Fractale – 10

In which Sunda punches the hell out of everyone for dramatic effect

Sorry for being a bit tardy on this one. It’s not like I wasn’t writing up blog posts, I just saved Fractale for last because I haven’t been particularly thrilled with the show recently. Maybe I’m just cynical now that there’s no weekly Madoka to speculate over though. Tegami Bachi ended too so this is the only weekly show that’s left for me now! Come on Fractale, don’t fail me now!

Pew pew~ bullets everywhere! Clain flies his mini airship right into the battle between LM and the Temple, barely managing to dock with Sunda’s ship before getting shot down. Sunda asks why the hell they’re there only to find out that Phryne is in enemy hands. Not. Good. Clain then goes through the process of asking to save her, getting punched, calling them murderers, calling them FRIENDS, and then asking to go again. Then Sunda agrees. WAT. At least Nessa is staying behind for sure. No way they’d be stupid enough to let Nessa go to the Temple.

…Scratch that, they’re stupid enough. With Nessa’s amazing persuasive techniques (i.e. pout and say you have to stay together…forever!), Enri is powerless to her will and sets out to the Temple. Meanwhile, Clain and Sunda go full throttle in that dinky little airship to make it into the Temple. As for Dias, who knows what that slimy eel has planned. Oh, cheap Izaya rip-off, do those dastardly deeds that only you can do~

Bitchzilla AKA Phryne has a one on one meeting with the high priestess. She tries to convince her to call off their attacks on LM, boasting persuasion skills just as powerful as Nessa. She points a dagger to her throat and threatens to kill herself. The high priestess looks worried for a moment, but then quickly turns it around. The people here can’t live without Fractale, and she would just throw the world into chaos by stopping the cycle of keys.

Negotiations are going swimmingly

As a last ditch effort, Phryne begs for sympathy. The high priestess used to be her, so she should understand. Except, she isn’t Phryne any more so she DOESN’T understand and instead tries to strangle her. Oh dear. After her crazy outburst, Phryne bites her ankle and runs off to find Clain. Come on, if you’re going to have a moment of insanity at least crush someone’s windpipe properly!

Alright, time for some action. Sort of. If your type of action consists of airships suddenly appearing and miraculously killing only the bad guys. And random bullet sprays by Clain going berserk. All of this leads to everyone meeting up after killing a bunch of old ladies – Nessa’s group, Clain’s group and Alabaster. They send Clain and Nessa to get Phryne while Dias tells his men to kill Phryne on sight. A sensible solution, but he still gets punched by Sunda for it. Oh, and did I mention Dias has a terminal still? That’s like…double the rebelliousness.

Nessa uses echolocation (or rather, singing that creepy Temple song) to find Phryne. She’s fading fast, so it’s a good thing Phryne makes good use of some old lady meat shields to find her. They have a nice, happy reunion through a glass wall until pedobear comes. Oh dear God, his pedo laugh is…Oh God and he..he licks her..I…why…WHY WOULD YOU END IT LIKE THIS?

*CRIES*

Dias picspam:

Well hello, and welcome to a picspam of yours truly, Di-

JESUS CHRIST, MY PERFECTLY CHISELED JAWLINE. HOW COULD YOU

Ugh, you bastard….Hey, wow, my blood tastes like chocolate.

End Thoughts: Avoiding this episode for a while was probably for the best. It just served as a reminder of how shallow this show really is. I’ll give it brownie points for being ambitious and trying to present a lot of action and drama, but it’s really too late to recover from the horrible set-up that’s been built up since the beginning of the series. This show feels empty. It’s hard to empathize with any of the characters because they’re downright unlikable and dreadfully inconsistent. Pair that with a meandering storyline that likes to only briefly touch on issues before skittering off to the next one with no connection and you get an anime as deep as a paper plate.

Considering how scattered Fractale has been, episode 10 isn’t really the worst of episodes. It’s better than the laundry episode, at least. But it’s an episode where it attempts something a bit more – and fails – which really shows me how far this show is from salvation. My cynicism has been steadily growing, to the point where I put off this episode for quite a while…*sigh* Just one more episode to go! (The sad thing is, it remains one of the few winter shows I haven’t dropped…) Hopefully I’m more inspired for the last episode.

You know what really bugged me? Clain going from “you’re a murderer!” to suddenly opening fire on a bunch of old ladies. Also, who the hell would let Nessa go to the Temple knowing full well what would happen? Oh, contradictions and stupid decisions. I could discuss how clones like Phryne must feel, what the hell kind of relation Barrot has to Phryne and if Nessa will just disappear if she doesn’t reboot the system. However, I don’t want to force myself to talk about things I’m not interested in for the sake of it. You know what I WILL talk about? I’m sure you can guess. Dias. Dias, baby, my only light in this show! All this time you had a terminal in you so you could download porn AND run a rebel organization. The man’s ambitious and I like that. I really hope it ends with him winning somehow, no matter how much of a clone he is of other villains (*cough Izaya cough*).