Phi Brain S2 – 03

You know you suck when a men who eats, sleeps and breathes puzzles rejects yours

You know what would have been useful during my exams? An Orpheus insertjewellerytypehere. I already go crazy from studying, so having some mystical bling screw with my synapses is basically the same thing. It’s not like it would reveal some deep, dark violent side either because well..let’s face it…that side is kind of already out in the open. Orpheus bling! Someone needs to patent that!

Remember Airi? Me neither. Just know she’s the one who was crazy for Kaito, but sucked at puzzles. Even now, she’s wasting her time and money at an arcade all by herself. That is, until she comes across The Orpheus Order’s (I wish there were a handy acronym but OO just sounds like I’m moaning in the middle of a sentence, and no one wants that mental image) own Mizerka appears and offers her a plushie. Of course, that’s not all.

“I’ve killed a man for a toy pineapple before”

The next day at school, Kaito and his friends are busy eating while Cubic analyzes the fragments of the earring to learn more about the Orpheus Order. For now, the only extra info we get is from the Principal, who tells Jikugawa that the Orpheus Order wishes to accelerate the thinking process of all humans with Orpheus devices in another scene. They think the Gods they believe in are suppressing our intelligence, and that the Orpheus devices free us from those shackles. Moving back to Kaito and company, Nonoha enters rage mode when she sees Airi running errands for the other club members.

It turns out that Airi was a voluntary gopher. She’s bad at puzzles and a puzzle tournament is coming up, so she’s doing what she can to help the other members. She pretends to be happy, but later that night when she’s lying in bed, she shows her true feelings. She used to be good at puzzles (or at least, unafraid to try them) but now everyone just laughs at her feeble attempts. In a world where those who can solve puzzles are the most popular, she’s the loser. She’s got a secret weapon in the form of an Orpheus ring given to her by Mizerka in the arcade. She puts it on and uses it the next day to solve puzzles like a pro.

Solvin’ all da puzzles / Shawty knows how to hustle / All you losers wit muscles / Can’t touch our fiery Airi!

The puzzle club is so impressed that they carry her around the school and act as her personal slave. Nonoha asks her why she’s acting like an ojou-sama all of a sudden, but she just waves it off and then asks Nonoha for a favour. Nonoha obediently obeys Airi’s request to go an empty part of the school, and ends up bumping into Mizerka. With Nonoha out of action, Airi can now send a letter to Kaito challenging him to a puzzle. Confused, but drawn by the promise of solving something, he goes to the location specified in the letter. He arrives at some building in a room that is practically falling apart except for the nice, HD monitors installed at the front of the room and the shiny laptop sitting on the table.

Airi suddenly appears onscreen to challenge Kaito to a puzzle. Kaito tries to refuse, but she tells him hat if he doesn’t comply, “something important” will be crushed in a compactor. Assuming that it’s Nonoha, Kaito begrudgingly accepts Airi’s puzzle. He notices her Orpheus ring, which makes him all the more wary about what treacherous puzzle she’ll throw at him. Sadly, the first puzzle is so simple that he solves it in fewer moves than Airi wanted him to. She freaks out and switches out the puzzle for a harder one…and then a harder one…and then a harder one…

By now, Kaito is fed up. However, he can’t stop because Nonoha will become human jelly and Airi is in danger. Mizerka, Cubic and Ana helpfully chime in that prolonged use of Orpheus devices puts a huge strain on the body. This is evident by Airi falling unconscious despite not even going far enough to have her eye glow red. Pansy. Kaito uses this opportunity to solve the most recent puzzle she gave her before she can recall it and replace it with a more difficult one. Like the others, it’s not a very complex puzzle, so he finishes it in no time.

Once the puzzle is done, they run to free Airi and Nonoha. Airi is now safe, as her ring fell off and shattered while Nonoha is…not even part of the puzzle. She’s ages away performing a play for children, completely out of harm’s way. Mizerka laughs in the background, apparently satisfied with the data obtained despite having her pawn beaten by Kaito so easily.

