Amagi Brilliant Park 11-12

Some embarrassed reactions make everything sweeter

Merry Christmas everyone! Unlike other holidays, this is one that everyone around the world should know about. So in Amagi Brilliant Park, it’s time for the big crunch, the last battle, Go Big or Go Home…

Going for Broke

One of these people is not like the others…

The park needs to get those visitors in, and it’s not looking good, so Seiya comes up with a plan, with the help of TriCen, to use the stadium for a big boost. But what kind of event to put on? They finally come up with one that is actually believable. I’d have thought they’d go for a concert or something, but that would have been rather hit or miss. What they really come up with is better: a soccer match. The top flight Japanese League Tokyo club is in trouble, because they’re resurfacing the pitch, and they’re not going to make it in time for their traditional anniversary match, a friendly exhibition between current and former players of the club. Which just happens to be on July 31.

Nobody’s used to this much work

Too bad TriCen’s a terrible representative. He almost blows the deal before they get it, but we finally get a good use of Seiya’s power to find out what the real sticking point for the club is: they’re out of cash, which is the reason their field resurfacing has taken so long. I actually like that they’ve only used Seiya’s “True thoughts” power sparingly throughout this show, because it’s been something that’s kind of overly convenient. If they had set up situations where they used it more often, it would have become a joke fairly quickly. Knowing the circumstances of the club, Seiya pretty much gives up the farm to host the game, with the one condition that all the attendees go through the park. No stadium fee, all printing, advertising, ticketing, security, etc. All free to the club. It’s really an offer they can’t refuse, especially after they see the condition of the stadium, helped a little by Tiramie and the Diggerys. And with a little bit of success, they get the momentum they need to seal a deal to sell off the southern part of the park with the stadium for redevelopment, and to cover the losses they’ve incurred pumping up the attendance.

Big Push

I have loved the way they kept these three in the show

Finally the last day, and needing just under 55k people, they’re hoping that the 50k from the match is enough to push them over the edge. But with that many people, the park is far more crowded than it usually is, and a lot more work than anyone is used to (just for a comparison, in 2013 Tokyo Disneyland saw over 17 million guests, which averages to just under 50k per day, but since it’s very peaky on- and off-season, it’s likely they see over 75k on their busiest days). And it’s looking good until just after the game starts… when they’re 252 guests short. If you thought they were desperate before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Sylgirl’s on the case!

But the problem is that nobody’s biting. Not at the local bus stop, not at the station, not anywhere. People have places to go, things to do, and it’s hard to say “Please come to our park RIGHT NOW or we’ll be shut down.” I don’t know if that would even be something that they could say, culturally. But then… they do. Everyone starts calling in favors, calling in friends, essentially asking for help where none should be expected. And some of the sources are really personally debasing, like Tiramie calling all the married women’s husbands he’s slept with, getting both husbands and wives to show up, if only just to beat the crap out of him. Family members, doujin circles, I really want to know what Ashe’s friends from “Team Extremer” are, online fans (we all knew that Sylgirl’s fans would outdo Salama’s, didn’t we?). And when all hope is almost lost, the last 3 needed come from the terrors of Isuzu, giving up her body one more time to the running joke of the elementary school boys.

Pile on Seiya!

The tension and release in the A-part of episode 12 might have been the best triumph scene I recall in a KyoAni show. Their shows are always pretty much on rails, so you know that the good guys are going to win, and the bad guys are going to lose, and this knowledge usually weakens the impact of the good guys winning. But the joy they showed as everyone celebrated reaching the park’s deadline, epitomized by a giant dragon jumping for joy holding the signboard showing their success, really made this one feel good.

Pure Joy

Looming Deadline

Kinda figured it was this guy, didn’t we?

I had wondered why they set the attendance deadline at 9 PM, but it turns out that that was to separate the twin deadlines of July 31. With the attendance milestone taken care of, we now face a much harder one to deal with: Latifa’s annual reset. It’s not made any easier by the Cursing Wizard showing up to gloat, in the guise of the City Development Agency head that we’ve seen all series (I, and I think others here, had an inkling that guy was going to end up being the bad Wizard). But after the exultation of keeping park in business, to have to have the princess as she is now say goodbye is a bitter pill. How did they choose who stayed with her? Was it that Moffle and Izusu just couldn’t take it, and Seiya could by default, or is it because he’s the Chosen One? Either way, it was a very touching scene as Seiya held Latifa as her time apparently expired, something that perhaps only he could do, not being beholden to her position as the princess.

All he can do, and it’s important

I have to say that I’m really not satisfied by the resolution of the curse. The park’s had over 500,000 guests before. Why didn’t the curse get lifted then? I guess because they hadn’t had such an influx right at the end? They could have gotten 500,000 before with only a 2000 guest per day average, rather than the 10k plus that they had in these past few days. But it still seems to be a cheap deus ex machina resolution. In hindsight, I also think that the foreshadowing they tried to throw in, especially the Elementarios wondering if the tree had had that many flowers before a couple weeks ago, was kinda lame. Why would they have any clue how many flowers the tree has when it blooms since they told us, not 2 minutes later, that they’d only been around for a few months. And the explanation of “Well, I guess it was a flood of Animus that broke the (Animus-draining) curse.” is pretty weak in and of itself. This was more of the lukewarm “yay, we win…” kind of resolution that they avoided earlier, which is kind of disappointing that they couldn’t carry that same kind of feeling through. Where the other one was “we see everyone works hard and gets the results as a reward” this one was more “A bunch of stuff that happened off-screen let us win.”

めでたいめでたい

There was one more thing of note to end the episode. As he had threatened when he started, Seiya quits as manager, even though he doesn’t really want to, and they don’t really want to see him go. I liked the embarrassed goodbye between Seiya and Isuzu. Was she hoping to have a chance to tell him how much she likes him? Was he hoping to tell her the same thing? My ‘shipping goggles are always on so that’s how it looked to me, but given that his thoughts as he’s riding off are of everyone, not just Isuzu, I’m probably wrong. But we knew that he’d come back to the park, didn’t we? At least they didn’t drag that out for some unbearably long time, as we’ve seen in quite a few other shows. All it takes is his aunt pointing out that he seemed much happier at it. I guess just the outside confirmation is what he needed to get back on that horse.

No Loafing!

A very good couple episodes as you want at the end, with maybe just a little bit of disappointment in how they dealt with the princess’s curse, and that’s more of a ‘they could have done that a bit better’. Now we have one more episode, and with the main thrusts of the season behind us, maybe THIS one will be a nice fluffy Isuzu and Seiya love story. I hope my prediction here doesn’t go as wrong as my SAO one (no untagged spoilers please if you’ve read the Lns, and that includes leading statements, please), cause I could go for a nice romancy show. Or maybe more of Isuzu in the bath? Noooo, I didn’t say that. We’ve already seen that this show has had the most KyoAni girl fanservice (how much Sylphy sideboob has there been?) so I don’t expect that to stop, especially when they’re talking about a PV.

About Highway

Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!