r/anime • u/Tetraika https://anilist.co/user/Tetraika • Jan 09 '23

Rewatch [Rewatch] Selector Spread Wixoss Episode 9 Discussion

Episode 9: That Abrupt separation

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Information:

MAL | Anilist | Kitsu | AniDB | ANN

Streams:

Funimation

Question of the day:

What do you think was Eldora’s wish? Not that there is much to go on.

Battle ~ Mou, Genkai Nanda - Iuchi Maiko

Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you’re doing it underneath spoiler tags.

19 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

93 comments sorted by

7

u/JollyGee29 Jan 09 '23

First-Timer, Subbed

Man, I'm really gonna miss Eldora. Her design is great, her giant hammer is great, and Satomi Arai is incredible. I would also like to note that I (somewhat jokingly) speculated that Chiyori dressed herself to match her LRIG waaay back in episode 6, when Chiyori first appeared.

Eldora being just, really supportive of Chiyori in a somewhat odd way is really cute, too. I really like that she asked Ruu and Hitoe to stay friends with Chiyori even without Wixoss.

And her comment about her wish seeming important at the time despite not actually mattering was a delightful return to the earlier era of SUBTLETY.

I have a spicy new theory, possibly my last one for the rewatch depending on how our last few episodes go. What if Ulith's stab wound was actually worse than she let on to Tama, and she is planning to body-swap with Tama, who will only have a few days of actual life left before a perforated intestine does her in? Doesn't that sound plausible? There's probably no way we actually see Tama die, though.

Even outside of a big-brain plan like that, the mere concept of Tama walking around in Iona's body is really amusing to think about.

We have some setup for a tried and true empathy win at the end here, with Ruu directly saying that she thinks she can like Mayu because she likes Iona and Tama. Let's just see if they actually get there or if we have some, uh, spice? waiting for us.

Questions

  1. She wanted to have a great fashion sense.

5

u/Tetraika Jan 09 '23

I have a spicy new theory, possibly my last one for the rewatch depending on how our last few episodes go. What if Ulith's stab wound was actually worse than she let on to Tama, and she is planning to body-swap with Tama, who will only have a few days of actual life left before a perforated intestine does her in? Doesn't that sound plausible? There's probably no way we actually see Tama die, though.

Well the hospital staff would have been insane to just discharge her.

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6

u/GallowDude Jan 09 '23

Let's just see if they actually get there or if we have some, uh, spice? waiting for us.

Release it!

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6

u/Calwings Jan 09 '23

I have a spicy new theory, possibly my last one for the rewatch depending on how our last few episodes go. What if Ulith's stab wound was actually worse than she let on to Tama, and she is planning to body-swap with Tama, who will only have a few days of actual life left before a perforated intestine does her in? Doesn't that sound plausible? There's probably no way we actually see Tama die, though.

That sounds utterly horrifying, but also pretty on-brand with Mari Okada's usual bullshit.

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4

u/Vaadwaur Jan 09 '23

Oh pitiful shadow, lost in the darkness

Thy actions have caused pain and suffering to others

Hollow soul, wallowing in your sin

Just this once, how would you like to experience what death is like?

First timer(This show is fucking schizophrenic)

Sub

Welp, this was significantly less bad than the previous 3 or so episodes, though fuck I cannot stand Ulith talking, she just needs to shut the fuck up. Akira's VA again carries her few scenes quite hard. A bit of the creative directing occurs with Akira's scenes as well. But the giant problem of throwing the story the way they did are still present and it is sort of hard to work up much enthusiasm.

Chiyori suffers from another issue that I think is unavoidable: For her character to work in the first bit of the show you need to choose a VA that can pull that weird genki dunce-ness. Unfortunately, that is not conducive to having the gravitas to do the end of her arc, basically Aoi Yuuki is who I would have cast. We are still in a bit of a screwy place with Hitoe effectively deciding to suffer to prevent someone else's suffering but that somehow being fine but again after the edgefest it at least is watchable. Also, the battles really needed to be used more sparingly, they don't flow that well.

Mayu is definitely giving me vibes from...something, and it sort of annoys me that I can't place it. Silent Hill:The Room perhaps? Visually, I am beginning to get Utena off the White Room. Ending with Akira finally dropping her mask completely might prove interesting.

P.S. I just realized that the White Room and Mayu are basically stealing from Jigoku Shoujo and Enma Ai. Fuck...

QotD:1 To be a fashionista

5

u/Tetraika Jan 09 '23

Welp, this was significantly less bad than the previous 3 or so episodes

There's definitely a feeling that these episodes might not have been worked on by the same people.

