Medaka Box Abnormal – 08
 What an eventful and exciting episode of Medaka Box Abnormal, with our heroine getting duped out of her memories, and an all-out war getting started between the 13 Party and the student government. Frankly, it’s hard to care about the outcome; the story has gone off the rails, but in a very good way. It’s not quite at the same level or quality in story or production, but it has the same style of insanity as Future Diary, where anything is allowed to happen as long as it keeps amusing us with its increasingly unbelievable twists. This isn’t so-bad-it’s-good or so-weird-it’s-good (like how I’d describe K), it’s rather a celebration of the wild and crazy possibilities of narrative. |
Unfortunately I can’t read Moon, but I think they’re misusing @ in Twitter.
Weren’t the student council members down there to destroy the Flask Plan? Now they’re fighting for their lives and to save Medaka. Oh, and everyone they defeated before are coming to their aid. Why? Umm… Unzen and Onigase have a good reason as members of the disciplinary committee, but those loser 13 Party members? The show had the sense to make a meta joke out of it, even if it was a bit groan-inducing at times. The story has gotten nuts enough that the explanations that Shigusa, Kei, and others provided are satisfactory, and I’m less concerned with why they’re back than I am with how good they’ll look back in action. Admittedly, it wasn’t great, with lots of lazy still shots and pans. Could GAINAX have blown through their budget early in the show? Now there’s a crazy thought!
If you managed to scroll all the way down, good job, you passed the test! And thanks for reading! Also, this pan reminded me of a better pan in a better show based on Nisio’s work.
The opening set piece was definitely the highlight. Medaka’s offer of taking Maguro’s place was perhaps too predictable, but it was a pleasure to watch go down. The complete trust she puts in others is endearing. I admire her ability both to believe in and to act upon such a hopelessly optimistic ideal. Thankfully it wasn’t like the scene in Mission Impossible 2 where you were shouting at the girl just to get it over with already; Medaka injected herself both times immediately with no hesitation. Which proved to be her downfall. Is the show trying to teach us a lesson about healthy cynicism and learning to distrust others? I hope not; Medaka’s primary appeal is her unreasonable over-the-top goodness. I enjoy seeing the naive hopeful kid getting his face bashed in by cold hard reality as much as the next person, but in this case, I want that irrational hope to win out.
This was a very nice bounce back from a couple more low key episodes, but it might be too little too late at this point for Medaka Box Abnormal. The pacing of this arc with Naze/Kujira was anemic, and it really should have been covered in 2 episodes. Compressing the dialogue and flashbacks would have done wonders. It’s nice that the show has achieved the insanity required to justify its story, but that sort of story can be tough to sustain, because it is dependent on providing a stream of outrageously fresh material (as demonstrated in the 4th episode of Humanity Has Declined). Thus forecasting the success of the show’s coming episodes becomes very difficult. At least we’ll probably listen to a bunch more Kana Asumi and Ai Kayano next episode, since they appear to be getting ready to face off.
Thanks as always to Fosh for his captions!
About lvlln
A math/science geek and a self-dubbed cynical optimist. I don't care if it's deep, if it can make me feel something or laugh, it's fine in my book. @lvlln
POWUH: 600-699 with 691 comments
evil people!be aware of twitter…
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Hello, people of Metanorn.
Make your font bigger.
And why are you thanking someone for captions? How hard is it to add them yourself?
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He wants time by himself with his planned victim. Don’t
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Precisely.
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