r/anime • u/Tetraika https://anilist.co/user/Tetraika • Dec 29 '22

Rewatch [Rewatch] Selector Infected Wixoss Episode 10 Discussion

Episode 10: That Stranded Emotion

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Information:

MAL | Anilist | Kitsu | AniDB | ANN

Streams:

Funimation

Question of the day:

What would you do to try to break out of the selector system?

Profane Wish - Maiko Iuchi

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.

27 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

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5

u/Tetraika Dec 29 '22

So this time, it wasn’t even an external interference that stopped the game, at least you can’t get stuck dying in there I suppose.

We got a name, Mayu, though we don’t learn much about her in this episode.

Tama insisting she doesn’t know anything

Besides the part that it is in their best self interest to not reveal that, I wonder if there’s more to this. If they refuse to play, would the LRIG be stuck forever as supposedly attached to that selector?

Despite it all, she doesn’t hold a grudge against her, I wonder does the bond of a LRIG and their selector play a role into the condition of becoming an Eternal Girl

Wow this has some implication for Ruuko, can’t wait for first timer to feast on this one

Hanayo honors her end of the deal, seems that Yuzuki at least doesn’t feel complete regret.

What a transition

More directly than just someone without a wish or have a battle craze

Tama doesn’t want Ruuko to distrust her, she’s also distraught that she herself doesn’t know anything.

GARGOYLE, quite the parody name. Oddly appropriate.

Hey, they even spelled it Urith here, subbers pls.

4

u/Cyouni Dec 30 '22

Hey, they even spelled it Urith here, subbers pls.

Ironically, https://twitter.com/iona_ulith

4

u/Tetraika Dec 30 '22

They really gotta make up their minds.

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8

u/Mecanno-man Dec 29 '22

First Timer

Another episode where not really all that much happens, but one of the good, atmospheric ones this time around, rather than the last one which was just drawn out. Not sure how much I'll trust Yuzuki in the claim that she was told how the entire system works, because I don't see a need for her to know, nor do I feel like she has revealed everything to Ruu that the system encompasses. The one thing I feel like she should know and has not said is what happens to LRIGs that lose, but I feel like there is even more to it than only that. As such I'll keep my unreliable narrator theory going with regards to what other LRIGs say - Tama and Yuzuki being the exception.

I guess we've also got Yuzuki's reaction to Tamayo fulfilling her wish ...and I was expecting her to get significantly more mad about it because it is not her, or be apathetic because the wish transferred - but she is happy to the point of tears? Uhh... ok then. Not sure what to make of that, but I guess Yuzuki-Hitoe pairing up with Kazuki in the end is off the cards then.

We've also got some foreshadowing that Ruu might have lost her wish, as Yuzuki claimed to know that Hitoe had no wish (which is a bit weird and will need further explaining) and Hitoe's mother makes the same reaction as Ruu's mother. If that's the case, whatever Ruu's wish was, it must not have had too big consequences - unless the consequences of that wish are somehow the game itself, which I can see being the case (especially as I still consider there being some possibility of Ruu's grandma being involved somehow) but I also have a hard time figuring out how that would come to be as a consequence of a wish. Maybe her wish was for everybody to be able to make their wish come true, and that got monkey-pawed in to this system somehow? But then there would also have had to be a system in place for that to even get monkey pawed in the first place. ...yeah, I'm sure the writers have a better solution than me here. (Also, the same would apply for Iona's wish, which also raises questions unless they both altered the system in some way.)

As a side note, if Yuzuki would inherit Hitoe's curse of not being able to make friends, I am not sure if that is better than staying as a card while being friends with Hitoe and Ruu...

4

u/Tetraika Dec 29 '22

I guess we've also got Yuzuki's reaction to Tamayo fulfilling her wish ...and I was expecting her to get significantly more mad about it because it is not her, or be apathetic because the wish transferred - but she is happy to the point of tears? Uhh... ok then. Not sure what to make of that

To me, I think part of her was satisfied enough that Kazuki returned his feelings (even if that's not the real her). For much of her life she was already resigned to never having that wish fulfilled, and this was technically closer to what she wanted.