Tsk tsk, Kaito. Everyone knows the Mac Gundam is wayyy better than the PC Gundam.

I Made You Guys Something DERPTASTIC:

lets solv e pezzles.!

 

WHOA, KAITO IS TOUCHING A GIRL! Mark it down in your calendars, folks!

“I hope you like this friend ring, Airi” “Why does it say ‘kill everyone you love’?”

 

End Thoughts:

I knew that the “stick an Orpheus thing on a dude” pattern would prevail for most of the upcoming episodes, yet I still was convinced that Airi would never fall into that trap. Even if she donned some sort of brain-accelerating ring, I figured the darkest thing to come out of her would be arriving 5 minutes late to class or something. While she didn’t become as vicious as, say, Chieno, she did have quite a marked change in personality. I’m a little surprised at how powerful the mind-altering process is for these devices. Kaito really got lucky that he became apathetic instead of a murder machine who actively tries to exact revenge by killing people from his old armlet. I guess the extent of how twisted they become depends on their individual predispositions beforehand. Airi had a personality flip, but she didn’t go far enough to put anyone’s life in danger.

Another thing about these mass-produced Orpheus accessories is that they seem to only be able to increase one’s brain capacity to a certain amount. It’s probably related to each person’s innate potential. I would bring up brain plasticity as well, but magical bracelets probably don’t give a flying fu*k about plasticity. It seems like people who are already super smart like Kaito and Freecell become prodigies, while the plebeians just become “really smart dudes.” Chieno, who was great at puzzles, gave Kaito more of a run for his money in the maze puzzle while Airi could barely even challenge Kaito for half a minute with hers. I’ll be interested to see just what kind of data the Orpheus Order is collecting from these things and what they’re going to use it for. If their goal is to free humanity from its ties to the non-Orpheus Gods, then I’m guessing they’re trying to start some worldwide distribution of Orpheus bling that stays attached permanently. Come on, last season we had THE GOD SCROLL, so they have to step it up!

Lastly (I’m sorry. I major in Neurosci and can’t stop trying to think how these things would work in real life.) there’s the whole body deterioration aspect. It sort of makes sense since the brain naturally takes priority for receiving blood glucose and oxygen, and if it’s overworking then the body becomes malnourished. However, the timing of it is very inconsistent. Kaito would faint after each use of his armlet, while Rook had it on all the time. Chieno stayed conscious while using her Orpheus earring while Airi fell unconscious despite not even fully activating her ring. Why? Because Phi Brain is a derp show, and like he’ll they care about consistency! I doubt there’s any real reason except for that. I wonder if they’ll totally forget about Orpheus armlets being able to read the future too. If Freecell doesn’t have any sort of future sight, I will be depressed…

Whoa, did I really get THAT sidetracked about the armlet? I’m…okay, well, it’s out of my system now u_u. As for the actual episode, it was kind of weak compared to the last two. The animation took a nosedive (or rather, returned back to normal) and the puzzle wasn’t exciting at all. The whole episode was like the comedic relief episode, but I didn’t find it funny. Phi Brain is only funny…when it’s not trying to be funny. The end result was a weaksauce puzzle that I solved just as fast as Kaito did. Not only that, I knew Nonoha wasn’t in the Perorin/Smiley doll. They showed her inside an enclosed space with no details at all, which made me instantly suspicious. Airi never specifically said what was in the doll either, so putting two and two together didn’t take much. Meh.

I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of genderbent Rook..er…Mizerka. So far she just seems to smile smugly at things, which isn’t a very good personality considering her boss already does that perfectly well. Next week seems to be the start of the Phi Brain vs Orpheus Order specific rivalries though, so perhaps that will give me more to go on. You can’t help wanting to know more about guys who don’t care if the whole world turns into serial killers as long as they’re SMART.

Preview: Cubic and Melancholy (the loli of Orpheus Order) have a cage fight while wearing those explosive collars from Battle Royale. HARDCOREEEE!!!!!!

A big showdown so soon?