CHAOS;CHILD #8 – Finally we get a look back at the real Senri Minamisawa, the circumstances that brought her to the psychic research lab, and her friendship with Kurusu. Also a little more information about the lab itself – it had ties to some sort of cult. So perhaps it’s been relocated to another cult facility?
And the really big revelation…well, I hadn’t expected that. But it means more than that Senri was with them all along. Since everyone seems to get one specific power, if Senri’s is disguising her appearance, then she can’t be the mind-controller.
Takeshi’s story indicates that the person controlling minds is someone who wouldn’t look out of place at school, so that pretty much means it’s one of our teenagers. It can’t be Senri, Takuru, or Uki, since they all have non-mind-controlling powers. I hesitate to rule out Arimura, because her one moment showing off her lie-detecting powers could just as easily have been good educated guesswork, and she never picked up on anything from the fake Kurusu. Actually, I think Arimura might be the one projecting delusions into Takuru’s mind, since she’s been visibly present for all but one of them.
That leaves Mio, Onoe, and Hana. I’m leaning toward Onoe, just because it’s hard to explain why she’s in this story so much otherwise.
(Crunchyroll — bilibili)
Saga of Tanya the Evil #8 – The Fatherland finds itself with a rebel city behind its lines, but Tanya has a nice efficient solution to that: drop leaflets announcing an evacuation, wait a minimum period of time, then declare everyone left to be an enemy combatant and start killing indiscriminately.
One of Tanya’s lieutenants is horrified enough by the carnage that he finds the courage to confront her and even contemplate killing her. I’m pretty sure that gunshot was her killing or disabling him. But her atrocities have another person lined up to revenge them: Anson Sioux, still not quite dead, and possibly the Supreme Being’s new champion.
This is one of the most visually striking episodes this season, with the trench-run sequences during the attack on Arene and the gorgeous use of color in the second half. Once again we can see that the delay a couple weeks ago sure wasn’t caused by lack of effort.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans #46 – Tekkadan and the revolutionary forces can finally make their retreat. On Mars, they’ll have access to their supply bases and reinforcements from the Gjallarhorn branch…or maybe not. Fareed finds out that, soul of Agnika Kaieru or not, Mars doesn’t recognize his authority anymore.
While he figures out a way to live with that, Tekkadan copes with its losses, by nearly everyone left alive arguing over which of them gets to hog all the survivor guilt. Orga accepts that as long as he has responsibility for everyone, he has to keep moving them forward, even if there’s always another battle ahead.
Yamagi gets a dubious sort of closure from learning that Shino actually realized how he felt all along, and just chose to be all “Woohoo diversity points!” rather than giving him any kind of acknowledgement or trying to let him down gently. Still not impressed by this subplot.
ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept. #9 – Jean is off for the grand finale of his audit tour, starting in Peshi, which is basically Denmark, complete with a statue of Jean’s mom gazing out into the harbor like the Little Mermaid. …Let’s try not to think too hard about the potential symbolism there.
Back home in Bādon, the stupidity is thicker than its soft, delicious sandwich bread. No one’s bothered to tell Lotta about her family, so she’s an easy target when the senior princess sends assassins after her. Luckily, they’re totally inept assassins who saunter up in broad daylight in uniforms announcing exactly who they’re working for.
Less luckily, Lotta has Rail watching out for her. Even though he freely admits he has no idea what’s going on, he’s willing to drag a woman he barely knows into an alley and then be her inept bodyguard simply on Magie’s say-so because they have shared the sacred bond of weirdass hipster food. After the attempted kidnapping, Rail and Lotta apparently decide it’s nothing to get worked up about, so they’ll just stop by a cafe and then go home.
Meanwhile, the three Five Chiefs who weren’t in on the coup agree after a moment’s thought that it sounds totally okay. Please, please, please let at least one of them be going along just for appearances and planning to do something about it, because it’s going to be really hard to care about the resolution of this story if everyone is going to be a willful idiot.
(Crunchyroll — Wakanim — VVVVID — bilibili)