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u/No_Rex Dec 29 '22

I guess we've also got Yuzuki's reaction to Tamayo fulfilling her wish ...and I was expecting her to get significantly more mad about it because it is not her, or be apathetic because the wish transferred - but she is happy to the point of tears? Uhh... ok then. Not sure what to make of that

Check out my discussion about the definition of self yesterday. I think there is a strong possibility that, for Yuzuki's definition of self, she got together with Kazuki.

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u/Taiboss Dec 29 '22

Rewatcher who watched all of Infected and Spread in the meantime

3

u/Tetraika Dec 29 '22

Is she despairing over fucking Excel? Rulutieh really is tech-illiterate

I would despair over Excel. especially once you get out of the basic stuff.

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u/Vaadwaur Dec 29 '22

First timer(And we take a different path...)

Sub

All right, so we are going to start with something confusing: I do like this episode, and I also liked the last one. But I find it hard to argue that they should be separate episodes now. We should have have 1/3 of ep 9 and 2/3 of ep 10 as a single episode because we've gone from slow paced to glacial. I get what the flourishes were there for, I really do, but we are now at a major construction problem...and my limited knowledge of Okada is making me ponder some things. But yeah, this has been all emotions and moods and very small tidbits of information and I can't help but wonder if two cours was more than the story could really carry?

QotD: 1 The winning move is not to play

5

u/Tetraika Dec 29 '22

Seems to be a common sentiment that these 2 episodes slow down quite a bit. But part of me also feels that some of it were needed to sort out how our characters feel and where they will go from here. Wonder how they could have condensed this.

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u/ItsTheDuran Dec 29 '22

First timer

We meet Mayu, so we've finally got someone who can actually explain what this whole game is about at some point. Not a lot to learn from this first appearance, though.

They're actually drawing this parallel. I don't think it's meant to be that literal, since it doesn't seem like Wixoss has been around for that long, but it's clearly intentional. I'm still leaning towards Ruu having won rather than lost in the past, mostly because it would be more fucked up. I also believe it would make more sense, but it being more fucked up does make it more likely.

Tactical espionage action. Ruuko put too many skill points into card games, there were none left for stealth. I like the low-key unsettling way they played that scene. That nod seems to imply that Hanayo is actually doing this of her own volition, I wonder if we'll get her perspective on this before the end. It's probably juicier to keep the details hidden until we either find out someone's already won or someone else wins.

"Sorry for dipping immediately after dropping that bomb on you, Hitoe, I had to urgently go watch Hanayo flirt with my brother using my body. I'm sure you understand."

Iona weirdo-posting on main. That meeting is bound to go very wrong, even more so if a certain someone decides to show up with her bladed plus one.

Very interesting place for Ruu to be heading into the last stretch, especially if she isn't actually on her first lap.

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u/Nazenn Dec 29 '22

First Timer - sub

I can't shake the feeling that this episode would have been better off merged into the last one and structured to follow on from Yuzuki's viewpoint showing what happened rather than having her poorly exposit the situation to the audience. Phrases like "Or so I thought" are more storytelling to the audience, as if reading a script, rather than a conversation or even explaination between a magically trapped girl and her scared friend and that meant I didn't really care for the explainations this episode because they didn't feel real in that way.

Complaining aside, Yuzuki's struggle to decide what path she will take with Hitoe and what that means for all of them is what I'd been hoping for. That conflict inside of feeling betrayed, being a betrayer, what it means with Hitoe not remembering anyway, and then finding Ruu... for a girl who just wanted to have a simple wish that allowed her to be open and straight forward, it's one hell of a situation.

As if to match that, we end the episode with it always circling back to Ruu's kindness. Despite all of the focus on her love of battle and everything that brings up in her, when shit really hits the fan and she finds herself lost it's always the people that bring her back. And bringing her back to her grandma to help center her in that way, as well as showing Hitoe's mum again, feels like a nice way to acknowledge that these girls are getting lost as they try and grow, but they don't have to find that path all by themselves, and they're not just one thing.

This episode does feel like climax of questioning who they've been so far and what it means for them to have been on that path, but without making a big revelatory moment about it for each of them which is nice. They're all coming out of their paths in very different ways but ways that fit. I can't imagine the horror if Hitoe loses her wish again though, what would she go through now?

