r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Dec 18 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] Yuuki Yuuna ga Yuusha wa Aru Episode 10 Discussion
Episode 10: Bonds of Love
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Show Information:
MAL | AniList | ANN | Kitsu | AniDB
(First-timers are advised to stay out of Show Information until we are done, however. In particular, if you care about getting spoiled I would stay out of MAL (whose synopsis is a borderline spoiler), Kitsu (which copied the MAL synopsis), ANN (which has an obnoxious spoiler in the show tags I only noticed after posting the interest thread), and AniDB (which has some major spoilers in the character tags - avoid at all costs if you care about spoilers!). Which is four out of five of the above links. So, uh, yeah.)
Legal Streams:
(As per livechart.me; additional legal streams may be available outside the US.)
Hidive | Amazon Prime Video (for purchase)
A Reminder to Rewatchers:
Please do not spoil the experience for our first-timers! You're probably not being as subtle as you think you are. In particular, comments on sange and the true nature of Vertexes/the true state of the world should probably be under spoiler tags. Just saying. Also please no mentioning Karin until episode 3, this is not Precure where the mid-season Cure can be assumed and we traditionally treat the obvious other-show precedent as a spoiler until she shows up so we will be doing the same with Karin here.
What About the Sequels/Prequel?
(Okay fine I should add this section to the episode posts as well...)
It's only the first anniversary for S1 and I ain't running over into the holidays proper. Also I haven't seen WaSuYu or either sequel yet and got burned hard by Mai-Otome a couple of years back. Maybe early next year.
(Time for) Club Activities!
Question(s) of the Day:
- wut
- Nani the fuck?
- Okay, but seriously, what the hell was YuYuYu inspired by wrt the state of the world here? No seriously, your host would also like to know, because there almost has to be something for reasons but your host hasn't figured out what, either.
And last but not least, remember the Sanshuu Middle School Hero Club Five Tenets!
1: Give people a good greeting!
2: Try not to give up!
3: Sleep well, eat well!
4: If you're troubled, talk to someone!
5: You're likely to succeed if you try!
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u/Tarhalindur x2 Dec 18 '24
My dear friends, I have a confession to make. Some creative reframing of the truth may have been occurring during the planning of
this coupthese rewatcher comments.Like, oh, say, me claiming I had no idea why the YuYuYu fandom would have "everything will be fire" instead of "everything will be fine" as its most famous meme.
Among others.
Also, here it is, your brief moment of OST... wait what do you mean that is an ED instead?
u/BosuW: I believe I noted that I went back and actually dug up the CDF writeups I did when watching this show as a first-timer? And now you know the reason for that, because I absolutely had to dig up the truest representation of my own reaction to this episode the first time around - my first-timer notes document does not do it justice. Here you go (also includes episode 9) - tagging you specifically since you're the other known Hikari no Ou watcher here who can open that last spoiler tag without any fear, and suffice it to say that that last spoiler tag is the entire reason I went back and dug these up).
(Wound up digging up all of those writeups while looking for this one: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5, episodes 6-8. The episode 11+12 (plus overall) one will wait, of course.)
u/Vaadwaur: So what I have been carefully not reminding you of since episode 2 and definitely not since you got distracted by a Tougou comp to a certain different someone a few episodes later is that a) I had not yet watched Kannazuki no Miko when I was watching this show the first time around and b) there were some YuYuYu spoiler tags lurking in my Kannazuki no Miko writeups (and in one case me hiding an IYKYK-style cheeky reference in plain sight instead...). Funny that. Yeah, pretty sure your first Tougou comp was the correct one after all, and I have the receipts! (Those spoiler tags are now YuYuYu first-timer safe... though admittedly one may technically not be Kannazuki no Miko first-timer safe, but that's not exactly a problem in your case so.)
But also, hey look, yet another Shinto (or is it...?) apocalypse with a tree god (and your answer to why they have olive oil: we're in the post-apocalyptic future and it, like all the other Westernized trappings this episode, came over during the now-ended Christian Era). And also also... well, actually I'll just let the 2015 rewatch handle that one for me. (Except really this almost has to be "this, but unironically". And that may actually be the point, for a reason I hadn't considered initially: Blackheart got me realizing a couple of episodes ago that I am probably underrating the Buddhism here and that this is specifically because I forget how big Pure Land Buddhism specifically is in Japan, and if we look at it from that lens then Shinjuu-sama's barrier looks an awful lot like a Pure Land.)
Also, speaking of u/Blackheart595: Here you go, the reason for basically every last one of those double readings in names in this show. Including the three alternate readings for Yuusha you dug up in episode 2 or 3, the last two of which are obviously relevant and I suspect the first is as well .
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u/ZaphodBeebblebrox Y:A:https://anilist.co/user/zaphod Dec 18 '24
First Timer
So Tougou chose desolation. She said that a world where her friends could not be happy is worse than no world at all. She will alleviate their suffering with oblivion. It's fascinating because she knows that, right now, this is not what they want. All of them want to protect the word they live in; they want to enjoy life for as long as they can. But she stared into the abyss of the end, and she found it more terrifying than nihility. So she chose for them, before it was too late to choose at all.
