Wakaranai

Rating:    

Is psychopathy and general insanity the new trend in anime or something? After being thoroughly freaked out by this week’s disturbing adventures of Beatrice (Umineko no Naku Koro ni), I got an earful of the seriously damaged Liang Qi. Or several earfuls. Seriously, although I otherwise found the episode quite enjoyable, by the time I’d sat through 10 minutes of Liang’s ranting lunacy I was practically shouting at the screen “put a bullet in her head, Aplhard! Put her out of her misery, or ecstasy or whatever the hell emotion her insane tantrum was supposed to represent!”. She did eventually come to her but not before ranting incoherently for a good portion of the episode. It’s sad because, by going so far over-the-top it bought down the otherwise fast-paced and thrilling pace of the episode, diminished the impact of her seiyuu, Rie Tanaka’s fine performance, and also discarded whatever potential her character had left. I initially found her a really interesting character, because I’m an admitted yuri fanboy and I found her onee-sama complex kind of fascinating. Obsession is always fun to explore, unless it results in this kind of mad and incoherent screeching.

On the other hand, I’m not one to say no to smoothly animated swordfights and girls in lingerie. Liang may be a bit annoying in her vocal craziness, but she’s still damn hot. I loved the shot of her packing an uzi, a handgun and a sword dressed in her sexy love-love attire. And just to make her that bit more fucked up, in a sexy kind of way, the fight with her onee-sama had a masochistic bent to it. Who would have thought, she’s even worse than Cummings? The choreography in the fight was impressive, as was the fluid and detailed cel animation. Looks like the producers have banked enough gold to afford a few more pieces of great animation.

But once again the script suffered from a pretty strong ‘lame factor’. I liked the conversation between Alphard and Natsume, and, actually, most of Alphard’s dialogue, but the stuff with Liang was too unconvincing, and the line about Maria wanting to become a cameraman and the suggestion that she take Canaan’s photo when she returns felt a bit retarded. Would real people in that kind of situation say such wishy-washy metaphorical nonsense? I doubt it. And I was also a bit disappointed that this marks the swift end to the ‘home village’ set of episodes. Next time it looks like we’ll be back in civilisation. Initially I thought the climax would have gone down out at the base, with all the characters arriving on the scene. But it seems that arc was just a bit of a sideshow to help explain the backstory and the real climax is going to ambush us out of nowhere.

There are only two episodes of CANAAN left and I’m doubtful it can really wrap things up in a satisfying manner.

 

♡♡ And what a way to end an episode, with a romantic sunset reunion! The yuri bells are ringing with these two, even if their relationship is based on such innocent almost familial feelings that non-believers can still pass it off as deep friendship. But, like Fox Mulder, I WANT TO BELIEVE!

“okaerinasai, Canaan.”
“… tadaima.”

In a funny kind of way this expression shows just how much they mean to each other. As I said in my Canaan/Maria yuri write-up, they essentially define their lives by each other.