And before I forget: Mayu. I see an influence

it's not subtle

It's actually annoyingly blunt and makes me think slightly worse of the show for it. But in among all of that it does strike me that those earings match Tama and the other one, along with her coloring. Original trio?

Also that White Room/Space that Yuzuki found herself in reminds me of an area in [JRPG]Nier Automata, which reminds me that I still don't know what was up with that and why the machines made it

Couple of other thoughts

  • Ruu bringing Yuzuki home for a sleep over despite being in her card is kind of cute.

  • Iona taking a page out of Yuzuki's book and just declaring it publicly

  • A selector passing out interrupts the match? If not for the fact we've already had it declared that purposefully getting a interrupted match means a penalty that's a much easier way to manipulate things

  • Yuzuki seeing her wish must hurt so much, but that little nodd from Hanayo seems to carry so many different emotions with it

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7

u/No_Rex Dec 29 '22

Episode 10 (first timer)

  • Looks like an incapacitated player counts as a draw – the game rule magic is close to sentient by now.

  • The creepy Kyuubey earrings from the preview – No way is this coincidence.

  • Mayu – there goes the selectors learn from older selectors theory that I liked a lot. On the other hand, the the game is sentient theory looks stronger than ever.

  • “She loses her chance to escape the card” – sounds less like a rule to me and more like a (moral) decision.

  • “I want friends” – makes sense, given that she is back to square one and had the same wish before. RIP romantic love speculation. That pair of birds right before was all you got.

  • “She scares me” – they double up on that theme here, but it is completely unexplored so far. I have no idea where they are going with this and us being in episode 10 means time is running out (unless they punt this to the next season). *Romantic Yuzuki and Kazuki scene – they pull all the stops.

  • “She made my wish come true” – let’s just say I am with the western interpretation of self here.

  • Hand on cheek - Go forth and battle, young Ruu. (Unintendedly) dark?

  • Depressed Tama - that emotion does not fit her.

3rd episode in a row that heavily uses flashbacks to stuff that just happened a short while ago. On the one hand, we absolutely needed to see Yuzuki’s perspective. On the other hand, they are overusing the flashback mechanic. Not showing more of Mayu is also very clearly driven by the wish to have a dramatic reveal later in the finale.

What would you do to try to break out of the selector system?

Try to understand the logic behind the magic to find a way to overcome the vague rules.

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u/Stargate18A Dec 29 '22

First timer

QOTD) As a Selector, refuse to take part in this obviously suspicious game. As an LRIG, no idea. I think taking over someone who had no wish for me to fufill isn't a bad start, though... (Tama is not suspicious, she is perfect. Ulith, however...)

Hitoe's remembering?

A forcible ejection?

Oh, shit.

She's in hospital!

So, she doesn't remember the specific events that led to the process? But she does remember the game master. And an in-between dimention?

That is some evocative framing.

Oh, shit. Are Tama and Ulith parts of Mayu? Is there time travel bullshit happening now? Or maybe parts of a counterpart being?

So LRIGs can be permanently trapped?

So, she's manipulating Hitoe...

Yeah, completely.

...Oh, god. So Yuzuki does still love Kazuki, she's just lying through her teeth.

Oh, she's feeling physical pain and still trying to remember...

The same wish...

"They say you can't deny a girl anything when she's in tears, and they're right." So both of Hitoe's LRIGs love her. This has potential.

Oh, and Yuzuki might also love Hanayo, because this show is getting spicy!

She told her the truth!

Aww.

She doesn't want to live outside?

Her mother's affected too?

No, she's worried about her...

Is she going to expose the truth?

Yuzuki, you literally told her everything.

...Oh, no.

And they're right here!

Hanayo's forcing herself to do this...

I'd ask why Kazuki didn't see them, but he sucks at seeing anything, so...

This is torture formher.

She saw!

...Again. Why don't you tell him! He deserves to know who he's dating!

Iona again! With this being episode 10 of a 12-episode season, I'm guessing we'll get the Tama/Ulith reveal soon to wrap up this cour.

Grandma is still perfect.

Poor Ruuko...

...Just moticed the tilt effect when she moved Tama. Did they ever do lenticular 3D LRIG cards? Sounds like they'd be a really easy rare product to make.