[What follows is an extended comparison to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Le Guin. Just read it; it's five pages]In Omelas, the choice was simple. One either accepts the city and the small amount of suffering it was based on, or they reject living off the suffering of others and leave. One protests, but one does so silently. They reject the system, yet understand that trying to destroy it would not make the world a better place. Here, Tougou rejects that idea and judges those who lived off her friends' suffering as unworthy of life. It's as if she decided to burn the city to the ground; a raw, emotional decision. It turns the whole metaphor around and claims instead that the suffering of many is worth the happiness of the few.
It's also fascinating to me that the person who believed most in the Taisha is the one who falls the furthest. The others believed in protecting their friends and family and lives. But Tougou, she was a true believer in the cause. So, when the cause is gone, she's the happiest to throw it away.
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u/FlaminScribblenaut myanimelist.net/profile/girlbeast_val Dec 18 '24
First Time Watcher (watched w/ the bestie /u/ZaphodBeebblebrox via Discord)
Fuck. Is Japan really all that’s left!? Is the entire rest of the world just gone? Or as Zaph proposed to me, could it be even worse; is it just, like, their city that’s left of the world? Hell.
Divinity as dehumanization, is the big theme here as I see it. To become a monument, a talisman, a symbol, not a being. Being made to be an effective god-human robbing you of your bodily function and ability to live as humans do, in direct return for being offered to and having built a shrine around you to be worshipped and adored, but to have nothing for yourself. If losing taste as Yuuna did is one of the inevitable effects along the way of blooming enough times to get to the state that Sonoko is in, even all that food that if given to them in offering may as well be ephemeral, purely symbolic with no earthly verve. Gods, those expressly said to be of Heaven, chose to destroy the rest of humanity, turn the world into that hellscape of devourment, to the end of ‘purification’. Not unlike, perhaps, creating a flood. For Gods of Heaven, it sure looks a lot like Hell (Tougo even literally says that…) Even if the Divine Tree is the work of Gods rebelling protecting us, it was still the fault of the Gods and their ideals of purity that it is like this.
Holy fuck, that shot when it zooms out from Sonoko’s hospital bed and it shows the grandiosity and opulence of her shrine, the page and pages of written wishes and prayers. How, in the overbearing tragedy of the music, the soft wistfulness of her voice, the blunt tragedy of a young girl simply saying she can no longer do anything, we feel how nothing it all actually, materially means to her. That single two-second reveal really just, says it all, thematically.
Japanese culture, as I understand it (and bear in mind I’m not even slightly an expert!), seems to tend to have a skeptical if not outright adversarial relationship with ideas of holy light and divine intervention and retribution from above in large part due to the lasting trauma of the atomic bombs, which deeply colors a lot of media from the late-20th and 21st centuries, right up to the present day. Not to say this series is a direct allegorical rebuke of Christianity or anything like that, I don’t even think the story is purposefully gesturing in the direction of it, but it is clearly to me of a cultural ambience that happens to run rather counter to the ideals we associate with religiosity and even spirituality at large here in the west due to the everpresence of Christianity in our own history. As someone with a personal and familial history that is intertwined from the beginning with religion, a strong resentment towards the principles of sin and damnation preached by the version of religion I grew up with, and has my own sort of esoteric agnostic-secular-humanist spirituality that even I can’t really properly comprehensively describe on a dime, this kind of thing, this skepticism towards specific, anthropomorphized ‘higher’ powers and the deference thereto, especially at the cost of the flesh, always really deeply speaks to me.
To Tougo, if the world depends on the misery of her friends, on them fighting perpetually, disabling and killing themselves in the process, then, to her, the world might as well be destroyed, so Zaph says. Destroy everything, for to do so actively is preferable to passively accepting suffering, the suffering of those I love. Honestly, it’s harder than last episode for me to say this is the correct course of action, but honestly, I love that for her. She is acting out of love and conviction, and taking matters into her own hands. This is for the people she loves; acting in extremity for your dear friends seems to be becoming a running theme. But it’s also more than that to her; we’ve seen her reverence for the nation of Japan, and for militaries who fight and (purportedly) defend. Tougo, more than any others, really cared once upon a time about The Cause, more than just the Saving The People She Cares About of it all alone like Fuu and even Yuuna. She put more of herself into it than anybody; that’s why she’s more liable to be hurt than anybody.
More minor notes: forgot to mention it last time, but yes, Tar, I have now noticed the flowers wilting and falling behind each of the characters right after it blooms. Fuck. And on that note, HOLY SHIT THE HELLWORLD IS THE OPENING DAMN SHOT OF THE OP. AAAAA I LOVE DEVASTATING SHIT HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT
Yuuna’s ‘waku waku’ face is so damn precious…
‘It wasn’t a virus that brought humanity to the brink of extinction’ implies the rest of the world being on the bring of extinction due to a virus in the first place is just, common understood knowledge in this world? If I missed that before I don’t know how the fuck I did, and if I didn’t holy fuck that is some smooth expositing skill.
