I am getting straight to an actual issue I had with this episode, the direction in this episode felt quite off or some scenes just have a completely different tone. I remember when the tone changes it was done rather well, but in this episode there was one scene that came out of nowhere and slapped me across the face. It's Micchy's first scene where he is helping Mai with some sort of project. For some reason there are flower petals in the background and at first I thought the other Mai was going to appear before Micchy and tell him to stop or something like that. No, the scene just focuses on the two talking about Kouta. There were also some strange sound effects used and I know Micchy loves Mai, but this scene feels out of place compared to his other scenes where he learned he loves Mai. There is easily another moment I didn't fully enjoy in this episode, but I will get to that later. Anyways, I will say this episode did get us more in the mind of Micchy.
Maybe having that scene having more of a lovely feel to it is supposed to represent how Micchy feels about her, but right after that the tone goes back to normal. Micchy then starts bearing his fangs again like usual. There was a moment when a school rival of his shows up and wonders where Micchy has been for this whole time. The boy wonders if Micchy has given up on his studies and pretty much his future, but Micchy tells him off saying where the boy would see himself in ten years. Also we hear what kind of power he wants, influence. To me I think he has the wrong idea of influence though as it does seem he is trying to control people more than influence them. After meeting with Kouta and hearing about the Overlords (I will get to that scene later) he then goes straight to his brother about the news. What I loved about this scene is when he mentions about the Overlords he looks straight at Ryouma and the other two who knew about them. Again Micchy does have this dark side to him and I love seeing that and it just amazes and creeps myself out on how he can hide that part of his personality at times. It does feel like a split personality at times, but it's more of how he feels about certain people and I do wonder how things could happen for him in the future when people aren't being influenced by him.
Kouta in this episode tells Micchy who has been helping him and of course this information gets to Yggdrasil as well. Other than that, Kouta and Micchy have an argument about the fact that Kouta is letting someone use him again. This time however is different because this time maybe Kouta can find out what he is being used for. Kouta then still blames himself for Yuuya's death and this is then the reason why he cannot back down. Kouta took a big step to get where he is now and that first big step was Yuuya's death. He committed a sin, but that won't take him down. In a way his mistakes ends up influencing him to do more good things since he doesn't want others to do the same. It's a strong character trait that was shown in the previous episode and now I love the fact that he is now using that sense of logic in his conversations more than just for fighting dialogue. Another part of this scene is showing that Micchy and Kouta easily are having split paths and ideas as this can be showing how these two can separate as friends and soon end up becoming each other's foe.
So Yggdrasil now knows of Sagara being the man behind the shadows. Ryouma is not happy with this since he is still wondering about the new Lock Seed. Then there is the fact that Takatora now hears about the Overlords, but is not fully concerned with that news. There are many rats around now and Ryouma doesn't want anyone ruining his plans so he lets Sid out to play. Then Sid also has a secret weapon he wants to use and I bet he cannot wait to kill both Sagara and Kouta. Again I do wonder what could happen if Takatora does find out about the Overlords. First of all, Micchy now knows about them and having him know can be good or bad for Ryouma. Micchy does know Ryouma is planning on betraying his brother, but he isn't stopping it either for some reason. I'm just imagining Takatora getting stabbed in the back later in the series.
In the beginning of the episode we see Kaito still trying to fight the Overlord, but he sadly cannot face the monster. In that beginning we get to see that the Overlord has more powers than just controlling plants, he can change his body into some gas form. He uses this to dodge attacks and then he changes his body into some strange material that makes him bounce around and attack Kaito. In a way it seems that his body could be a plant because of how he is controlling it. Yoko ends up saving him and Kaito is mad he couldn't finish the fight. Kaito does know about how they are supposed to be researching the Overlords and trying to understand them, well that was exactly what he was doing. Fighting for him means more than just fighting which has been shown in previous episodes. There was also another scene with Kaito and Mai as the two talk about power once more. Kaito still sees that Mai's view on power is wrong, but he knows the time will come when that is put to the test. Also things changes because Kaito found a new goal for power and becoming stronger than Yggdrasil and any other man. Mai thinks just being powerful than everyone else will make one lonely, but Kaito tells her they just have a different view on things. His final statement is if Mai can continue dancing even when she hits despair, then he will see that as true strength, which is actually a good comparison because just recently we had Kouta have that experience.
