(Note: Episodic notes are still mostly to be found on the Episodics Notes’ page, but up to a couple every week will have their write-up appear on the main page, when I think they warrant it. For those who don’t know, I take the notes as I watch the episode, and merely re-order them afterwards.)
So first we had a NEET getting too much attention from his genki-girl AI, and then we had his sister(?) who is sort of an airhead, who gets too much attention, and is an idol, even though she doesn’t wish to be, in order to support her family. The episodes of this series have too much dead time, too much dead chatter. I talked about it at length in my weekly overview for last week, but hey, we should finally get some tied plot with the “Colour Hood Gang” (that’s my name, not official), so let’s see where we’re going with this. I sure hope we’re getting somewhere.
Thoughts and Notes:
1) Attention is Everything:
1) Hm, with all those ridiculous poses and lines, Mekakucity Actors has more than its semblance of resemblance to JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure! More to the point, huzzah! Continuity! Picking up where last episode ended!
2) “Listen to people when they’re talking to you!” – How quickly Momo is reduced to being ignored, from being unable to escape attention. She wants to be treated as a person, which both those who ignore her and those who adore her mindlessly fail to” do.
3) “Have you ever compared yourself to those around you and thought you were special, that you’re unlike them?” – Man, this while I’m writing a piece on how many of us have that feeling, and it’s something LNs and anime in general often reward, or play on. But then again, to be a protagonist you usually do need to be different, but my point is, I wonder how many teenagers never do. Not “truly think they are special”, but to some degree feel different.
4) Orange and green are opposites! Who’d have thought it! ;-) Well, it’s nice they at least point it out directly in the show. Their powers, or perhaps their curse is diametrically opposite. But both can be hindrances, and both can be beneficial.
2) Welcome to Neverland, Where No One Grows Up!:
1) Mary, the girl dressed in the colours of Alice (in Wonderland), she makes me think of the monster, whose vignettes we hear at the end of every episode.
2) “Wait, did she really disappear? No way a power like that can exist!” – So why did she faint? She fainted because her mind refused to accept what her eyes had seen. She saw, but she rejected it. “Blindfold gang”. It’s all about the eyes. It’s all about attention, and seeing. Seeing is believing? Guess not. We only see what we already believe in.
3) Promise? Leading by force, because, well, Kido doesn’t have charisma. Her power is the very opposite of it. Quiet, and to the point.
4) Warm and cold. One is the sun, drawing all attention, and the other is moss, hiding in the shadows.
5) Poor Momo, a total klutz, so unlucky, even when it’s not her fault.
6) Mary, her whole power screams “I’m going to pout and sulk!” – I wonder, does she have to keep their eyes locked? In which case, she’s sort of frozen as well, and the pout might be one of trying to concentrate.
7) Tachibana Shinnosuke in his portrayal of Kano really reminds me of Miyano Mamoru’s (best known as Okabe from Steins;Gate) portrayal of Kida Masaomi in Durarara!!
3) No Time for Serious Thoughts – We’re Living in Our Own World Here:
1) Serious Kano. Shinbo is good at giving people a menacing still.
2) Three girls, the older sister, the middle sister, and the younger sister – instead of the crone, mother and maiden. Standing in for the three witches. Not a care in the world. Kano’s a goof, and this tells you much. They have superpowers, but in the end they’re just a bunch of kids looking for friends, looking for understanding.
3) The black and white sequences are “silly”. The girls are being silly, talking in leisure about this and that, just goofing around. But that’s the point. It feels as if they’re in another world, not taking things seriously. But that is Kido’s power, they are essentially in another world, almost in another show. That’s also their situation as a whole, as those possessing weird powers – they live in a parallel world to everyone else.
4) Teamwork! Kido lets them run into position, then Momo attracts all the attention, so everyone must look into Mary’s eyes.
5) From dark feelings, a dark creature is born, a self-fulfilling prophesy of hatred. The Monster’s vignette turns dark.
Next episode is Heat Haze Daze? The song with the story that actually impressed me. But part of that was due to how short and to the point it’s been. I wonder how it’ll work as a full episode, especially when you want continuity.
Post Episode Thoughts:
Most shows would’ve had this episode appear in the first episode, or the second. Finally, plot. We have our group of superheroes, as Momo had put it, join forces. A group of misfits who can’t take things seriously, and are only trying to make friends and get by in this world.
We’ve had very little actually happen, but we’ve covered the bases: Meet with others and understand we’re not alone, understand we actually have a power, save big brother, and get a grasp to others’ personalities.
Where are they going with this? What will they do now? It could easily transform into a “Super-power” show where they do things, or one that’s slice of life, as they go about being a bunch of friends. Or it could be something altogether different. We could also keep getting vignettes, explaining the past of each character we’ve met today. We’ll have to wait and see.
We still had a lot of banter and chatter in this episode, but it felt different. It wasn’t two characters, or even just one, filling a void of loneliness, talking just to avoid silence (silence’s a pretty powerful tool, at that). This time people actually talked to one another in a way that expressed and grew out of their personalities.
Geekorner-Geekulture. 