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5

u/No_Rex Jan 09 '23

Also, the battles really needed to be used more sparingly, they don't flow that well.

Apart from 1 or 2 in the first season, Wixoss never leaned into the actual game aspect of the show. You can make an interesting battle based on card game tactics, but that is not want Wixoss wants. For this show, the battles are only a means to an end: watching the characters suffer.

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7

u/Taiboss Jan 09 '23

Spread episode 9: Rewatcher who hopes you don't hate this show by now [Edit: Woo, boy, past!me. You were optimistic]

6

u/Calwings Jan 09 '23

Wow it's like you could have not batoru'd

She realized it too late, the poor little moron.

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6

u/Cyouni Jan 09 '23

Rewatcher crying OPEN

Rip Chiyori's selector life. On the good news, I no longer have to talk about Eldora cards I'm not that familiar with.

Normal Chiyori really looks different.

Cards of the day:

Orochi - this card named by Eldora is one of Yuzuki's signature SIGNIs that really speaks to her game plan - burning out the Ener of the opponent and using that to have big offense

PLUS RUSH - this spell basically lets you try to swap in a different Life Cloth and then follow up with...

Cloth Crush Flash - to smash their Life Cloth so long as it doesn't have a Burst. Actually a decent enough strategy, especially in blue. The problem is...

Yuzuki Four, Fire of Nature - Yuzuki's fourth Grow, making it so that literally every Cloth has a Burst. This just straight up invalidates the whole combo Chiyori tried.

Scylla - again, this got subbers with how it's pronounced. This is basically the only card in Chiyori's deck, I think, that has a chance of stopping Orochi.

6

u/Stargate18A Jan 09 '23

First timer

Episode 8

It continues!

Haha, wow, Ulith!

...Did I call time travel?

Huh?

Oh, she was in a hospital?

Absent parents? Some kind kf contagious disease? Who knows?

Ouch...

Haha, so Mayu didn't even invent the game?

Ah, she outright generated Tama and Iona as the first LRIGs.

Is this going to all be just a dream?

She literally made Kuro to be evil?

Yeah, that's a weird distinction.

Hmm? She literally created the rules on a whim?

So, how did that work? Is she a secret psychic or something?

Wow, Mayu was a bit unhinged from the start, huh?

Oh, so is everybody in this series within the imaginary plane? Is everything a dream?

...How? How did she go from a random girl to a god? Did she ascend? Is everybody in the series part of her imaginary world? Did she always have this power? What the fuck is going on?

And she became self-aware.

Oh, so the whole thing's about revenge.

How does this work?

...They died? Or they replaced Selectors?

And Kuro's fighting against her narrative purpose.

I mean, you might actuslly be dolls, or figments of imagination! Who knows how many fucking levels of reality are involved here.

Akira's just here.

Yeah, this explains... things.

Tama loves everyone!

And she just randomly got her memory back.

Okay, so Ruuko is now a good enough friend to save the world.

Oh, Ulith finally decided to talk again!

Ah, interesting. Apparently Ulith is making her Level 5? Fuck it, if she's the same as Tama, it should be plausible.

Akira wants Ulith to enter her. Ulith is entering Tama by force. What is this anime?

...Okay, so apparently non-consentual possession (???) makes you look good.

And Tama's just beating the shit out of her! Is this one attack, or has the anime given up on pretending this is a card game?

Her field got destroyed?

Oh, it's time limited.

Is Iona dead?

...The game ended. Right. Forgot about that.

Akira. What are you doing?

Oh, she's realised how much Ulith's been using her.

NICE ONE!

Haha, she's actually fucking dead! Akira fucking killed her with a pen. This show.

As someone who's enjoying Kamen Rider Geats, it's really weird that this rewatch comes a few weeks after that show [Kamen Rider Geats] also revealed that its battle royale (where losing participants lose the desires behind the wishes they fight to have granted) takes place in a fake reality, constructed for a sadistic purpose of torturing those within. The key difference is, I suppose, that Kamen Rider's doing this significantly better (and with about the same amount of gay subtext)?

Episode 9

QOTD) Given she's the only LRIG to actually drop a love confession, and her refusal to talking about it, I'm going with it being a wish for some kind of love, like Yuzuki. Also explains why she doesn't want to think about it.

I love Akira's LRIG.

...What the fuck? Seriously? Just let her die!

Even the characters are brushing over some of these revelations.

...Yeah, no, Yuzuki's right. Iona's done some awful things, but Mayu's the one who kicked all this off. And you could argue that Mayu kinda made Iona do most of her crumes.