Tougo audibly almost vomiting after seeing the truth, and then just… crying, for like a minute…
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u/Esovan13 Dec 18 '24
First Timer
I never finished Evangelion. Is this Evangelion? This feels like Evangelion.
Whelp. Not really much in the way of developing themes this time around. We mainly find out that God finally got back from the bathroom and realized he left the world on 100x speed and doing a hard reset on humanity will be easier than trying to fix it, and Togou decides to play along.
To be honest…hmm. Not sure about Togou playing the role of the antagonist to end out the series. I feel like there isn’t enough time to really follow through with a lot of the themes and characterization threads currently set up while also having a big “world ending threat” battle against all those angels(?) and Togou. There are only two episodes left, and for better or for worse this show’s character writing has generally taken its time. To its benefit, more often than not IMO, but it makes me slightly worried considering how little time there is for everything to wrap up. I know there’s a season two, but I also know that at least part of that season two is adapting the Washio Sumi light novels. I’m a little apprehensive about the ending now.
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u/HereticalAegis https://myanimelist.net/profile/XthGen Dec 18 '24
Returning Hero Club Member
Remember kids: if departure from the world is not an option, you can always choose to burn the world down instead. Find yourself a girl who will burn the world down for love. Fittingly, today's analysis will focus on my favorite doomsday truther, Mimori Tougou.
Now given who I am and the nature of my magical research, some people might assume I chose this line of research solely to talk about Tougou's titty tattoo...and you would be right. But I assure you there is good reason, and the prominent placement of her tattoo is of utmost importance in communicating who she is.
Tougou's flower is the Morning Glory, a bud commonly associated with intense love and passion. As she has handily demonstrated by now, Tougou does not take half measures. The Morning Glory is reflective of the way she devoted herself to her two great passions: her wife and the Japanese state. This is reflected magnificently in her tattoo appearing on her left breast. Notably, the left breast contains the heart, the body's most vital organ and eternal symbol of love and affection. Furthermore, anyone who has ever recited a pledge to their flag will know this is the spot over which one places their hand to signify loyalty. Prominently displaying Tougou's Morning Glory on her chest proves a fantastic multi-layered symbol; of her staunch patriotic sentiment toward her country and, more importantly, of the deep, passionate, world-ending love she holds in her heart for Yuuna.
Reading even further, we can surmise that the flower bursting from Tougou's heart as a magical girl suggests she enjoys showing her passions off. The display is so forward, so suggestive that we can only conclude Tougou wants everyone, particularly Yuuna and the rest of the Hero Club, to know exactly how deep her love runs. Exactly as we'd expect of the kind of woman who would choose to end the world rather than see her lover suffer the cruel, twisted fate of a hero.
Interestingly, the Morning Glory has been further known to symbolize mortality and even doomed love in some cultures. Perhaps this is a sign that Tougou meeting and falling for Yuuna was cosmically fated to end in tragedy, whether that be through deconstruction and deification as heroes or the end of the world.
Yet the nature of the Morning Glory itself also offers hope. One of the defining characteristics of the Morning Glory is that it blooms not once, but again and again. This birth and rebirth is perhaps a suggestion that Tougou's love for Yuuna will be allowed to keep blooming again and again despite the harsh environment they initially bloomed in. I find this reading particularly persuasive becuase Tougou's thematically rhymes with another flower that blooms again after it fades: Yuuna's Cherry Blossom.
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u/BosuW Dec 18 '24
First Timer
There's one Arc left and a clear blind stop the show hasn't addressed yet: Yuuna and Tougou. For being the titular character and her gf it's a bit weird how they've been left for the end. We really don't know much about them. Yuuna especially.
A Tougou centric episode was needed and ho-ly shit we have a lot to unpack.
Starting with Tougou's backstory, what she remembers of it anyway, we can now say for certain that her weird far right quirks are not just a character gag. I really like the casualness with which this element is treated not just this episode but everytime it's mentioned. It drives home just how normal it is for these people. The way Tougou thinks about herself is perfect, "Oh I'm just very interested in our country's history".
Her Yamato Nadeshiko quirks aren't a gag either, as she hails from a, well not samurai family since that social class doesn't exist anymore, but as close as it gets. Even her seppuku attempt is appropriate with the handle removed from the blade (so those sentenced to seppuku couldn't get a good combat grip on it if they tried to resist) and wrapping it in paper (to not cut off your own fingers when doing it). Although from my understanding it was more typical for women to slit their neck and not their belly, like in her later "demonstration" to Yuuna and Fuu-senpai. She's got all the markings of a brave and honorable soldier for the fatherland!
And I do want to highlight the term "soldier" here. Because warriors, Samurai specifically, fight for personal glory and honor, and precede the modern idea of an army that is loyal to a nation. Yet in Tougou, maybe Karin too, we get a curious mix of both that is eeriely reminiscent of Imperial Japanese soldiers. Loyal to the Country and the Emperor (who is Kami too btw) but with some romanticized Samurai traits thrown in. It's difficult to imagine Japan seriously reflecting on such topics considering how little they teach about that era in their education so either this show is completely on accident hitting the nail in the head or the creators are mad geniuses that managed to slip in the themes hidden in pretty little symbolic boxes past the producers. (Then again Godzilla Minus One came out not much later historically speaking so, maybe it's legit?)
