she'll reveal her own "hidden side" to Momo soon enough
• It's a bit of a stretch, but when she and Fuu fight that masochist dude in Episode 4, she notes that "Sorasaki sure is filled with interesting characters!", which would align with her saying that she loves the chaos of the city.

Also, there was a recent interview with Takahiro with revealed a few interesting details:

• Takahiro's favorite character overall is Byakko, and his favorite member of Tsukikage is Yuki
• Yuki's eye was actually healed back in Episode 8, but they had to cut the scene that showed that off
• The traitor's voice actress was told that she was the traitor while voicing Episode 2, but the other voice actresses were not told until they read the script for Episode 10.
• The founders of Tsukikage and Moryo were actually good friends when they founded their organizations.

i believe Tendo is not the founder of Moryo right?

I believe it was stated in an early episode that both Tsukikage and Moryo are hundreds of years old.

Makes sense. Though I wont be surprised that some members of Moryo tries to make the organization as evil as possible because potatoes!

So this episode got kinda stupider than the last one.

First things first, Mei is either the most obvious triple-traitor in the world or the most ineffective psychotic villain ever. I'm still not sure which. Also, if there really is a plan, Yuki doesn't know about it, because she's kept her silence about it even when the others should have been informed of it. Hatsume has yet to make an appearance, though, so there might still be something there. I'll give the show props for (seemingly) actually killing Byakko and Katrina, even if they were the characters with the least, well, anything to them.

I'm not tripping, right? That torturer girl wasn't introduced in any way before today, was she? Or did I forget a character at some point? Anyway, Moryo is in full presence here, and we get a set of 1v1 fights this episode, although only one of them really happens. Goe fights Theresia and wins, while Fu and Mei kinda fight, but not really, and Mei runs away (and changes clothes really fast in between) moments. Also, Theresia gets a very brutal death (presuming Hatsume didn't find a way to save her) that I will legitimately praise the show for. It was really creepy and unsettling, and they even got the right way to slit someone's wrists (what a weird thing to give praise for).

In the end, this was a weird cross between a setup episode and the first part of a finale. Pacing and structure were weird in several places ("Hey, our families mught be in danger!" *Saves the families in less than a minute then never mentions them again*), arcs were weakly developed, and the show seems to have developed a fondness for having the characters tell us what we just saw happen. Quality took a big dip this time around. Even the animation and sound were kind of off in this episode. I wonder why. The voices, especially. Something must have gone wrong with the recording.

Anyhow, I feel this episode fails to build momentum and tension for the finale, especially since it doesn't really deliver on either Mei's or Hatsume's parts, by addressing the former's treason properly or by giving us a definitive answer on her current state of living on the latter. I'm still slightly disappointed, show. Let's hope the finale does better.

There is one scene where Mei places her hand on Goe's shackled wrist, which is then mysteriously loosened afterward. It's pretty clear that Mei is either a triple agent or she's playing both sides because she loves chaos. It's also awfully suspicious how earnestly she's asking Kurara about her big evil plan.

Also, I didn't buy for a second that Yuki would be offed by a robot of all things and I was proven correct. I feel as though this still keeps the possibility of this being a big ruse that the mentors kept from their apprentices; it'll depend on how Hatsume inevitably makes her reappearance in the finale, because there's zero chance that she's dead when Yuki faked her death and nobody even saw Hatsume's body. Also with how much they were building up Hatsume's and Theresia's thing I find it doubtful that she's really dead either.

One particularly entertaining theory is that This is all just one big fucked-up graduation exam for the apprentices and Sparrow Woman is in on it too. The story's integrity probably wouldn't survive but it would impress me with the sheer audacity of it.

Edited by Uninstall on Dec 15th 2018 at 6:53:54 AM

That theory would be the most spectacular and bold way for a show to burn itself to the ground. I'd have to admire the sheer guts of it, while calling it out for doing exactly that.

Also I agree that the episode was more noticeably Off-Model than before when it had always done a good job of keeping its animation consistent in the past. It could just be down to the crunch of the last few episodes, since a lot of anime tend to have their animation quality deteriorate toward the end.

Also I think that this episode kinda embodies the problem I've had with this show: while I love the character interactions and the cheesier side-missions the girls go on like their journey to Okinawa or Fuu and Mei fighing that masochist right out of a gachimuchi meme, I don't really buy it when the show tries to be more serious. I don't think that we get enough of Moryo, which is a shame because Kurara is pretty cute in the precious few moments that we see her in civilian life and that scientist girl introduced for one scene is pretty nice too. The conflict doesn't really feel weighted, so it feels like the villains are the entertaining Goldfish Poop Gang until the story decides that they need to be actually threatening. I think that more time spent on developing Moryo and their actual motives would've helped this show a lot. I still enjoy the show, but I acknowledge that it could've been a lot better.

Regarding that theory... Oh god, I hope it doesn't happen. That would be an asspull of a plot but I'm scared right now given Takahiro confirmed that the founder of Tsukikage and Moryo used to be friends... Yea :/

Anyways, gotta watch the episode soon enough

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Dec 15th 2018 at 7:14:53 PM

I agree. It's weird, because I'd like more plot to occur, but when it does, it's usually comprised of the weakest parts of the show. The best episode to me was the one that focused on Fu and Mei, which was, overall, largely irrelevant to the plot, while the plot episodes have all been lackluster in one way or another. I think the problem here is that they tried to have a serious spy plot and a light slice-of-life show about cute spy girls simultaneously, but didn't really nail either side. The show would probably have benefitted from focusing on only one of those things instead.

You know, for a while there I was completely certain that the torture scientist from this episode was Hatsume in disguise, but no. She was just a regular character, introduced and dealt with in the same scene.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Dec 15th 2018 at 10:19:21 AM

Think you're right tho. Anyways... It would be interesting if Takahiro pulls the iredeemable heinous villains in this show just like he did in Akame Ga Kill but we'll see in the final episode which I'm scared to look

Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Dec 15th 2018 at 7:18:55 PM