Gokukoku no Brynhildr – 03-04

Cute girls and gore. What more could you ask for?

Proving again that people do not die when they are killed.

 

 

Derpity Derp

Those are some nice… moles.

Let me get this out of the way first since I figured it would continue to remain one of the mysteries of the show for at least a while longer. Yes, Neko is in fact Kuroneko. Yes, her moles did shift because she filled out healthily in certain areas. Yes, she does lose her memories every time she uses magic. And the moment all of this was revealed, both Neko and Ryouta get themselves cut clean in half only to be “resurrected” thanks to magical convenience and now have no recollection on the matter. Yep. Ignoring the eyebrow-raising convenience of Saori’s time reversion ability, I am dismayed with the apparent direction the show will be taking of keeping the involved parties in the dark while we are in the know. There is not as much novelty to keeping us hanging on when the two will figure it out again in comparison to the original mystery itself. Not to mention the annoying situation is very evidently getting dragged out considering Ryouta missed the many hints and opportunities that cropped up after the laboratory incident to piece it all together again. All of this, because of Neko’s previous insistence that she is not his childhood friend.

Being distracted is an infuriating yet very believable excuse.

On that matter, I do find it a bit strange that she could so firmly state that she is not Kuroneko since she is clearly aware that she has missing memories. The easy rationalization is that she just didn’t want to get Ryouta involved since he would then be put on the baddies’ hit list. But now that they’re all aware that he’s willing to take that risk and is more than likely already going to be killed if they get caught (surely his involvement in the laboratory raid sealed the deal), what’s stopping her from coming out and saying that she isn’t actually so sure that she isn’t his childhood friend? Is it some stupid reason like she doesn’t want him to be hurt by the thought of his obsession friend not remembering him? Or perhaps something equally boring like he just hasn’t brought it up again so she’s keeping mum?

Aliens and Stuff

Did someone say nape fetish again?

Despite my reservations on the writing, I did find some of the consequences from the raid particularly interesting. First off, it appears that there is something to be said about how magic affects magic. Kana’s prediction that Neko and Ryouta would die never did change. And sure enough, they died once. But at the end of the day, they are still alive and well as opposed to ending up as chunks flesh and pools of blood. Perhaps this might suggest that some forms of magic can fundamentally undermine others? While we’re on the topic of magic, there is also the revelation that one of the three buttons on the magicians’ harnesses supposedly leads to a fate worse than the death by melting that one of the other buttons causes (the last one disables the magician’s abilities). Not sure what that entails but no doubt we will find out soon enough in full gory detail.

 

Just passin’ through.

Next is the matter of aliens. I always thought Kuroneko’s talk of aliens in the flashbacks was just the ramblings of a child with an overactive imagination. It’s undeniable that there is something living in both the harnesses and the magicians that wear them though, so I suppose I should have taken her words as one big Chekhov’s gun. Whether these creatures are extraterrestrial in nature is not explicitly confirmed, but that might as well be the case at this point. Whatever the case, it would seem that the alien symbiotes are the source of the magicians’ abilities (the pills merely keep them alive) and are not doubt invaluable to the mysterious council of evil for their nefarious plans of world domination or the like. It certainly doesn’t look like they plan to use them for more constructive means.

Kazumi isn’t happy with her own “worth.”

Lastly and not directly related to the raid is the revelation by the newly introduced Kazumi (a wily magician with “hacking” abilities) that Kana is actually pretending to be immobilized. For the time being, this seems like a rather unimportant detail. I don’t know what effect it has on anything since her abilities don’t really require her to be mobile, and in the grand scheme of things her being babied by Neko doesn’t mean much more than a minor inconvenience. But Kuroneko’s claim of the existence of aliens turning out to be true and with serious implications has me suspicious that there might be more to this. Plus, it is rather curious why Kana has deceived her close friend when they ostensibly trust each other with their lives. I can’t imagine that she has any malicious intent, and moreover it appears she stands to gain nothing of real importance by putting on the act.

Overall, Gokukoku continues to be an intriguing show held back by some questionable writing and liberal use of generic tropes. Since comparisons to Elfen Lied abound, I will say that Gokukoku is shaping up to be considerably tamer with both its graphic and explicit depictions, mainly through the application of censoring and convenient camera angles. Anyway, it looks like next week the gang will have to deal with another hostile magician. I doubt they’ll have too much trouble though, because the opening and the official art betray that they’ll be able to befriend Kotori without incident.

A new challenger appears!