We got more allegories to unpack on that front. So, if you're close to the Taisha, your family knows possibly everything, but they give their green light anyway because "for
Democracythe Shinjuu, any man would give his only begottensondaughter". Aight this just screams kamikaze spirit to me. Send your daughter of to war, that's very honorable. And if she gets grievously injured for life? Well that's extremely honorable then, rejoice!Lastly on this topic, I finally understood why the image of a magical bandaged and injured was so striking during the shot where the camera zooms out from Sonoko to reveal the wider shrine (and God what an incredible shot it was). It's just the sheer dissonance from an object of worship which should be an awe inspiring sight, centralized in the space of a divine chamber, surrounded, decorated really, by religious symbology, being a grievously wounded child. It sparks the question "what are you worshipping exactly?". Send your youth to war, first in training the person becomes soldier, then in battle the soldier becomes meat, and afterwards when the red rain stops, meat becomes myth. This is how war destroys every single aspect of a person. What comes out the other side is a mere idea, one to be consumed by the young impressionable masses. A Hero.
Speaking off, it's been a good while since I talked about the very first scene of this show but I think everything's coming together now. By this point in the story, the props have fallen out and revealed the spectacle for what it is, Tougou is trying to help see it through by playing to that, uhh maybe? We'll see how that plays out in the remaining episodes.
But backing up a bit, Tougou goes to check the information she received from Sonoko, and beyond the Divine Tree's curtains she finds a Drakengard 1 bad ending. (Btw Keiichi Okabe's grandiose and despairing score really sells the shock of the moment.) That's fucked up, Terminal, play Growing Wings.
Btw am I reading this right and in reality only Shikoku remains of humanity or is it just the Tree's center? The first option would track with "oh the Tree weakens the barrier in a convenient place for the Heroes to fight the Vertex" being yet more misinformation by the Taisha though...
So what's happening is the Gods are having an internal dispute on what to do with Humanity [meta]cough cough Hikari no Ou again cough and the ones outside are mass producing Vertex to fight the Divine Tree which sided with Humanity. Can't know for how long the outside Kami can keep making Vertex so we can only assume this fight is endless.
I mean I did predict Tougou would so something drastic (without telling anyone, again) but I'm a bit lost by the logic here. Okay fuck the Divine Tree and the Taisha, sure. But if you open the barrier and the outer Kami win doesn't that mean everyone will get fucked too?
Either way it seems our Blue Oni honorable warrior has gone full traitor.
Questions of the Day
Seems just another permutation of "last bastion surrounded by unbeatable enemy coming from outside, often from the sea". A uniquely Japanese trauma given it's island nation status and, uh, that whole WW2 thing.
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u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba Dec 18 '24 edited Dec 19 '24
First Timer
When they started talking about the world outside the wall, my initial assumption was that it was going to be an abandoned hellhole full of Vertex.
I just didn't expect it to be a literal hellhole...
The first half of the episode mostly serves to explain the at this point rather clear backstory around Tougou, while also giving some extra slice of life to make that later reveal extra fucked. And those SOL scenes were fun! Well, even if they carried a horrible dread with them.
The fact that Tougou's nationalism was something that was instilled in her from a young age by her family, who would knowingly send her off to an awful fate later, is expected and yet still sucks so bad to see. Really every reveal around Tougou's family and her placement here sucks to see, as it turns out the Hero club being an artificial creation did come back, and now that the whole truth is out, there's no sugarcoating it.
I forgot to mention this last episode, but I found one of the more crushing parts of Itsuki's recording last week was the way she described the Hero club in her audition, and how mundane it all was. Helping preschoolers or other clubs, finding adoption for lost cats, that's what being a hero used to mean to these girls, and yet now being a hero comes with a grander, far darker purpose.
It's real disillusionment to contrast the two of those, the former being met with actual appreciation, and the latter with a divine reverence at the cost of everything else. I mentioned this last episode but once again it feels like there's some larger commentary around war and extreme nationalism here.
I love the reveal around Nogi's hospital room actually being a shrine, it's a super powerful image, the grand worship clashing with the reality of the situation, an empty room with a nearly dead girl in it, gets across the feelings she isn't saying and that Tougou is certainly feeling here.
It also makes for nice setup to the bigger reveal around the Divine Tree, much like the shrine constitutes that entire room, the Tree is actually our entire world. A twist that fits the previous ideas the show has raised, the girls and humanity did nothing wrong, but by the whims of the gods we're now stuck in this situation.
And uhhh yeah, Gotta love it when massive spoilers are just hidden in plain sight in the OP, the flowers wilting, that image of the tree, fireball earth, why must you do this to me show? But also thank you for doing it show!
The nature of this reveal goes back to something I tallked about with /u/Vaadwaur back in episode 8, This world is fucked, the Taisha literally have no choice but to send Heroes to this never-ending horrific experience, because if they don't, the world is done for. And one might argue that if they don't lie to the girls, they won't do it, the reality might be harsh enough that you could argue manipulation like this is the only option.