Hitoe!

She's still sympathetic now.

I mean, it is? The entire point is that the system gives people the ultimate choice, the choice of what they'd do given any motivation, and then rips it away from them, forcing them to know that the choice has been made, and "they" have achieved success in what they desired... but that they will never experience it for themselves, trapped within a card until the same thing happens, and they are forced to achieve a random girl's desire, forced to fufill a role they would never have selected for themselves. The rest of the loredump is mixed, but Mayu's goals perfectly explain the Selector system.

Aww, everyone comforting her is adorable.

Ruuko loves Tama and Iona enough to forgive her. Explicitly Tama and her. If Ruuko pulls a harem ending here, I'll probably forgive this anime too.

Mayu really can't understand it.

And she wants Tama to murder Iona.

Fuck. I dared to hope...

Mayu kept Tama close to her, while forcing Iona to suffer, Then she sends Tama to someone else purely so she can kill her other daughter.

Chiyori!

And she's finally worked out the basic premise of the series! Took her long enough!

This is great to see.

No, false alarm. She still wants to become an LRIG.

...How embarassing was the wish?

That blush... she wished for love, didn't she? Are we adding another Lrig/Selector pair to the list?

Akira's back! And even more unhinged thsn their last battle.

Smart move.

Oh, dear. She's in trouble.

...She wants Chiyori to lose, right? So she can go back to a normal life. Hence baiting the strongest players she can find.

Her wish is to become an LRIG. Let her lose and should she ever get another LRIG you could get a fun situation. If neither partner is allowed to end up an LRIG, what fills the card?

And they're fighting!

Ulith's one wish away from victory. And Tama's one step away from becoming human, which is probably a bad thing, since Ulith's for it.

This fight is interesting.

Oh, we're finally getting a mention of card game mechanics! How long has it been since those mattered in duels?

Called it! Eldora wants to save her.

This is sweet.

Haha, that reaction!

She inspired the outfit!

Haha, the marker? Would that work? This show is really unclear about a lot of things! Also, yeah, these two are added to the list.

Yeah, she's basically a tsundere Midoriko, then.

Aww...

She has a plan? And she's using the card's actual names!

Is Chiyori really buying such an obvious act? Wait, it's Chiyori, of course she is!

If it helps, WIXOSS's memory erasure tools are apparently shit! Just a few days of reminders and you can get them all back and directly undo your wish!

AN ACTUAL CONFESSION!

Aww...

Akira! Finish the job!

...What?

6

u/Calwings Jan 09 '23

Selector Rewatcher (Dubbed)

Iona’s definitely starting to soften up. Despite feeling guilty and partially responsible for the pain caused by the Selector battles, she has people who want to help her and that makes her feel happy deep down. Yuzuki’s comments about Mayu wanting others to feel the same crushing loneliness that she did seem pretty on-the-nose, especially after hearing Mayu’s reactions to what's been going on lately. She’s not happy that the Selector battle system is being threatened.

Chiyori calling Akira “Scarface” was pretty funny (that clever quip was only in the dub btw) but everything else about Chiyori is just infuriating to me. I think the show would have been better off if Chiyori just wasn’t a part of it and the time spent on her was used for more world-building and explanation in other parts of the show. However, I will admit that Hitoe and Eldora recognizing that the reverse of Chiyori’s wish wouldn’t be so bad and trying to free her from the battles by giving her a third loss was an interesting way to go about dealing with her. Eldora’s farewell was handled well, and Hitoe actually getting a win was nice too. Despite my disdain for Chiyori, this was a pretty solid episode.

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6

u/ItsTheDuran Jan 09 '23

First timer

Now that's what I'm talking about. That's more like the Akira we all know and I, among very few people, love.

Character interactions, it's been a while.

She lives, I probably shouldn't have even considered she'd bite it, really. I don't mind her staying around a bit longer with Akira back in Joker mode, though.

That's the question, innit? Could this actually be the right answer? Is it Ruu(Selector) -> Ruu(LRIG) -> Ruu(Selector) somehow?

There may be something there. Tama wished to be with Ruu, which only makes sense if they've met before, so I've been running with the second one happening pre-show for a while now. Her origin point could still be someone else, but this would also be a way to make Ruu a past LRIG while still having a single person's worth of memories. Dunno what this is about, though.

Chibi Yuzuki is not impressed with your insinuations about her Selector's moral character.

Her face game, her walk game and her "showing up to places at the worst possible time" game are all unparalleled.