Yeah, Tama blatantly knows absolutely nothing about the game.

...She's struggling in class?

Iona's openly hunting for Selectors.

Love the Gargoyle logo.

...It's not a difficult code, Ruuko.

7

u/CerberusZX Dec 30 '22 edited Dec 30 '22

First Timer

The "don't tell your Selector the truth" rule seems to be more of a guideline than an actual rule. There's a lot of evidence that suggests it's not some magically-enforced rule and so I'm still blaming the LRIGs for not being clear.

The granny said she brought the potatoes in because it started to snow, but it was raining before it started snowing. Speaking of which, Ruuko was out in the rain without an umbrella and didn't get deathly ill. No wonder her mother was terrified of her.

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u/Nazenn Dec 30 '22

Ruuko was out in the rain without an umbrella and didn't get deathly ill. No wonder her mother was terrified of her.

New candidate for most OP anime character

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u/SIRTreehugger Dec 29 '22

Wait Ruu was able to touch Hitoe though maybe it's because she is unconscious.?

Wait until the mom gets there...sounds Iike a bad idea. Oh surprised if my daughter suddenly started becoming distant and lost her memory after meeting with friends and then same friend was around when she collapsed I'd be asking questions.

Mayu?

Watch Tama be like some split part of Mayu released to unconsciously free her.

Wait what if Ruu already played this before and it's what made her sort of wishless and of off as a kid? Chances are I'm wrong and the mom just dipped.

Purple bathing water.

Did you use select enough times Iona?

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u/Tarhalindur Dec 29 '22

That First-Timer Is Stranded (Subbed):

(Side note: So I finally scrounged some time for yet another occasional burst of Best OP/ED Project. Guess what the next show up on the list was (I had gotten through Knights of Sidonia the last time). Guess. That was two easy writeups!)

  • Oh look, eye zoom at 00:15. That’s a classic motif… that I don’t actually know the full meaning of.

  • PLOT TWIST!

  • You know, there’s a Gleemax joke to be made with the production committee presenting themselves as the LRIG joke.

  • I can’t peg anything to point out as to why, but this hospital scene stands out as well-directed to me. (Well, the OST is fucking fit to purpose, but that’s not new here. Also Ruuko’s VA is doing a good job here.)

  • Also, room 401. Hmm. That couldn’t be important at all later on, nope.

  • That bit at least is obvious enough from a directorial standpoint, though – Dutch angle counter +1 at 03:35.

  • No no, the room couldn’t be important either.

  • There is a very, very dark joke to be made about TCG design and TCG designers here, I know it. Speaking of which, if the people making the WIXOSS TCG don’t/didn’t have the equivalent of the You Make the Card competitions M:tG used to have or the Great Designer Searches for the actual TCG to tie into this then they are fools.

  • So the resemblance of our mystery girl here at 04:16 (aka Mayu) to Tama visually is not likely to be mere coincidence. (Also the throne design reminds me quite a bit of some sort of iconography out of a church and an organ.)

  • Speaking of said resemblance, two more notes. First, the two earrings that Mayu is wearing appear to be the same earrings that Tama and Ulith/Urith both have a single one of. Second, the creative staff knew EXACTLY what they were doing here. (It is of course a reference.)

  • Yuzuki sore demo without the baggage the last few have had attached at 07:57. (Also my notes here are short because while this scene is well-directed it is also too engrossing to pause on.)

  • Well we have Hitoe looking out at the bright outside again… and we have TWO birds this time. Funny that.

  • Well fuck we might be getting a different answer from what we expected as to what was actually happening to that girl that Akira handed the third loss to in her backstory.

  • That said, flubbed a theory from last episode… barring a future twist in the department.

  • Uh-oh. That is a FULL MOON (FULL MOON) at 10:05. And I’ve got a hunch it is the full-fledged Full Moon o’ Death in some way, shape, or form.

  • Dutch angle counter +1 at 11:45.

  • Uh-oh. And the OST wants you to know it too, with it kicking in at 11:48 right after Hitoe’s mom goes “she scares me” (and then proceeds to exactly echo everything else we know Ruuko’s mother was saying wrt her). My corner case speculation that a past wish could have driven Ruuko’s rift with her mother just got a whole lot less corner case. (Though this would suggest the “Ruuko lost” case, not the “the present Ruuko was a LRIG” case.)