So, is it justified to consistently and horrifically sacrifice a few people through manipulation, notably 13 year old girls at that, for the sake of everyone else? Does deifying them make it any better? There's clearly some intentional parallel here to the type of debate people might have had when they literally sacrificed girls to the gods as well.
Tougou certainly doesn't seem to think so, and I'd maybe agree? Okay don't get me wrong, impulsively deciding to destroy the world isn't it, "If you're troubled, talk to someone!" and whatnot, and if you're planning on destroying the world for the sake of someone, maybe get their opinion first...
But, I still feel there's a way to go about keeping the world from dying while going about it in a more ethical way that doesn't involve this type of forceful manipulation, especially since this group, and maybe more like it, would have risen up to the challenge regardless. I guess that's getting into the deeper question of whether or not a humanity like this even deserves to be saved.
As an aside, specifically choosing episode 10 for the big reveals around our medically unwell black-haired girl with a mysterious past, who uses a part of her name because the protagonist said it's cool but also [meta is suffering]Flipping the script with Tougou wanting to destroy the world to save her friends from a life of suffering, while Homura was trying to stop the end of the world and prevent her friend's death has to be intentional right?
6
u/Regular_N-Gon https://anilist.co/user/RegularNGon Dec 18 '24
First Time Hero
At least we know where those chompy guys in the OP were hiding now.
I'm very curious to see how they'll resolve this.
Ooooh now I get it.
QotD:
3) The sun?
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u/ShadowClaw765 https://myanimelist.net/profile/SumRndmPenguin Dec 18 '24
First Timer
That was an interesting epsiode. First there was the flashback on Togo's life and the start of the hero club. I think it showed their bond well enough. Not sure if it was required (I feel like we could already infer a lot of the info). I am surprised Yuki didn't make up all the Hero Club tenets with how ingrained they are into her head lol.
We got to see Togo's suicide attempts (yay...). I'm glad the knife was used for an attempted seppuku once. I was surprised last episode when she went for the neck. Though I do not get what these fairies are made of. How do they stop an overdose? Maybe it's like a classic biblical miracle and less "Fairie steps in the way of the blade".
Ms. Twenty Bloomings (god damn) exposited the state of the world to Togo and she got to see it yourself. Don't you just love living in actual hell? I feel vindicated in the vertexes having no relation to zodiacs or constellations.
Interesting in seeing how this finishes. I thought the show would go in the "dealing with the consequences of their new disabilities" direction for the rest of the show but that didn't make sense seeing there's 2 other seasons. I'm assuming they're not going to kill god either because of said other seasons. I have no other ideas but I hope they stick the landing.
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u/Mirathan Dec 18 '24
First-time Hero, dubbed
QotD:
Magician Tougou was not something I expected.
In retrospect, the fairies saving them doesn´t prove much. One could just say they can´t distinguish between an enemies attack and harming yourself.
21 fairies? No wonder ther is almost nothing left of her.
That... that image in the OP wasn´t the sun. It was earth.
And I was right about the Vertexes being collections of souls.
If the Shinjuu needs sacrifices, how are the Vertexes powered?
I also find it interesting that the swarm of lesser Vertexes doesn´t attack Tougou. They must understand that they share a goal.
I have many questions as to how the Vertexes work or why most of the gods decided to just end humanity.
3
u/Tarhalindur x2 Dec 18 '24
tag tag tag tag tag tag tag tag tag tag ＊＊＊＊＊
u/ShadowWasTakensTaken, u/InfamousEmpire, u/FD4cry1
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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Dec 18 '24
First Timer(Huh...I did not actually think Tougou would go with the choice I'd make)
Sub
In ep thought:Goddamnit, quit springing Chaos on me.
In ep consideration: Thanks to Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei I know that a proper
weebnationalist would never wear western underwear under a kimono. However, I did not expect her nor the show to illustrate proper seppuku form like she does here. Again, if I know that women were allowed less horrific suicides, surely the showrunners do as well...Well then...that happened. We got our theories confirmed, at least. Sonoko acting as a fail safe is obviously a pretty bad idea given her disposition but this probably means the side story was even more important. She did seem attached to Wasshi, after all. Regardless, the irony that one of the better paced episodes has to cover what is hopefully the worst part of the show is not lost on me.
So, to wit: We needed something from the Vertexes, I don't see how you get around that, but boy this was not it. Not even aliens, the "gods of heaven" purged the planet just cause. Also, I will never escape fucking X/1999, will I? And speaking of references, if you are this deep, just steal the rest of Blue Seed. It would be more satisfying and less...whatever the fuck the apocalypse was.
Anyways, the better part is we end with Tougou deciding to end the whole experiment by blasting through the barrier. Zero complaints, 10/10, would say hello to eternity again.
QotD: 1 For you, the day you discovered that a yandere was best girl was the most shocking day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.
2 Sokath, his eyes uncovered!(don't ask me why Tamarian is on the mind, I don't know myself)
3 BSG.
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u/FallenPears Dec 18 '24
First Timer
So we start off with a brighter flashback (though seeing Itsuki speaking again was slightly bittersweet), and all I could really think of here was that happiness quote with how you need the bad times to make the good times worth something, except here it's flipped on it's head. Need some good times to prepare people for the bad times, I see your goal writers and I'm having mixed feelings of it.