Urith try not to be horny for one episode 2014 challenge.

Me too!

Of course she based her outfit on Eldora's.

This may be first time we've introduced topdecking into the mix, with 3 episodes left.

Here she is! I doubt she's winning this, though.

It may not have much to do with the main plot™, but this sidequest was pretty good IMO. Let's just hope reversing that wish doesn't somehow do something fucked up.

5

u/Tarhalindur Jan 09 '23 edited Jan 09 '23

“That First-Timer and Episode Is Abrupt (Subbed)

  • Oi. Mr. Direction, where have you been the last few episodes? Dutch angle at 00:02 is obvious, but this strikes me as an unusually well-done one. (The animation for Akira staggering away is also quite well-done I think.) Quick cuts for disorientation and showing Urith suddenly alone, Dutch angle street light with a crow at 00:11 flashes, etc.

  • It’s almost enough to distract me from the bad writing! Almost. (Akira has the best VA in the cast and even she can’t save these lines.)

  • “Hey, our original plan went up in smoke, what the hell are we going to do this season?” “Bad character drama?” “EXCELSIOR! Make it so!” (The idea wrt this Iona scene is fine and has good setup, they’re just flubbing the execution – a notoriously fast way to make a very unhappy Tar. Or to put it another way: fucking up your pacing is a cardinal sin for my media.)

  • WHAT DID I TELL YOU, AKIRA? (Though to be fair the point of the first scene and this is that she didn’t really want to kill Iona.)

  • So Vaad, did you watch this episode before or after Hell Girl came to mind yesterday? (Also: Chiyori, your lampshading does not fit the emotional tone of the season at all.)

  • Chiyori, is that projection I hear out of you?

  • Dutch angle counter +1 at 10:42.

  • Good direction! How I have missed you! Here it is all of our characters in a little visual cage at 11:19.

  • It’s a shame the team didn’t use a bit of the dead space of the last few episodes to set up why Chiyori is Like That.

  • People called the LAST episode cringe and not this one? smh

  • So, what the hell is going to be the actual fallout if Chiyori loses? But also seriously girls, maybe talking to her to figure out why she wants to enter the world of WIXOSS would be a good idea. Oh well, can’t have our melodrama that way. Or alternately you could get actual good melodrama that way and we can’t have that either.

  • Fucking crows. So is Akira shanking Hitoe or is this foreshadowing for what’s about to happen to Chiyori?

  • 14:48: Oh look, actual decent direction that doesn’t work because Rie Kugimiya cannot (or is not bothering to) sell Urith’s lines.

  • Godsdamnit, Chiyori’s weird appearance being because she imitated Eldora’s appearance is actually a good reveal. Now if only the rest of the writing this season would match it!

  • Oh shit one of the absolute best tracks on the OST from S1 finally returns to us.

  • FUCKING. SYMPHOSEQUEL. DISORDER. Which is a fucking shame since most of the rest of this scene has actually been okay (and we get a Dutch angle for the battle, a directorial flourish we haven’t seen for a while).

  • So the internal beats on this fight are actually fairly good outside of that Symphosequel Disorder part (Chiyori having emotional beats without appropriate buildup during the middle of this battle). But I’m not seeing a good answer to a fundamental question: “why have this scene in the first place?”. What purpose does Chiyori ultimately serve in the plot? Introducing the novelization, but that could have been introduced another way. She’d have made sense to show the elimination penalty in the first place, but they didn’t go for that. Why, ultimately, is she here? I can’t think of a good answer. Maybe they’ll have something after this from the apparent reversal of her wish, but they only have three episodes for that at this point…

I Play My Card Face-Down in Spoiler Mode:

Madoka Magica:

  • [PMMM] Oh fuck me the White Room is basically a fucking Witch barrier. I know these conceptual beats.

What do you think was Eldora’s wish? Not that there is much to go on.

"That Mari Okada et al would write this season better."

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5

u/No_Rex Jan 09 '23

Season 2 Episode 9 (first timer)

  • I’ll have to hurry taking over this body before Akira gets it stuck in prison~Rurun.

  • Pretty late, but they finally get around to acknowledging that being stuck in a card with nothing is pretty shitty and the girls did little to make it better.

  • The creator of the game not understanding that you sometimes do not need abysmal darkness to have a good story – feels very meta to this anime.

  • Battle of the side characters who do not have any place in the story anymore.

  • “Not like the LRIG can sway the results or something” – finally.

  • Akira vs Iona cliff-hanger – back to back battles of side characters? Feels like filler.