The Overlords get more focus as well and my goodness this is just screaming Grongi! Now I'm not saying this is bad because I loved the Grongi and now we have another race of monsters that have a similar style to them. First of all we see a new Overlord who is green and seems to be more of a talker than a fighter. This Overlord is even reading the text given to him and he actually understands Japanese! Meanwhile the red Overlord is just practicing his sword play which easily shows who is the brains and who the brute force is. Then we clearly see Sagara appear before the Overlords as he appears as a snake and transforms back into his normal form. For some reason though he is covering himself up and appears to not actually be there, more of a hologram. Sagara is even speaking in their language which makes me wonder if he is an Overlord himself since he can change fruit into what he wants! Or somehow there is more than just the Overlords as he can be some higher influence we don't know about yet. Either way I loved this scene and showing us the characteristics for the two Overlords without actually knowing what they are saying most of the time is great.
For Kouta he finds out that Jinba Peach Arms gives him the power to have better hearing, holy Kuuga! Yea this just screams Kuuga's Pegasus form, but I love how he finds this out simply by testing out his Lock Seeds. Also he doesn't even use this power to fight with as it doesn't really give him a new power boost like Lemon and Cherry does. Kouta uses this so that he can find the Overlords, but he runs into some trouble. First is Sid as he uses the "S" Lock Seed to summon three Sukia Arms! To counter this, Gaim uses Kachidoki arms, but even that gets him stuck at certain points. The DJ Gun easily blasts one of the Watermelons to destruction when in their wrecking form though their defenses increase. Gaim then uses the DJ Gun to combine with his sword to make a sword extension and power-up. Now even though the fight sounds awesome, it's actually not all that good. It's mostly because the Sukia effects still don't look all that good and when they are destroyed their explosion animations are pretty bad as well. I mean we got blocky looking CGI with explosions that look like they were just dragged into the scene by Photoshop. Still seeing Kachidoki arms defeat a bunch of those Watermelons does make me happy though.
After the fight, Kouta uses the Jinba Cherry Arms so that he can run away and get to where he hears the Overlords. Then he uses Peach again to find them, but it ends up backfiring. The green Overlord can emit a strong sound that sends Kouta breaking down. Then the red Overlord just starts wailing on the poor guy. What's surprising is that the green Overlord is getting rather fluent with the Japanese language and actually talks with Kouta in some degree. Also things don't go in Kouta way as he doesn't want to fight while the Overlords want to have some fun. Literally the green one tells him that he should be a better toy and play along. It's interesting, one of the Overlords is smart enough to start understanding a new language and yet he still focuses on having fun with violence. So even the smarter one ends up having some big similarities to the red one, well talking to them just got harder.
Episode 24 is still great in a lot of areas. I did love to see the different sides of Micchy, the Overlords are great as they do remind me of the Grongi, but easily have their own thing as well. Then Kaito being Kaito is always a plus as well. Too bad the direction was kind of off for this episode as there were some moments I was confused on why they did a certain things or two. Then there was also the bag CGI with the Sukia fight. Still I am giving this episode an A- because the story telling is the biggest aspect right now and that is still strong as Kouta got to meet the Overlords for the first time and right after the episode when he learned about them which is good for the plot developing.
Next Time: Uhhhhhhhhhhh... plot development?
I probably should mention this but before this episode came out, there was a Gaim and Toqger 40 minute special. It's not plot relevant to voth series so I'm not sure if you are planning to review that.
ReplyDeleteProbably for a special review when I catch up with Toqger
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