Gokukoku no Brynhildr – 06
Ahh! My eyes!
Apparently making body parts glow is a skill common to all magicians.
Distrust Dissolved
Extending a hand of friendship.
Looks like I was wrong about Kotori after all. She really is just a harmless little goofball. I guess I was hoping that there would be more to her since that might make for some interesting developments, such as Ryouta having to talk an enemy into becoming their friend. But instead she’s just that one character with a sob story who smiles all the time because that’s her way of coping with hard times. I’d sympathize, but every other character has had just as shitty a life as her’s so in the end it’s just the same old same old. Happy birthday to her for what it’s worth.
Smarts
It’s actually impressive that Kotori could come with such a bad plan.
Moving on, this episode takes the opportunity to again demonstrate Ryouta’s “massive intellect.” I say this facetiously because his brilliant ideas are in truth nothing mind-blowing at all. He just manages to come across as the smart one thanks to the magicians being incompetent in comparison. How could Kotori not consider that switching places with the enemy after immobilizing herself would result in an immobilized enemy? She might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but you’d think that a magician should be more familiar with how to use her powers effectively. And how did none of the magicians think to track down the origin of the pills that keep them alive? Understandably the lab might have set an ambush for them there, but they didn’t even think to look for the manufacturing facility in the first place.
Friends don’t let friends not take pills.
Failing that, the next step would be to try and replicate the pills. I’m guessing that’s why Ryouta involved Kogorou. But still it came down to him to entertain the idea when by all rights this kind of thing should have been a first concern to the magicians. To them it’s a matter of life and death, so it’s crazy to think that so many runaway magicians have already laid down their arms and died or surrendered because they simply ran out of pills. And the only effort they ever made to remedy their vanishing supply was to get more off of other fellow magicians.
Since the show has moments of random fanservice, I’ll throw some in this post too!
Sure, investigating the pills might set off alarms for the lab that could expose the magician’s location. But surely that’s nothing that those magicians with more cybernetically-inclined abilities like Kazumi can’t handle. And if it comes down to reaching out to outsiders for help on potentially replicating the pill, there’s always the uncertainty of not know who to trust. But this should be a risk that the magicians are well-willing to take since not doing anything about the situation means certain death anyway. But in any case, that’s how the story is and Ryouta stands to gain all the more from it by looking like the only smart guy in the room, so good for him.
My first impression of Kogorou is that he is as trustworthy as Ryouta believes. He appears to play the crazy scientist type who’s only interested in studying and understanding anything new and inexplicable that he comes across. That being the case, his primary motive will probably be to study the magicians, so there should be no danger of him betraying the gang because that would mean the loss of his new playthings. In exchange, he will help develop pills for them so that his “research subjects” don’t die before he is fully satisfied with the knowledge he has gleaned from them. And along the way, we just might find out more about the harness and the weird alien that lives in it. So his weird personality notwithstanding, I am sure Kogorou will make a very strong ally for the Ryouta and the girls.
Kogorou just wet his pants.
About Sumairii
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
The show is so square. I mean, even throwing in random fanservice bits, it’s completely straight up. And there’s just no sense of urgency in anything Ryouta does. Neko’s getting pinned down and blasted and he’s just calmly discussing things with Kotori. Kinda saps the life out of the show.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…it’s hip to be square.
POWUH: Meta Resident and Werewolf Chaser with 1270 comments
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TalkingIsAFreeAction
Its pretty much this.
POWUH: 400-499 with 445 comments
I agree with the whole pill situation, but i buy the fact that the magicians would not be actively seeking out a way reverse engineer the pills because that is something they would need outside help with. I think it’s more a matter of finding someone they can trust rather than not having thought up of the idea (although with this show who knows). Think about it, if you ran away from a facility that did nothing but experiment on you and make your life a hell, why would you instinctively think to go arouse suspicion to yourself by trying to investigate a way to manufacture more pills, let alone involve someone who probably doesnt understand your situation, would probably report you to a higher authority if you revealed yourself to them, or wouldnt know how to go about helping you. The best thing these runaway’s can afford is to live the last few days they have not being experimented on until their inevitable death.
Oh by all means this show is full of plot conveniences, but one thing that was done legitimately was the idea that these runaway magicians probably wouldnt go out of their way to try to involve other people into a world that is suppose to be secret and others wouldnt understand. Besides, reverse engineering components of medication that is uncertain can take a while, especially if the active ingredient is not a crystallize compound and i dont think any of the magicians who ran away could afford to wait that long
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Yeah, it’s almost like you’re better off trying to go industrial espionage the formula out of the actual company than to try to reverse engineer it from an example (which also uses up some of the examples you have). Now it’s possible that they could figure out the active ingredients fairly easily, or even improve on what’s there. It seems really odd to me that they’d just be using some standard formulation of something, tho.
POWUH: 400-499 with 445 comments
Exactly; either way they’re screwed which would bring up the point of why run away in the first place? but again, anything was better than staying in the lab apparently.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
They actually gave a reason for running away. All the witches that are ‘good guys’ in the show were B class witches who were going to be disposed of. It wasn’t super clear, but they may have been in transit to be killed.
Although as ruthless as those guys are, you wonder why 1) they had any stash of pills and 2) why they didn’t just not give them pills and have them all bleed out to die and 3) why not just do that all at wherever they were.
POWUH: 400-499 with 445 comments
That’s why i dont think all of them where meant to be disposed of though; probably just a group of them that dont have any relevance to their major plan
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
My understanding was that all the ‘B’ class witches were going to be disposed of, because they were too lame or limited for being useful.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Brynhildr kittens:
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=5116483&postcount=365