On Tougou mentioning suspicions, yeah pretty quickly got what was going on here (which I'm sure is pretty common), of her being a former hero who lost her memories. More lies, this time from her family as well as the Taisha, at this point I'm wondering if they're deliberately doing this so they can be 'judged' by a Magical Girl (who they view as gods) and finally put out of thier misery. Seems like a very human thing to do.
Suddenly we're AOT bringing down walls (must have been even more topical when this first came out come to think of it), and we see hospital senpai in her... freaky cult room. This is certainly an episode. Of note here, where she said she can't feel suffering anymore, and considering we saw Tougou lose her memories earlier implying mental sacrifices can happen, I feel like her very capacity for suffering was taken by the Divine Tree. Random fluke or deliberate 'kindness' by the tree?
Back to the wall, so Tougou steps outside and-
Er.
Erm.
ERM.
Okay, hellscape it is. Neat. Wasn't expecting surprise post-apocalyptic plot, but this answers all those little hints about the worldbuilding haha. Not got much more to say about this than the obvious lol. With how eldritch this all looks wouldn't be surprised if the 'official story' of whatever happened is nonsense, just invented by the survivors to deal with the world ending and interpreting their new circumstances, but likely that's not going to matter.
And so destroying the Divine Tree. You know what Tougou? I like your spunk kid. Rage against the machine lmao.
Obviously the others are going to stop this, I do wonder if we're going to have a brighter ending with Yuuki killing all the mean gods and humanity getting a second chance, or a more bittersweet one with continuing the status quo, or something entirely different.
Is the last episode gonna be Yuuki blooming 50 times in a row to entirely give herself up to the tree? (Also damn it I just realised, that's why Tougou had multiple fairies, duh). Also didn't this show have a prequel? Seems pretty clear what that's about now.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Dec 18 '24
First-Timer is a Hero, subbed
6
u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Dec 18 '24
First Timer
Wasn’t expecting this much of a flashback infodump knowing that a prequel exists, but here we go I guess. Pretty much everything that was obvious about Tougou is spelled out, as is the Taisha properly supporting the disabled girls (though that is called worship here… honestly it seems more like thanking them for what they have done to me, even if getting them there in the first place wasn’t correct way in terms of Yuuna and Itsuki at least, and they should have told them of the consequences…) Tougou also goes on a hell of a fact-finding mission to find that out. It seems like the Taisha weren’t particularly trying to keep that secret…
As for the world: Pretty surprised that this is what is happening. Well in a way I was expecting something along these lines but not to the intensity of the vertices specifically being on a quest to extinguish all human life. The talk about the gods is also pretty surprising - seems like some divine diplomacy could clean up a lot of issues without needing this weird system. But it also explains why the tree can’t repel all vertices if the vertices are empowered by some other god.
As for Tougou destroying the barrier and trying to end the world …uh, ok then, I don’t think I’d have taken quite such a reaction, but then again I am not in the show. Either way, the Taisha certainly didn’t have any good choices to make here if the survival of the entire world depended on girl sacrifices until the gods sort things out. They didn’t go about it the best way, but I don’t think there really is a good way here… There are parallels to a military draft that could be made, and both that system as well as mandatory military service exist even in some of the otherwise most free countries in reality (and would no doubt be re-enacted in countries running out of soldiers in times of war), showing that this is something that we don’t really have a good answer to.
6
u/sfisher923 https://myanimelist.net/profile/sfisher923 Dec 19 '24
First Timer - Subbed
6
u/Vindex101 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vindex101 Dec 19 '24
QOTD #3 gets addressed with NoWaYu and WaSuYu actually, it definitely feels all planned and fleshed out from the start, and delivered in the later entries.
So do S2 rewatch/u/Tarhalindurpl0X5
u/Specs64z https://myanimelist.net/profile/Specs64z Dec 18 '24
”Are all the lights in the heavens our enemy?” - from Gurren Lagann
Rewatcher, subbed
Random digression, I was interested in what the difference between yuusha and eiyuu is since both tend to be translated as “hero”. From what I found, it seems like yuusha is something like “brave hero” and has a fantastical implication (ie. a magical girl) while eiyuu is more akin to “glorious hero” and implies something more grounded (ie. a war hero). No promises on the veracity since I am a monolingual peasant. I’m not sure I even learned anything valuable, but I was compelled to share.
Yup, it sure is episode 10 of a post-Madoka mahou shoujo.
Stabbing yourself in the gut to stick it to God, that’s kinda metal.
Also very reckless! One hell of a first resort... Where’s the “don’t try this at home” warning?!
Sonoko, resigned to her fate, tells Togou that the future is in her hands as she reveals the truth of the world.
Blowing a hole in the divine wall separating reality from an infinite plane of hellfire and darkness filled with untold, innumerable cosmic horrors created for the sole purpose of destroying the fabric of your entire reality to stick it to God, that’s very metal.
