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I was super confused by that conversation as well as first, especially Rika's weird "no discrimination" line that felt like it came completely out of left field, but I think what the conversation was actually getting is that while all the statues are girls (because only girls who regret their suicide get the chance to come back), the egg hunters themselves don't actually need to be female. Hence "you don't need to get hung up on gender" (of the actual egg hunters) and the "no discrimination" line is just Rika being a poo poo and parroting Acca to annoy Neiru. The "women emotional men logical" poo poo is still weird but I'm willing to just chalk it up to the awful mannequins being awful for now.
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Feb 3, 2021 03:51
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I definitely feel like the point of Ai's material was supposed to be her resolving to find the truth about Koito. Even ignoring the potential creepiness, if the point of that episode was really just "Ai realises she loves her teacher and then decides to go back to school", that'd also just kinda feel like a pretty trite character resolution? And not one I'd really expect from this show.
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Feb 16, 2021 19:25
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Yeah I gotta be honest I was kinda worried about how everything we'd gotten about Neiru's background before this episode felt kinda completely removed from the show's more grounded material, and Neiru The Genius Science Baby And Her Albino Scientist Friend pretty much just played into all my misgivings in that regard. It's not even really the plot stuff that bothered me, just that Neiru's whole deal felt completely disconnected from the rest of the show in a way that made it hard to invest in it at all.
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Mar 9, 2021 17:12
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To be honest I kinda feel like even Rika had something of the same problem where she kinda had a lot going on that didn't really feel all that related to each other (like the fact that episode 7 didn't really touch on Chiemi or the idol stuff at all)... except in Rika's case the individual elements of her character were all handled well enough, and episode 7 still kinda did a good enough job at illustrating how the events covered in that episode had affected Rika and turned her into the person that she is today, that I was able to overlook some of the awkwardness and just chalk it up to being a result of having a story that's trying to do so many things at once. Whereas this episode both didn't actually answer any of the existing questions we had about Neiru and was also just incredibly weird on its own.
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Mar 9, 2021 19:48
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yeah the more I think on it the more I really don't like how Kaoru's assault was handled this episode, it felt totally gratuitous in a way the show had successfully managed to avoid so far. Aside from that I thought it was a return to form after last week's awkwardness (though the Ai/Sawaki stuff felt somewhat disconnected/distracting from the Momoe stuff in a way that I hope isn't indicative of them suddenly having to smush two episodes together after being forced to reduce the episode count) but yeesh.
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Mar 16, 2021 20:55
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Raenir Salazar posted:This episode kinda makes me feel like we've been had in some way but I'm not sure what, mainly regarding the Plati stuff. Everything else that's happened I think has peoples attention but so up until last week it seemed the strong implication was setting up Acca and Ura-Acca as villainous, but the show seems to have instantly backed away from at the beginning of this episode? Neiru seems unfazed by them talking to her secretary because apparently she knows who they were, and probably met them before I guess? Would make more sense why they weren't well hidden or anything last week, they may actually have nothing to hide? Weird. It does kinda read as a cheap fakeout but the girls have been pretty cavalier about the mannequins' blatant shadiness right from the start, I get the impression that they're pretty much fully aware that the mannequins are shady as poo poo and just don't actually give a poo poo cause they only care about getting their friends back. Them initially grilling the mannequins for information but immediately deciding that they care more about Momoe's date pretty much tracks with how they usually act whenever the mannequins withhold information from them. I doubt the show will actually just go "yeah the mannequins are actually good guys who just want the girls to defeat the god of death or whatever," they're still being blatantly manipulative and clearly completely indifferent to the girls' suffering. I do hope that finding out what happened to Momoe (and potentially Haruka, depending on what actually did happen to her) finally gets them to more actively fight back against it, it'd be pretty loving weird if they see Momoe completely traumatized from literally being force-fed her pet and are still like "wow, that's hosed up, ah well back to fighting monsters."
