Charlotte #9 – Charlotte has been a long time setting things up, but now it all comes together with a satisfying crash. Yū and Ayumi did have a big brother, and their memories of him were deliberately erased. The threat of mad government scientists spiriting psychics away to their labs isn’t overblown, because it did happen, in a way.
By the standard model of sf narrative physics, the scenes in the lab are earlier in the original timeline than everything shown in the show in the current timeline. Yū’s personal lived experience should belong to the first timeline up until the point that Shunsuke jumped back to do whatever he did, and then it continues onward in the new timeline. This jibes with the timing of Ayumi’s power showing up– in the lab, it’s forced out early, and in the new timeline, it emerges on its natural schedule.
Since people can remember the old timeline, Kumagami would have known what detecting the “collapse” power meant, and summoned Shunsuke’s other friends. They rushed in to intervene, but didn’t make it in time. It seems like it would be very easy now to make another try to save Ayumi, so why don’t they? If Shunsuke has doubled back in time, has he outgrown his power now? Or is there some other artificial limitation on it?
You can bet the one nice scientist is going to turn up again. My money’s on him being the principal of the school in the new timeline.
And finally, there is some substance behind the hints that Yū retains something of other people after he possesses them. He can copy (or steal?) other psychics’ powers. But it also means that he really did pick up some baseball-playing ability in the baseball episode, and it almost excuses his descent into depravity after Ayumi’s death, in that after possessing a bunch of hardcore gang members he might start to behave more like them. That still was an awfully clichéd episode, but Charlotte is making up for it bigtime.
(Crunchyroll – Wakanim – Viewster – AnimeLab – Daisuki – Aniplex)
SCHOOL-LIVE! #8 – After cruising along on the weak anthropic principal of narrative– out of all the schools that must have been affected by the zombie plague, the story has to be about the one which happens to be well-prepared for it, or else there’s no story– the show suddenly decides to explain the zombie plague after all. And with it, we get a new piece of Megumi’s backstory, and a hint about why we haven’t seen more of Yūri’s.
The teachers were warned about a bioweapon being tested in the community, just in case it got out of hand. Megumi probably had figured out what was going on by the time the plague reached the school. Maybe she specifically kept Yuki there after regular classes to protect her.
Every day, Megumi went to the school office. When it became clear the siege was long-term, she hid the incriminating disaster plan, ditched the key to the secret cabinet in the club room, and went to write up her experiences (that scene at the beginning of episode three, where she was writing, “This might be my last will and testament…”). Maybe she was planning to head out on her own and hoped that the notebook would be found even if she didn’t make it.
Megumi seems to have respected Yūri more than the others. Did she tell Yūri what was really going on? What’s going to happen when the others show Yūri their find?
Gatchaman Crowds insight #8 – Like a friendly Borg made out of pillows, the legions of Kū are determined to assimilate everyone into one big happy collective by satisfying their every need. And by eating people who are too creeped out to participate voluntarily.
Kū is one of the readings of the ideogram 空, which means “empty”. That should make the symbolism clear: the Kū beings represent the ability of technology to produce false satisfaction. They replace interaction with other human beings with artificial stimulation of the emotions.
Looking at the Kū’s red, white, and blue color scheme, it’s hard not to think that they’re also a slam at a certain big-time social network that originated in the US. The dominant social network in Japan is Mixi. In contrast to Facebook’s ongoing attempts to vacuum up all your personal data and become the entire Internet for you, Mixi is content to let its users interact through pseudonyms and retains a focus on enabling person-to-person contact.
Back in less symbolic waters, Gelsadra still claims e has never seen this happen before. Which still leaves the possibility that e is just a total buffoon, or that the Gatchamen are going to have to face the Kū and whatever additional thing terrifies Berg-Katze about Gelsadra.
Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers #9 – Adlet and Hans throw everything they have at Chamot (literally) and manage to be the first people in ages to defeat her. Having crossed her off the list of suspects, they turn to mulling over the events so far.
It now occurs to Adlet that everyone is going on one person’s word about how the barrier activates, which means that maybe no one but the fake knows how it’s really operated. Heck, the entire temple might be a red herring. Or the barrier might have activated on its own in response to something dangerous, such as the fake hero, or Adlet entering in what was clearly not the intended manner.
Adlet’s theory about a demon trying to fool them about when the barrier activated is shot down by Flamie (no pun intended), who recites some previously hidden rules about how divine magic works that amount to “no, that fog couldn’t be faked”.
Having spent most of this episode theorizing, it’s time for Adlet to fight someone new. Looks like Maura is stepping up for the challenge.
