Intense is right. The episode should honestly come with a content warning. Watching Rika struggling with the desire to cut herself and end it all was rough to watch, especially with how she tells her pet turtle to revert so it wouldn’t have to see. It is however nice to see her peel away her energetic self and confront her inner turmoil, and man does she kick some major ass when she pulls herself together.
I seriously love the way they wrote Rika’s relationship with her mother this episode. It’s a raw mix of familial love and distance. Rika freely complains about her mom to her friends but she’s quiet and sullen around her mom. They’re awkward, but Rika does eat that cake. She’s gonna accept being weak, keep kicking butt and protect her mother. And I think that’s beautiful.
The friendship between the four girls is the most wholesome thing. I love them. They deserve happiness.
Edited by fillerdude on Feb 23rd 2021 at 11:23:06 AM
Episode 9: Right off the bat we start with a shocker that shakes even Rika to her very core— Neiru has invited them to stay over, because she felt like it. Mind. Blown. They have a proper little get-together where they eat takoyaki and paint their nails.
But wait! Neiru’s most recent Wonder Egg turns out to be someone she knew in real life! Specifically, her fellow test tube baby (oh yeah have we mentioned Neiru is a test tube baby) and best friend whom she’s been keeping frozen in her room. This girl named Kotobuki has basically killed herself through her experiments, but that also happens to transport her to Wonderland where she discovers evidence for parallel universes, “innocent sorrow” and the “temptation of death”, and that ominous gibberish is apparently vital to the plot. So vital that it turns out Neiru’s assistant has been in cahoots with Acca and Other Acca all along. Oh and those mannequins have marched proudly into villain territory. What’s their scheme? We must know!
Also, I knew that WEP was going to tackle some heavy themes but I did not expect that we’d explore the topic of pulling the plug on life support. Wow.
Hmm, is it just me or does it seem that Koito actually had a thing for Ai? That’s wild.
Last note: Best girl Neiru also got the best pet. Go Pinky.
Episode 10: WTF. Neiru gets a new hairdo! It’s cute!
Oh, and she knows who Acca and Ura-Acca are. Hell, they’re the ones who founded her company. It’s kinda cute how Ai and Rika were so easily distracted by “girl talk”.
Damn, gotta feel bad for Momoe getting rejected like that. And her next egg girl is one that identifies as a boy. How appropriate.
Turns out the deal with the Acca and Ura-Acca is legit. Momo’s statue girl is freed though who knows what that means, exactly. The problem is, those two mannequins conveniently left out what happens when you succeed... turns out, Death isn’t too thrilled about his whole resurrection business.
And to top it all off Ai finally confronts her own feelings and asks about how Koito died. What a doozy. WHAT A DOOZY.
I do feel like the story was stronger when it had the mystery to it. A mysterious dreamscape where girls can fight against societal evils and predators, dealing with their own traumas in ways that might help, and chasing a goal that may or may not actually be attainable? I know that's not the kind of thing you can maintain for a whole series - you have to give answers somewhere - but "fictional MENSA makes test tube babies so suicidal girls can fight the Freudian concept of death" is... hm. They aimed high, I'll give them that much, but at this point it's hard to see them sticking the landing.
And Sawaki's still basically made of creepy vibes.
It's been fun.I've settled on the fact that whatever I could have wanted out of this show was lost after episode 1, but that's just that.
As for Momoe, I liked some parts of her struggle this episode, disliked some. Her opening her shirt to assert she's a girl felt tone deaf, but I did find it genuinely sweet that even though she's straight she regards Kaoru as a boy and seemed genuinely happy about the kiss at the end. T'was cute. Pity that it was followed shortly after by mind break though
Also the girls refusing to follow up on important stuff like Momoe or even the thing with Accas is annoying. It's like the plot is trying to force itself to stall.
Edited by Mami on Jun 18th 2021 at 6:10:23 PM
I absolutely cannot help but adore handsome 2D boysIndependent of the rest of the show, I might have liked this episode. But finding out that apparently the source of all our problems was not just society but evil lip popping, suicide inducing A.I.s is certainly a jump!
I absolutely cannot help but adore handsome 2D boysYeeeah, the show had started to lose me starting with the whole MENSA eugenics thing when I was perfectly happy with it being a fantastical psychological mystery-thriller with nary a hint of sci-fi in sight.
Edited by ComicX6 on Mar 23rd 2021 at 7:38:07 AM
My Megaman and MegaTen RPG LiveblogsYou call it sci-fi but it’s so soft it might as well be a computer-flavored of magic.
Reserving my thoughts for when the whole story wraps up but having a yandere AI be an all-encompassing, insidious cause of suicide seems... misguided. I suppose Frill could be a huge metaphor for the many biological and non-biological causes of depression but eh, it’s disappointing to say the least. Honestly the writers didn’t have to explain this whole Wonder Egg business, and the deal with Acca and Ura-Acca. They could have kept it a mystery. They should have stuck with the girl’s personal arcs, instead of this final-boss plot.
It’s rough seeing Neiru and Rika traumatized like that.
Ah well, I’m used to series fizzling out in the end. Hope we at leat get a bombastic action sequence for the finale.
I could feel myself checking out of this series minute by minute with this episode. Yes, let's suddenly pretend that a nasty little melodrama with far too many Electra Complex undertones explains anything about this system, while doubling and tripling down on the "girls are inherently unstable and prone to suicides because their silly little heads can't handle bad things" concept from earlier in the show. Even if the intent is to show that Acca and Ura-Acca caused all of this with their cavalier treatment of Frill, the episode includes plenty of instances of female characters getting fridged and fridging each other, all to set up a final boss that makes no sense because the rules make no sense.
It's been fun.Just a heads up that there are supposed to be two more episodes left and we probably won't be seeing the final episode for a while because the show's production is apparently really bad behind the scenes (TLDR version is that the team's approach is too ambitious for their size and the showrunner's experience in that position - this is Shin Wakabayashi's first time in the director's chair) and its particular timeslot can't be extended after the unplanned recap episode ate up a week to stem the bleeding.
My Megaman and MegaTen RPG Liveblogs

Huh, when you say it like that I can see the problem. It would be one thing if they met in a casual scenario, but their interactions were probably caused by his attempts to get Ai back to school
I absolutely cannot help but adore handsome 2D boys