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Mar 17, 2021 01:48
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You know, I feel like I've been gradually starting to realize that I pretty much agree entirely with the criticisms that this show is actually kind of just a haphazardly written mess, and also that I... don't really care that much? Like I'm not really convinced that the show will actually be able to tie all its plot elements together in a satisfying manner, or that it actually really knows what it's doing with its various gruesome subject matters, or even that it really understands what it's doing with the characters themselves, but I also wish all of these children the world, and as long as the show provides a satisfying resolution for all of them I think I'll probably end up feeling pretty happy about the show overall. Which is still kind of a big if, but honestly I'm strangely feeling more optimistic that the show might actually end on a satisfying note than I have been for most of the show's run even as the cracks in the writing have actually become more and more apparent over the past couple of weeks.
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Mar 17, 2021 13:34
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I was pretty much expecting that the show would probably have a big dumb lore episode that'll piss everyone else off, and normally I get the impression that I'm actually a lot less annoyed by that than a lot of other people so long as it doesn't detract from the elements I actually care about in the show (I never gave a poo poo about the Kyousougiga lore dump episode that seemingly everybody else hates, for instance), but in this show's case I certainly can't help but be worried about the show's ability to provide satisfying resolutions for all its core cast in potentially just one more episode. Hopefully they just decided to get the Acca lore out of the way now so they can place the focus squarely back on the girls for the finale, and the finale doesn't instead just get tangled up in a whole bunch of Plot.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:10
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Has there been any actual confirmation on that? I've seen people repeating it a lot but as far as I can tell all the official materials are still listing the show as twelve episodes so I'm not sure if this is coming from insiders on the show or if it's just assumptions being repeated as fact. It sure doesn't feel like the show is heading into the finale, or like the last episodes have been particularly cut down, but I've still just been operating under the assumption of twelve episodes being all we're gonna get rather than hurting myself with the expectation of an additional episode that might not actually come even though it's hard for me to actually believe there's only one episode left.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:36
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For what it's worth I think it's obvious that the show is trying to say that it's these weird ideas of femininity that are perpetuated by people like the Accas that are directly responsible for these girls' suicides, it's just that it also all feels based in some very weird hang-ups that Nojima himself has that feel kind of at odds with whatever the show is actually trying to say and I'm not really confident that it'll be able to resolve it all in a way that feels meaningful and not just weird, not helped by the strange intersection between the bizarre sci-fi plot and the way it ties into the attempts at Very Serious Social Commentary. Honestly my opinions on the episode itself will probably end up depending heavily on how well the finale actually ties all of these things together. On its own the episode is a perfectly effective hosed up sci-fi horror story about two bisexual dads making a robot daughter and then throwing her away when she doesn't know how to deal with the emotions they gave her. It's just its position in the show, both in regards to how well the gender stuff and the sci-fi plot will tie into whatever the gently caress the show is actually trying to say and to whether the show really has enough time to be spending an entire episode on a big lore dump flashback about the Accas while still tying to offer satisfying conclusions to all of those things. Best case scenario the weird gender stuff is actually going somewhere meaningful and it ends up feeling maybe kinda sloppy in some regards but ultimately well-intentioned. Worst case the entire final act ends up getting dragged down by a bunch of dumb sci-fi bullshit and bizarre gender-essentialism that flies in the face of everything it's actually trying to say. Mid case it isn't really going anywhere with the gender stuff or the sci-fi plot but provides a satisfying enough emotional resolution for the characters that I can overlook the bad parts? Honestly I really was kinda hoping the show would really just go for the last one and just offer a modest message about moving on from grief and healing from trauma or whatever, but by this point it's entirely clear that the show is just fully intent on Saying Things even if the Things it has to Say end up just being weird and bad and bring the whole thing down in flames. BlitznBurst fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 04:16
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Also I agree that it's really weird how Ai and Neiru offer basically no acknowledgement of how Rika and Momoe both just stated ghosting them. Even if the next episode opens with a scene of them trying to reach the other two with the implication that they had been trying the entire time it still feels very weird that the show would have Rika and Momoe both get traumatized by horrible bug creatures and then completely ignore that and instead just cut to Ai randomly going to the Accas' house for no reason for a big Acca flashback. It gives the impression that the show doesn't think these things actually matter until it just decides they do, which just feels very wrong.
