Sengoku Otome – Momoiro Paradox 06

Saving backstory for a rainy day.

So MetaVerse 02 is now out for you to listen to. I hope you like it; we had a good time with Scamp talking aniblogging and Spring 2011 impressions. There wasn’t a lot of me to hear with Scamp as the centerpiece of the episode, but do expect some more MetaVerse real soon. Oh, and outtakes. I’ll probably be cranking those out on my twitter page in the near future.

Hideyoshi is bored. Do they have any board games in Feudal Japan for her to play?

Onto episode 6 of Sengoku Otome, we’re at the midway point of the series now, so it seems like a perfect time for us to get to some backstory. I didn’t ask you to, Otome, but it looks like you’re going to anyway. Fine. Tell me how people meet each other.

Mitsuhide reflects back to how she first met Nobunaga. Before serving Nobunaga, Mitsu served Kubou-sama in the capital. Who’s Kubou-sama? Not important enough to talk about apparently, as the anime doesn’t show her or even cover what she’s like. Moving right along, Mitsu sees Nobunaga easily handling whatever girl comes at her, and Mitsu accepts Nobu’s challenge to fight. Much to the surprise of Nobu and the home viewer, Mitsu actually starts off pretty even with Nobu, but because she put a little too much in her attempt to throw Nobu, Mitsu gets thrown like a piece of trash.

Wouldn’t you back down if she gave you that stare?

Goin’ for a ride, Mitsu. Do note the wood floor your head is about to hit.

Nobunaga, in addition to being a very strong woman, is a very fun woman. She enjoys horseback riding, fishing with her bare hands, and picking berries and eating them right off the stem. She drags Mitsuhide along for the ride, who eventually does come to like her. As Nobu is getting ready to head back to her homeland of Owari the next day, she really wants Mitsu to come along with her. Watching it, I almost wasn’t sure whether Mitsu wanted her to ask or not.

Nobunaga is delighted to give Mitsu the princess carry. Mitsu prays for Nobu’s firm grip.

“Mitsuhide, will you <censored>”

Skipping a bit ahead to the second piece of backstory this week, we see young Nobunaga being scolded for her tomboyish ways as she’s beaten up some of the kids. Nobusada, the grandmother of the future lord, takes Nobunaga with her and talks about how the hearts of women are like the water and that they will rebel if forced to obey. That is what we call an analogy; judge for yourself whether it’s a good one. I’m telling you that it’s dumb, thus explaining why Nobunaga has a dumb side to her.

I’m convinced that Nobu is Akuma’s child

Onto the funny antics portion of the episode, Nobunaga takes Hideyoshi on a tour of a hidden cave filled with traps. This is more in line with what the show has been doing, but it’s kind of nice to see those two interact with each other while Mitsu is away. I do enjoy watching Hideyoshi slowly breaking down Nobunaga, at one point even considering how to address Nobu’s short temper. As they’re walking, both Hideyoshi and Nobunaga make mistakes which sets off an Indy Jones-esque escape from the temple of traps.

Check out those eyes

What I found to be the most intriguing moment of this episode was the end with Masamune. We know the story of Hideyoshi being teleported to this world, but Date is a bit of an interesting case because of how she got there. Masamune was seen performing the ritual which Hideyoshi intervened in, but prior to that, we hadn’t seen this other person wearing some futuristic clothing and holding a phone or some kind of device. Time travel is a part of the show of course, but what if there’s a future element yet to explore?

And what year are they from?

Battle Girls Bonus Imagery:

Let’s drink to these images from Episode 06

BONK!

For the second week in a row… dat ass…

Hide after realizing we we’re checking her butt out in the previous image

There is a lot of detail going on in this shot. Like… a lot.

Let’s hold swords for an uncomfortably long amount of time for no reason

Flashing Back: The friendship between Hideyoshi and Nobunaga has been fun throughout the series. Instead of dealing with the potentially obvious culture clash jokes, their dialogue is more focused on the differences between their personalities. Mitsu’s jealousy immediately showed up at the end of the episode, which made that whole sequence between those two kind of fun to watch. I mentioned on MetaVerse how Hideyoshi is becoming a better character, and Nobunaga is a big part of why.

I joked about not wanting flashback, but the way it was put in the episode isn’t so bad. Had the episode been fully dedicated to a flashback, I probably would’ve dozed off and would’ve started writing this on Tuesday instead of Monday. The flashbacks themselves aren’t good; Mitsu meeting Nobunaga is pedestrian, and the story of Nobunaga as a child is weak, but at least they’re plot points covered and weren’t dreadfully long. I also felt Megumi Toyoguchi made no effort to make the younger Nobunaga sound younger.

Animation isn’t Otome’s strongest feature, but I do enjoy the colorful outfits the girls wear in Feudal Japan. The rain obviously takes away the vibrancy of the colors of the outfit, so watching this episode gave me some appreciation for the show’s brighter moments, like when Nobu and Mitsu were hanging out in the first flashback segment.

Preview:

The next episode is been titled Drama Maiden. It could mean that there’ll be some acting going on. Sounds g… um, yeah, I’ll be watching next week.