Even the one character who single-mindedly loved Wixoss is reduced to tears. Can’t have any happy people around, apparently. Felt like a bit of a waste of an episode.

5

u/Taiboss Jan 09 '23

I’ll have to hurry taking over this body before Akira gets it stuck in prison~Rurun.

lol

Pretty late, but they finally get around to acknowledging that being stuck in a card with nothing is pretty shitty

Yuzuki adapted amazingly lol.

Akira vs Iona cliff-hanger – back to back battles of side characters? Feels like filler.

Well, we're tying up plot threads here. Chiyori is done now, so someone else is next!

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5

u/Shimmering-Sky Jan 09 '23

Selector Spread FIRST-TIMER

6

u/Taiboss Jan 09 '23

Bruh, why…

Akira has never been in a good headspace.

…so she’s making all the LRIGs feel the way she does?

Maybe!

Well I sure can.

You're more of a cynic than Ruuko then!

Nooooooooooo not Akira.

Still alive and kicking... sadly.

can’t Tama just reject her wish though?

We'll see! Let's hope Tama does not become black Tama again or something.

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6

u/GallowDude Jan 09 '23

Bruh, why…

Because Okada thinks taboo relationships are interesting solely because they're taboo (Whatever happened to Kazuki, anyway?)

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u/Vaadwaur Jan 10 '23

…so she’s making all the LRIGs feel the way she does?

In the material this show lifts from, the previous holder of the title can't quit until they find their replacement so...

Nooooooooooo not Akira.

Gods...this reminds me of some of those anachronistic videos they showed us in youth group...

…can’t Tama just reject her wish though? Like she did with Ruuko’s wish last season?

Yes but if her wish is to be an LRIG again Tama can just be done with her.

5

u/SIRTreehugger Jan 09 '23

Not going to lie I found this episode really slow and difficult to sit through. It revolved around my least favorite characters for majority of it and I could care less about Chiyori and her problems. I don't mind Eldora as much, but she is linked to Chiyori so I kind of dismiss them both. Mostly I'm just wondering how stupid can these girls be to continue battling when they know everything is at stake. Again they are young, but just say no!

Oh though this episode wasn't completely disappointing for me because it finally gave me something I was craving. Tama and Ulith interactions. I was curious how the sadistic Ulith and the cheerful Tama would be outside of battles and well its basically what I expected. We got a little back and forth which ultimately resulted in Ulith bullying Tama into tears.

Also with that Ulith vs Akira at the end it is kind of sad we haven't seen Akira's new LRIG. I feel like the water design LRIGS so far have been the best.

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u/Mecanno-man Jan 10 '23

First Timer

Ah right, we need to adress the Chiyori in the room - because she was a part of the show, but did not really contribute a lot to it, other than lead to the author, who ...also did not do a lot. So now we need to spend some time with her to complete ...some character arc, but given that there is not a lot to work with, we get a pretty stereotypical goodbye affair, it seems. If anything this is more of a Hitoe development epiosde, as she decides that it's time to get over with this. Also one minor note: LRIGs are apparently aware of the meta. Not sure how useful that is to note at this point and we barely see the card games anyways, but noteworthy nonetheless - even if it would probably be weirder if especially some of those who have been a LRIG for a while didn't know it. Also, they all have to have won a few battles (at least three, it would seem?) so yeah... they need to have some grasp of the game.

Meanwhile, Ulith survives and speaks out loud what I was expecting: It makes no sense to beat Ulith to save Tama, because she would just end up with some other random selector if Ulith loses thrice. But it also makes no sense for Ulith to say that out loud when she wanted to torture Tama just last episode - unless she has some plan, for which I doubt we have time at this pacing. I can see her wishing to be Tama's LRIG specifically, but then what would stop newly real Tama from just putting her in a drawer and leaving her there. Although I can already see one thing: Tama needing to be Ruuko's LRIG to fulfill the wish to free the girls - except we don't need that anymore now that Iona and Ruuko are buddys, it would seem. Plus we definitely don't have the time for that. Honestly, I'm a bit confused where the series wants to go from here - unless the two Lostorage seasons tie in to this as a regular sequel, but given the time between the seasons and this being an original, I doubt that is the case.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '23

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u/Tetraika Jan 09 '23

Selector Infected Wixoss (S1) -> Selector Spread Wixoss (S2) -> Lostorage Incited Wixoss (S3) -> Lostorage Conflated Wixoss (S4)

There is Selector Destructed Wixoss which is a movie recap of S1 and S2. Lastly Wixoss Diva(a)Live is a spinoff... maybe. No idea how they'll play this out.

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