BlitznBurst fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 04:57
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There have been insiders claiming there's gonna be a 13th episode but also I think the official account put out a tweet calling next week's episode "the finale," and it seems like the original tweet claiming we've got two more coming was deleted? Double-length episode is a possibility but considering they've been having a hard enough time putting out one episode every week I have a hard time believing they'll be able to finish two on time. So basically who knows, but for now I think it's best to just assume we've only got one more episode.
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Mar 25, 2021 03:19
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Yeah I don't get the impression that the show is setting up for any kind of misdirect with the Sawaki stuff, that's genuinely just the conclusion to that particular plot thread. Which, uh, yeah, it feels pretty weak to have Sawaki spend ten episodes being a creepy motherfucker and then just go "Haha Sawaki is actually just a perfectly nice dude who isn't creepy at all. Please ignore that painting of Ai in the corner."
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Mar 31, 2021 03:39
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I mean, it's not an OVA at all, it's literally just the final episode that got delayed because the show's schedule fell apart and they had to air a recap episode to buy time. The only reason the final episode is being marketed as a "special episode" is because of the production committee actively trying to obfuscate the fact that the show's production was a total trash fire by going "no, see, it's an extra episode, we totally didn't have to delay the final episode because we weren't able to finish the show in time." Not gonna deny that the last two episodes in general were by far the show's weakest, but calling the last episode an "ending" really isn't true in any sense of the word.
BlitznBurst fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Apr 10, 2021 |
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Apr 10, 2021 12:19
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In hindsight I think I might have come off overly aggressive in that post lol. But yeah this episode clearly wasn't intended to be the finale at all given the rather abrupt note it ended on, just the unfortunate circumstances the show's staff were dealt. Definitely not the ideal place to be left hanging for several months and I certainly have my own doubts about the show's ability to wrap everything up in a satisfying manner in just one episode, but as long as the finale puts the focus squarely on the girls' emotional journey and doesn't get too wrapped up in trying to explain all the weird sci-fi plot poo poo it's set up (maybe a big if, admittedly) I think I'll personally be pretty happy with the show flaws and all.
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Apr 10, 2021 15:00
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I mean I'd like to think the show is fully aware that the Accas are monsters, but I thought the same thing about Sawaki before it just decided to brush aside ten episodes of him being a creepy motherfucker with Ai going "hey Sawaki's a cool guy actually" and that's it, conflict resolved. And the show's framing of the Accas is actually significantly more ambiguous than Sawaki's was. Like I dunno if it'll end with them outright being the "good guys" but the show at the very least certainly seems to be portraying them as tragic figures rather than outright villains. That being said I also don't expect the show to just have Frill be the Ultimate Evil that the girls need to defeat to solve all of their problems and that's it. If anything I feel it's more likely that it'll end up "redeeming" both her and the Accas and have her make a big happy family with her abusive mannequin dads again. Or if they do have to kill Frill it'll at least be portrayed as something tragic, and everyone will be sad about it for a bit and the Accas will learn a valuable lesson about, uh, treating girls like human beings I guess?? But at the same time I've also long lost any confidence that this show actually knows what it's doing with its plot/thematic elements, so if the show does end with the girls defeating the evil AI girl and Solving the Issue of Teen Suicide and bringing all of their statue friends back to life and the Accas make a big happy family with their "real" daughter instead then, well, I'm not gonna pretend to be surprised.