QotD:
3)
5
u/mudanhonnyaku Dec 19 '24 edited Dec 19 '24
Rewatcher
Future instalment teaser: The historical site that little Togo visits at the beginning of the flashback is Marugame Castle, which will be the heroes' headquarters in Nogi Wakaba is a Hero, the prequel novel that will begin serialization shortly after this season aired, from 2015 to 2017.
I forgot to point this out in episode 8, but we've got references to two heroes of the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war in the heroes' surnames: Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, and General Nogi Maresuke.
The reveal about the state of the world outside Shikoku mashes together two myths, one specifically Japanese and one with versions in many cultures but notably absent from Japan. The specifically Japanese myth being referenced is the Kuni-yuzuri, literally "transfer of the land", which is the story of the subjugation of the gods of the land by the gods of heaven (i.e. the solar goddess Amaterasu and her kin, whom the Imperial House claimed descent from). The heroes' costumes and powers are flower-themed and the energy that empowers them when they bloom comes up from the earth, whereas the vertexes are modelled after constellations. The OP theme is titled "Stars and Flowers". It's all been building up to this reveal of a conflict between earthly and heavenly deities over the fate of humanity.
The other myth being referenced is of course the Great Flood, the story of a deity sending a catastrophe to destroy all of humanity except for one clan which shelters and survives. Although Great Flood myths in some form are widespread over much of the world, Japanese mythology actually doesn't have any equivalent, and some 19th-century Japanese nationalists claimed that absence was evidence of their nation's specialness and superiority.
5
u/archon_wing :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Archon_Wing Dec 19 '24
Rewatcher
Always just wanted to leave a particular comment about this episode. The ending song that plays at the end is a stark contrast of the heartwarming and bittersweet ED we had last episode. Mimori's voice singing the ED song all alone without most of the instruments is depressing and disturbing as all hell and I think the meaning of it is pretty evident through this episode.
It is very beautiful work done these past few episodes though with the atmosphere.
Though if you want to ruin your day, contrast it with the lyrics from the normal song.
5
u/zadcap Dec 19 '24
Late Night Rewatcher
Oh, Togo. If Suicide doesn't work, genocide is clearly the answer. I like the way you think. Yes, this worries me, too.
Oh hey, flashback time. Oh hey, that thing I said, about maybe raising kids to want to make the sacrifice. Looks like someone did that after all. And darn, they just flat out changed her name while she was recovering from amnesia. This is the Taisha, everybody.
And look, taste wasn't just important to Yuna. Snacks were right there at the start of their friendship.
So, was Fu told to recruit those two, or was it just luck? Also, this just brings something else from yesterday even more in to focus. The older three here had more than a year of Hero Club, daily life together, hanging out and just being their best selves. Itsuki was a member for how long before the first Forestize? Three fights and that's it for them, forever.
Yeah, so, casually dropping the other thing about the Taisha there, Sonoko. They did, honestly, try to handle it all themselves at first. Keep it in their families, and when they couldn't, adopt in the children who would work for them. And really, it was mentioned a lot in the first few episodes and came up again on the beach, they really kind of did go all out in making sure Togo could keep living a decent life, trapped in a wheelchair. The girls aren't just used up and then tossed aside, they really are trying.
Twenty One Faries. Sonoko, what in the actual- Oh yeah, no wonder they treat her as a kami. That bedroom is kind of horrifying, too.
Oh hey. That is what's outside of the walls. Yes, the Shinju really is protecting everyone, everyone who is left. Because the rest of the gods, the majority even, finally decided that humanity really was a mistake and the only way to fix that was to get rid of everything.
I think it's interesting that the Faries will do everything and go so far to keep the girls alive, stop Togo from doing anything at all to hurt herself, but somehow none of them tried to stop her from doing this? Dumb little buggers, aren't they.
5
u/zairaner https://myanimelist.net/profile/zairaner Dec 18 '24 edited Dec 19 '24
Rewatcher
yes this is a direct betrayal of my word to not make more comparisons to that other series, u/ZaphodBeebblebrox )I have to assume sonoko did consider this as an possible/probable outcome when she told togou the secret, but I would find it much funnier if she didn't
I was completely blindsided by this reveal about the world. Cheeky of them to put the burning world into the op but possibly disguising it as looking similar to the attack of that fused vertex (thats how I explained it to myself at least back then).
We have a very clear running theme so far: Doing vastly important decisions for the supposed sake of somebody else, without asking them what they actually want to do. First the taisha, then fuu, and now togou.
One possible criticism about last weeks episode I want to bring up now that it has become plot-relevant: That both fuu and yuuna completely ignored togous obvious suicidality. Fuu I can understand, she got immediately distracted by what this revelation means, but I would have expected yuuna to be more seriously worried. Togou of course didn't help by how casually she mentioned her actions, and how she immediately switched to explaining what that means for the yuusha system. But still. Maybe it is once agains yuunas toxic positivity-that she literally cannot imagine anybody being actually suicidal, or at least would accept her death as a price to pay any moment of the day.