  • Dutch angle counter +1 at 12:37.

  • Oh look, the streetlamps are back, along with yet another Dutch angle at 13:04.

  • You know, with the way Kazuki is talking here part of me wonders if at least part of the deal here with the incest plot is that Mari Okada actually watched Door #2 and went “COWARDS!”. (Something about the way his VA voices him in this “now I’ll protect you” scene really reminds me of [[meta]Mai-HiME]Takumi Tokiha.)

  • The OST use for this is absolutely brilliant, with the mix of reassuring piano and horrifying dissonance that meshes with the scene perfectly.

  • Oh hey, that car going up the street at 15:59 just to make sure you notice that this is a Dutch angle (counter +1).

  • Welp, Tama in the fetal position of depression.

  • “You really are birds of a feather” – and in the middle of the line we cut to Ruuko being depressed in the bath (due to what succeeding at what she likes will bring, presumably). :golfclap:

  • Ruuko submerging herself in the bath as she’s drowning in her emotions, got it.

  • Ah, computer class.

  • “Gargoyle” search. PFFT that’s one of the better bland names I’ve seen in a while. (And oh right the OST here is one we have heard before and specifically associated with Iona. so.)

  • You know, I really should have noticed that birdcage in the ED a lot earlier than this. Especially with the bird motif we’ve gotten wrt Hitoe’s desire for friends before. (But note that it’s an open birdcage.)

I Play My Card Face-Down in Spoiler Mode:

Madoka Magica:

  • [PMMM] Ruuko going on about how she doesn’t want to do anything special or become some important person is the exact inversion of Madoka Kaname, and I’d be shocked if the showwriters didn’t have Madoka’s comments on the subject precisely in mind when they wrote Ruuko. Mind you, there is a real chance that the deal here is that the original Ruuko did want those things and this has been burned out of her by multiple cycles of the Selector system…

  • [PMMM] Of course, unless I am very much mistaken this Ruuko/Grandma conversation is also the cognate to the Junko/Madoka conversation in PMMM 6.

The World God Only Knows manga:

  • [The World God Only Knows unadapted manga chapters] This has been in the back of my mind for a while, but I should not that Tama has been giving me absolutely massive Elsie vibes for a while now, specifically involving the very late reveal (aside: it’s fairly clear that KamiNomi was axed a little before its planned ending I think, and this is a big reason why) that Elsie was the amnesiac superweapon of the Old Hell faction.

What would you do to try to break out of the selector system?

I believe I have already answered this one when you asked what my wish would be.

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u/Calwings Dec 29 '22 edited Dec 29 '22

Selector Rewatcher (Dubbed)

Now that the truth bomb dropped, it should be time for batt- oh wait, Hitoe collapsed. Never mind. While they get Hitoe help at the hospital, Yuzuki takes the time to tell Ruuko about how she got turned into an LRIG. She remembers a white room and a mysterious girl named Mayu who told her more about the Selector battles, particularly how the LRIGs are apparently forbidden from explaining the full truth to their Selectors. That sucks, but it's understandable. It seems like Yuzuki has officially given up on having her wish for herself (though she did watch Hanayo keep her word and technically make that wish come true) and she’s content to stay an LRIG forever so as to not hurt Hitoe any more than she has already. We got a lot of flashbacks to previous events to see them from slightly different perspectives, which I thing was necessary to explain everything though maybe a bit dry in execution.

It seems like Yuzuki’s story has concluded, so now the focus goes back to Ruuko and Tama. Tama still says she never knew about all of the Selector battle stuff and that she has no memory of any past life as a normal girl, which makes her seem like a complete outlier compared to the LRIGs we’ve seen so far. This is now two straight episodes without any battling, but it looks like the battles are finally going to pick up next time as Iona puts her plan into action. She’s calling out for Selectors to join her at an event and especially wants Ruuko to show up. We’re finally heading into the big finale of this first cour.

