Phi Brain S3 – 20
At this point, the fanfics just write themselves.
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It’s reading week! That means I have more time to do whatever I want! That and do some actual reading for all the midterms I have next week. But rest assured, I am prioritizing the truly important things first. Puzzles are the oxygen in my life so it simply cannot be helped. |
This episode is almost entirely composed of flashbacks and mind games. It’s all a bit…bumpy. There have been so many twists lately that the shock factor isn’t working as well as it used to. Instead of getting excited, I’m starting to feel a little lost. The fact that everyone is suddenly donning Orpheus Rings and going nuts is too much to pay attention to at once. I feel like the decision to have Orpheus appear has backfired, and now they’re desperately trying to assemble a cohesive storyline to work around this.
They’re also really good as night lights.
Now Raetsel has an Orpheus Ring, and Rook will soon follow her (based on the preview). As much as I love the idea of Rook going psycho again, it’s almost guaranteed that he’ll snap out of it after just one puzzle instead of lasting to the end. This isn’t Rook’s time to shine. This is between Raetsel, Kaito and Orpheus. Her name is in the title of the season – you can bet she’s not going to be shafted in the finale. So why didn’t Rook stay at home and research another way of stopping Jin? That would have been infinitely more useful than trying to train himself for an ultimate puzzle showdown with Kaito. I guess when you don’t have the “stab Orpheus in the throat” option, there isn’t much else to be done except challenge him directly. Still…does everyone really need to try at once when Kaito is clearly the best one there?
It’s all a little iffy. I think the excitement of having a character tainted by the Orpheus Ring is what lead the plot in this direction. So far Raetsel seems in control, but judging by the preview…Rook does not fare too well. At the very least, it should make for some interesting interactions once the friends meet up and realize what’s been going on while they were busy. I’m not so excited about where things are going now though. It’s going to be messy for quite a while.
Move over you pansies, the puzzle Queen has arrived.
For example, there’s a flashback where Raetsel plays with Kaito and Rook as children. Some of them are convinced it’s the real past while one of them says it’s just an illusion – something for Raetsel to strive for if she obtains the power to change the past. It’s really hard to tell which one is true, especially considering that Orpheus plays tons of tricks that even the other characters aren’t aware of. It seems odd that no one would remember Raetsel so I’m assuming it’s just a manipulated illusion from Jin to give Raetsel hope. It would just be too lazy to have it so that EVERYONE is a childhood friend. That’s been Phi Brain’s solution to just about everything. Even Freecell was a childhood friend! It would be a little too convenient if Kaito made 3 enemies that were dedicated enough to later track him down and try to murder him before he even hit puberty.
The overuse of convenient flashbacks and shared visions are examples of extremely lazy storytelling. The beginning of the season did such a good job setting up Raetsel and Jin as acquaintances, and it’s all starting to get muddled in this Orpheus plot. It’s like they already beat the final boss and all this is poorly scripted post-game bonuses. I still love this show, don’t get me wrong. I just expect a little bit more care being put into these twists other than “literally everything is a twist.”
Things I am excited for? Lovushka being revived (or not) and Enigma’s reaction to this. He’s so meek now that he’s serving Orpheus that it’s kind of amusing to see such a rich, powerful guy prostrate himself before a new master. He’s got some deep issues if he drove his lover to her death yet still loves her. I can’t wait to see how that goes. Other than that, everything is basically just puzzles and utter nonsense. Lots and lots of puzzles. Next week has Rook so maybe I’ll be more lenient.
More puzzles:My favourite new segment. I didn’t catch any of the punchlines for this week’s banter, but I did find the puzzle to be ridiculously easy. On the left is an example of the rules on a practice puzzle: place the pink rectangles on the field as the numbers suggest. A 2 means that a pink rectangle must touch 2 sides of that block. 0 means no pink rectangles can touch it. Got it? This took me literally 12 seconds but you can see for yourself if you don’t have enough puzzles in your life lol
Puzzle time!
My solution: Show ▼
Preview: Rook finds an Orpheus Ring somewhere and challenges Kaito to a puzzle. No screentime for Mizerka and Doubt yet haha nice try guys.
About Overcooled
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Orpheus is starting to get what he wants using Jin’s pain and suffering to his advantage, making Kaito, Rook and Raetsel so desperate to save him that they’re beginning to give into his terms. It’s not often something like that happens because one usually would expect characters such as them to be defiant until the end. There’s a real grim feeling going on.
From what I understand, it was Jin who created that illusion to get to Raetsel in a last effort to change her mind about wearing the Orpheus armlet and so far, it’s been in vain. He’s like a father figure to them.
I don’t want to believe it but Orpheus sounded like he going to keep his word to Enigma about Lovushka. Unless “You should get ready to see your woman again” means something else entirely and he gets shafted.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
It’s got a real “last resort” feel to it. Orpheus really knows how to play his manipulation cards juuuust right.
That scene was confusing…if anything, wouldn’t that illusion make her want to change the past to make that reality come true? And he failed to convince her in the end too.
I have no idea if he’s lying or not. It’s realllly hard to tell because Orpheus can really mess with him either way. By reviving her, now he has her as a hostage and can technically kill her again for even MORE trauma. By not reviving her, he can make Enigma do what he wants and make him even more depressed at how alone he is. In either case, we get to have fun watching him struggle!