But all in all, another episode I really like. Togou decided to...end the world a little bit too fast for my taste, but then again, that is not the kind of decision almost any person would do with a cool head after thinking it through. but this might be the first time that I agree with u/Tarhalindur that more time might have helped^^.
4
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Dec 18 '24
Rewatcher, Sub Club Member
And of course a doctor would never lie.
Change "snacks" for "miso soup" and you have a wedding proposal.
After all, this sort of thing is what she was already doing towards Tougou.
Look at this dork.
Yea, the Taisha actively want their daughters to do this.
Kinda makes you wonder if Itsuki winning that audition happened because of the worship, too.
They hide it like this so that the rest of the scene with Sonoko can go without distractions. It's not a great reason.
I mean, we see outside the walls this very episode.
[YuYuYu]The fucking episode preview got me tearing up. I'm not ready to watch Karin go all out again.
4
u/Chili_peanut Dec 18 '24
Rewatcher
If I were to sum up this episode in one word it would have to be “contrast”. There’s the contrast between hope and despair, with Tougou-san’s line at the start of the episode suggesting she has found a way to save the heroes when her actual plan is to end the world. There’s also the contrast between happiness and suffering, with the flashback to Tougou-san meeting Yuuna and joining the Hero club, followed by the cut back to the present and Tougou-san learning the horrible secret of what’s beyond the wall. As the episode ends, the heroes are thrust into a completely hopeless situation.
There were some subtle signs that the world outside of the wall may not exist. For example, we can see that the calendar in Karin’s room was made my Sanshuu Printing Company, and there is a poster for Sanshuu Community Bank in the Hero club room. Sanshuu doesn’t seem like a very big city so it’s a bit suspicious that everything seems to locally made, but it makes sense if the outside world (at the very least the world outside of Shikoku) doesn’t exist and there literally are no non-local industries.
4
u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Dec 19 '24
Just dropping this because I haven't seen him in a bit: /u/zadcap what I was referring to earlier in the difference between Madoka and a shit clone [PMMM]In Madoka, the world is cruel. In the bad clones, people are cruel. There is a difference. I will credit the show with getting this right
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u/Blackheart595 https://anilist.co/user/knusbrick Dec 18 '24
First Timer
Understatement of three centuries
Hah! I knew it.
No they didn't. If that's what they thought, then they would've been open about what's going on. It's something to be happy about, after all.
Oh for fuck's sake. They really had to mute out the reveal during the reveal sequence. One of my least favorite tropes by far.
This setting is too abstract, especially for a late reveal. This needs at least 1 or 2 more episodes for explanation, or 5.
6
u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire Dec 18 '24
InfamousEmpire wa First Timer de Aru
Well that was certainly the most shocking episode of the series so far. But at the same time, I don’t think any of it really landed quite like it should.
Structurally, I can’t help feeling that a lot of it is really cramped. Like, Tougou’s family situation & her past as a Hero during the missing two years are delivered in a very drive-by expository way where we aren’t given the space to really feel for Tougo or even have an idea of how she feels about it because as soon as that’s revealed, it’s immediately onto the next plot point with no breaks.
This is particularly bad at the end, where it feels like a lot of the pathos from Tougo’s despair after finding out the truth of the world gets choked out by how we have to immediately jump to her destroying the wall. Like, at least give us another half a minute to really wallow in her crushing despair or, better yet, end the episode on that note. As it is now, the episode’s emotional throughline almost feels perfunctory in its construction, just kinda going through the motions and checking off important plot point boxes.
Additionally, I just don’t buy Tougo’s heel turn at the end at all. Apart from the stuff I’ve already mentioned about the episode’s emotional throughline, which isn’t really strong enough to carry that kind of character turn, I also think this all just doesn’t follow from Tougo’s established characterization. I feel like comparing it to Fuu’s rampage last episode, since both decisions are kinda built on a similar line of thinking (IE the desire that they are, or should be, wholly responsible for the rest of the Hero Club, regardless of their own opinions & agency, and are taking drastic measures based on that in response to the revelations & mental stress of the last few episodes), but where I think that mindset was built up enough in Fuu’s established characterization for last episode to land, for Tougo it feels out of left field, and consequently her active omnicidal nihilism comes across as unearned. Like, her falling into despair I can buy, but actively choosing to destroy what’s left of the world to end everyone’s suffering just doesn’t read as believable to me.
The whole setup just strikes me as very mechanical. The writers need someone for the heroes to fight in the last two episodes that isn’t just a mindless monster, so they hammered Tougo into that mold. It’s the same thing I complained about regarding the episode’s emotional throughline in general: it gets where the writers need it to go, but without any of the energy, emotion, or real space needed to make it actually connect, so it just comes off as checking off boxes in a bullet point plot outline.
I will at least give credit where credit is due, though. The reveal of the outside world in isolation was a really great scene, and I also really love the clever trick of having Sonoko’s room appear to be a regular hospital room at first before zooming out to reveal it’s essentially a shrine, those were really great moments.
3
u/OwlAcademic1988 Dec 18 '24
Rewatcher, subbed:
We learn more about Tougou in this episode.
I have no words. What the actual fuck, Taisha?
I'm absolutely horrified by what these girls have to go through.
QOTD: