Charlotte – 10
Now we know why Yuu acts brain-damaged sometimes
Time for a perspective shift, for a while at least.
Edge of Tomorrow?
Time to start a cabal
I kind of thought that we’d get a single time-travel loop, and have Shunsuke be lucky enough to avoid the pitfalls of what happened in his previous lifetime. But what we really get is an Edge of Tomorrow style plotline, where Shunsuke goes back again and again and again to try to make sure that the bad things that happen don’t happen this time. We don’t get a lot of detail in what happens, and what he’s changing, but to my thinking, that’s fine. Because that’s not what this show is about. Instead we get enough to see that Shunsuke and Yuu and Ayumi are all living together, and we get more of a quick go-through of the tribulations that he has to deal with, like knowing all the people that don’t know him yet.
Yuu gets to be a goody-two-shoes wearing sweaters
It’s not exactly groundbreaking stuff here, although it’s generally a competent telling of a multiple time-leap thing. There’s the point about going to the adults who used to have abilities to get some sympathy and cover. There’s the ‘learning what lottery numbers will come up’ bit. And then there’s the “losing my powers” bit, as the half-baked aspect to Shunsuke’s power is that he goes blind the more he uses it. This puts a limit on how many times he can go back and restart. But conveniently, the last one is the one where he is able to set the current, “most everything is working out”, timeline in motion. That one last jump finally being completely blind (and how does he explain that to Ayumi and Yuu, when he suddenly wakes up blind?) he just has to go along with things that happen, but gets the school made and everything’s going as planned. I wonder if the school in particular had something to do with it, tho, since it seemed like a very specific point to throw in. Some points are just stupid, tho. If Kumagami is going to get recognizable for doing so much outreach, he’s going to become recognizable with his hair covering his eyes or with it not. Why doesn’t he just wear fake glasses or something?
The Most Powerful
Did Nao pick up on his reaction?
Now that Yuu has completed the undoing of Shunsuke’s work to get his memories back, he’s going to be the savior. Yuu gets schooled on what his true power is, and that is the ability to steal others abilities. Again, not a particularly original power, but it is somewhat different that he does it even when he doesn’t know about it, and that the person the power is stolen from doesn’t get their power back. It’s good that he didn’t know that, because I can see that someone like that, even if he’s on the ‘right’ team, would be too dangerous to keep alive. But in order to save Ayumi, that’s all fine, then. It’s even ok to steal her power before she can use it.
The worst threat ever: Cutting your bangs straight
So Yuu heads back to the past, and while he tries to not let on that he’s from the future, eventually he has to tell Nao. There was no slavish dedication to the idea that everything else should be left alone, which I thought was good, as this time Yusa doesn’t come visit Ayumi, but Nao does. And Ayumi does still get her ribbing in about Nao and Yuu’s relationship, to which Nao still objects… but Yuu does not, tellingly. Apart from that, they go to the school, and even though Joujirou and Yusa get picked off, Nao is able to help Yuu keep Ayumi from getting attacked.
Time for Ayumi to meet Shunsuke
And that was it. What? No complications? No cliffhangers? No unintended consequences? Well at least not yet. Perhaps the worst thing about this episode was the neat way it was all done. Yuu conveniently goes back to the very day that Ayumi develops her power. Why? And how does Shunsuke know that? They don’t tell us why he went back to the day he did, like it was the day he developed the power or something. But even then, why would Yuu go back to the day AYUMI got her power? On top of that, everyone believes Shunsuke and Yuu when they go back in time. Ayumi’s power is neutralized, Ayumi is saved from Konishi, she gets scared as intended. Everyone’s happy. Everything wrapped up neatly with a little bow, without too much having to wait around, no problems.
Except we do have three more episodes to go through. Will they be about Yuu getting nabbed by the bad guys? Or will they be about Nao and Yuu getting together? Or maybe even Yuu becoming godlike… for the next year and a half until all his powers go away. And speaking of, maybe it’s monstrous of me, but if I was Yuu, going back to the past to try to save Ayumi, I’d probably loot as many powers as I could take with me: Nao, Kumagami, Joujirou, anyone else I could think of. Because those people are going to get their powers back when I go back in time. FEAR MY COUNTLESS INCOMPLETE POWERS!!!!! uhhh, *ahem*. Well that’s that, until next week.
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!
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
And that was it. What? No complications? No cliffhangers?
I think there WILL be complications, if Ep. 11’s preview is correct. 😉
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
We’ll see what all the screaming is about. Unfortunately, it’s probably something that would have been better dealt with as they go along, rather than in the compartmentalized style of this show.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
This was my biggest complaint about the episode. Can writers not indulge in superlatives? Saying with surety that he will be blind the next jump just robs the story of any tension.
I mean, how about showing him in a state of uncertainty. “This next one could be it. I did the best I could, and this might even be the one to make me totally blind.” As it is the guy is 100 foot tall and crazy awesome. Didn’t have the right impact.
As for the plunder power? I think Chris Cleremont did a better job with Rouge of the X-Men, back in the day. But, Charlotte does a much better job than, say, Heroes.
But, we did get a story of the heroes saving the day, saving the girl, and being pretty cool doing it; well, Yuu was cool, the rest just bombed it!