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Apr 15, 2021 06:17
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Nuebot posted:The more people keep insisting that Sawaki has to be some kind of weird pervert creep because of the weird way he looks the more I kind of want him to not be one and have a perfectly fine relationship with Ai's mom, honestly. Especially since people keep harping on how the series has to be leaning towards defending the Accas because they don't do the weird looks I guess. Seems like a weird way to base your opinion, but that's just me. It's less to do with "the weird way he looks" and more to do with the fact that having one-on-one painting sessions with your middle-school students and marrying the mother of the traumatized student you are supposed to be counselling and painting a picture of a grown-up version of her called "latent heat" and constantly telling her how beautiful she is is objectively creepy as poo poo. BlitznBurst fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Apr 17, 2021 |
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Apr 17, 2021 00:05
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To be honest my biggest fear for the finale was mostly that it wouldn't have the time to give the proper amount of focus to the girls' emotional journeys by virtue of having to spend all of its time resolving the myriad stupid plot threads it still has hanging out there, so the finale being double length honestly has me very reassured that regardless of whether it actually manages to tie together all of its plot/thematic elements in a satisfying way (it won't), it at least hopefully won't detract from the stuff I actually still care about. On the other hand now that I'm actually getting my hopes up that the show might actually be able to pull it off after spending several months fully prepared for the finale to just suck rear end and to be perfectly happy with that, I don't know if I can bear the crushing disappointment if the finale actually does turn out to just completely suck rear end.
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Jun 10, 2021 05:31
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That was bad in like, an entirely different way from all of the myriad different ways I feared it could be bad. I genuinely do not know how to articulate how utterly bizarre that was. I guess I'm glad I had already accepted that the show didn't really actually know what the gently caress what it's doing with all its plot/thematic elements so this finale couldn't really affect my opinion of the show in any way...
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Jun 30, 2021 05:30
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... I was so taken aback by the Koito/Sawaki stuff that I actually totally glossed over the implication that she had literally already done the same thing with her previous teacher. Fuckin christ.
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Jun 30, 2021 06:39
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Basically the most positive thing I can say about that episode is that the Ai/Rika/Momoe scenes... could have been nice, if they hadn't had the spectre of the entire rest of the episode hanging over them at all times. Like the girls still have a natural chemistry that almost actually manages to shine through even in the face of... all of this. But ultimately it all still takes a backseat to the rest of the episode's insane bullshit, and ultimately still falls victim to the episode's completely inert emotional delivery. Like I don't even think them drifting apart is inherently awful, the problem is that like every other thing that happens in the episode it is given no emotional weight whatsoever, it just kinda happens and then is moved on from and that's it, which basically just makes it feel like the show is declaring that these relationships just didn't actually matter in the first place. But again basically everything in this episode is given about the same level of emotional weight, so I feel like that's really more just a result of... whatever the gently caress happened that resulted in this episode being the way that it is in the first place. Hell, I think a version of this episode that was literally just entirely about the three of them adjusting to this new world where their traumas never happened and their former best friends no longer know them could have been genuinely good. I'm sure they could even find some way to work the Neiru bullshit in there that isn't just completely stupid (maybe just get rid of the android bullshit and have her run off for some other reason and then have the other three resolve to find her together rather than Ai just forgetting about the other two and running off to meet Neiru on her own).
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Jun 30, 2021 08:07
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Also like, am I meant to assume that that dialogue happened when she talked to Sawaki at the exhibition? And that Ai actually knew all of this during the events of episode 12? Because if so that doesn't just invalidate Ai's emotional resolution in that episode, it actively makes it not make sense because Ai literally did already know why Koito committed suicide. (I mean, I guess you can make the case that she still technically didn't know because it was still just Sawaki's word, but...)