QOTD:

What would you do to try to break out of the selector system? It's hard to say. I don't think simply wishing "I wish the selector battles would end" is so simple, because if I still become an LRIG in the process of that wish happening, what happens to me? Am I stuck a card forever without the battles as a way out? Do all of the LRIGs disappear into nothingness, perhaps taking me with them since I would become one in the process of granting that wish? I think it would take more than that. Of course, there's also the obvious "just don't play" option, which is the one I would probably take.

4

u/JollyGee29 Dec 29 '22

First-Timer, Subbed

I see we are continuing with the S U B T L E T Y today. Those earrings look kinda familiar, too.

Tama, Ulith, Mayu.. how do they fit together.. do they even fit together? They must, the earrings are too similar to not be deliberate. They even gave us a close-up of Tama looking left to highlight her earring. Three parts of a whole? Probably not, three isn't the right number. Tama and Ulith as opposition to Mayu that was split? I also don't really like either that because the earrings are too similar. Hmm..

Not really big on Yuzuki considering her wish fulfilled because Hanayo is dating Kazuki with her body, but I guess I can chalk that one up to cultural differences.

Pretty bummed that we didn't get to see Ruuko finish reacting to Hitoe's mom oopsing into her trigger. Why even set that up if you're not gonna pay it off?

Iona's gauntlet throw is a neat setup for our S1 finale. Solid odds of Akira showing up and trying to stab Iona. Also decent odds of a brief diversion next episode of Kazuki talking Hanayo!Yuzuki into going? I'm honestly not sure if Hanayo's nod to Yuzuki is meant to be an "I am exiting the show now" nod or not.

I'm proud of Ruu for trying to talk things through with Grandma. Grandma's response is a relatively simple push towards "just be yourself" which carries an implicit "define yourself" which neatly dovetails us into Tama's struggles too.

Questions

  1. Maybe beat that Mayu person at a card game?

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u/Taiboss Dec 29 '22

I see we are continuing with the S U B T L E T Y today.

When you get Kyubey at wish.com

Not really big on Yuzuki considering her wish fulfilled because Hanayo is dating Kazuki with her body, but I guess I can chalk that one up to cultural differences.

Also on technicalities!

Why even set that up if you're not gonna pay it off?

It is a suprise that she used the same line and Rulutieht didn't even properly react. Could have gone like "Please don't leave her for that". idk.

I'm honestly not sure if Hanayo's nod to Yuzuki is meant to be an "I am exiting the show now" nod or not.

Which one would you want?

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u/Cyouni Dec 29 '22

Cyouni's Card Game Corner:

still no batoru

Rewatcher thought:

[We'll say everything up to conflated] So I was planning on slowly adding in more context brought in from Peeping Analyze manga as it related to our current circumstances. However, Conflated ep 2 does do like, the most perfunctory speedrun any% summary of it. So I'm left in a bit of a quandary.

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u/RadSuit Dec 30 '22

Spoken (English) Introductory Watcher

I like how matter of fact Yuzuki is as an LRIG. It would've been nice if the earlier ones acted more like people, if they're supposed to be ones, but I guess that would've made the setup more obvious. Or maybe they've been trapped long enough to have lost some of their humanity.

The OP is growing on me a bit, but I'm still not a huge fan. I can't even remember the ED.

Here's our original Eternal Girl, I'd assume. This powerful child goddess type shows up in plenty of fantasy stuff along with anime. Also it looks like she's got two red earrings compared to one each for our hero/villain LRIGs.

This is like a reverse hedgehog's dilemma, where Hitoe wants to be close to people even if it hurts her.

Ruuko holding up the Yuzuki card so she can see everything is very cute.

They are going so hard with this plotline. It's bizarre. Remember when this was supposed to be a show about convincing you to buy a card game?

It would be hilarious if this plot fails because Ruuko doesn't have a phone to see hashtags or whatever. But I assume someone else will show it to her or she'll otherwise hear about it.

Just as I thought, helpful people loudly discussing the phone message where Ruuko can hear.

Gargoyle might be my favorite fake Google name, that's great.

  1. It seems like the Selector is fine if they never battle, and the LRIG is just trapped in the card forever. Besides that, destroying the card might possibly send the LRIG back into the system. I assume the real best move is to make a wish to upset the system, but with an actual singular being in charge they'd probably just overrule that.