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Jun 30, 2021 15:29
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I've seen some people suggesting that there might have been some last-minute rewrites or story changes that resulted in why this episode was the way that it is, but if anything I kinda get the opposite impression - that the rest of the staff might have initially had a much heavier hand in shaping the show during the earlier episodes, but as time went on and the schedule got tighter they just had less and less time to actually make any changes while adapting Nojima's script. Like, the finale's problems clearly go far beyond just the overt plot happenings - the entire episode felt like they were just running down a checklist of story beats in the most rote and lifeless way possible, and the end result was strange and disjointed and entirely devoid of any sort of emotional impact whatsoever. It mostly just kinda drove in just how much the rest of the show's staff actually elevated Nojima's scripts, because honestly I wouldn't even say the stuff that happens in this episode is really any "worse" than any of the stupid poo poo that happened in the show's earlier episodes, beyond the inherent stupidity of the fact that the show was still introducing stupid plot twists right to its last minute (well, that and the genuinely horrible note that Koito's story ended on, there really was no salvaging that) - it just didn't have the show's usual aesthetic grace to pull it out of the mud. And this isn't really meant to be me just one-sidedly lumping all of the show's problems onto Nojima or anything - if anything, the episode's closest thing to a saving grace was that even to the end the characters really did have some compelling chemistry, and there were at least some scenes in there that I felt at least could have worked if they hadn't had the spectre of the entire rest of the episode hanging over them. It's more just an acknowledgement that a work like this pretty much requires being able to actually adapt the scripts they're based on rather than just robotically transcribing the words that are written there onto the screen, and when the staff aren't given the time to do that you get... well, this episode. Granted, I guess I also wouldn't really be surprised if it turns out there really were some last minute rewrites that also resulted in this episode being the way that it is. BlitznBurst fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Jul 1, 2021 |
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Jul 1, 2021 18:53
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Yeah, I think that literally the bare minimum this show would have needed to do to make the conclusion to Koito's story in this episode not be inherently gross is to at least, you know, approach her position with empathy and tact and an attempt to understand why she is the way that she is rather than just going "wow, look at this crazy bitch, ruining the lives of these upstanding men!" For a show that purports to be looking at why these young girls commit suicide to really just conclude her story by going "bitches be crazy, yo" and looking no further into it at all is just... I mean, heck, even if they'd literally just inserted that conversation into the scene where it originally took place in the timeline, and not really changed much else, that... actually would still have been a bit better? Like, having Sawaki tell Ai his version of the story during episode 10 or 11, then having Ai mull it over throughout episode 12 before ultimately concluding that she can't know what the truth about Koito actually is but that doesn't change the fact that Koito saved her... it certainly wouldn't fix the inherent grossness of the story itself or the fact that Sawaki himself is still unambiguously presented as a completely trustworthy, stand-up guy who was really just the victim of Koito's hysterics or whatever, but it at least would have somewhat preserved the subplot's ambiguous but somewhat hopeful ending note rather than completely undermining it with this pointlessly nasty swerve right at the start of the next episode? Like, I genuinely don't understand what the gently caress the point even was of hiding what Sawaki said until the very last minute except for the sake of throwing in one more mean-spirited twist right at the very end. Either that or I'm giving Nojima too much credit by assuming that this was a planned twist and not something that he literally just threw in there while writing the last episode just for the sake of it, which frankly wouldn't really surprise me.
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Jul 1, 2021 20:43
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I might be more inclined to give the writer the benefit of the doubt wrt Koito actually just being a deeply hosed up kid who did a deeply hosed up thing if the show had demonstrated literally any interest in exploring that in any way beyond as a last-minute twist, but if the show were actually interested in exploring Koito's issues then it had literally plenty of opportunity to do so considering the mystery behind why Koito committed suicide was, you know, literally one of the central conflicts of the show and of Ai's personal arc. So I really can't see the show's refusal to do so as indicative of anything other than the writer simply just not caring. Which for a show that purports to be exploring what exactly leads these young girls to suicide, sure does undermine pretty much the entire core of the story! ... Man, I can't believe the writer managed to write a conclusion to Koito's subplot that actually made me prefer the "actually an evil AI did it" explanation.
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Jul 2, 2021 22:34
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