Hidan no Aria AA – 06-07
Opposed, but willing to trade…
 |
We are at the crossroads of Violence, Jealousy, Yuri, and Stubbornness….But as always we start of with dreams to underscore how the main character for this episode is progressing, regressing, or is generally feeling at the moment. Not the strongest of episodes following episode five’s Fail Whale, but at least these two play to the show’s strengths…. |
06) Brides and Butterflies
This is how I want my next wedding to go down…
Well, we start of in dreams, as usual. Raika is feeling the pinch over Shima’s past association with Riko. The two Honeytrap specialists seem to have more in common that Raika does with Shima, and the “healthy” releationship they shared is combing into a hefty case of “Amica remorse”. Did she pick the right partner for the right reason? This seems to be at odds with Shima confirming to Raika point blank that this is indeed the case. But hey, Jealousy makes us second-guess, doesn’t it? Stubbornness keeps us sticking to our guns…
Honestly, the one person in these pics that isn’t jealous is the Blue Haired Sniper (and Aria herself offscreen)
But in all of this they do manage to inch the plot along. Akari has officially graduated from the lowest rank to second lowest thanks to winning the competition last episode. Aria is curious over the mysterious display of power Akari used to get out of a jam, and she is beginning to suspect there is an element playing them all as cat’s paws. Other than that this was pretty much all Guns N’ Cuteness on top of so many shapes and sizes of relationship dynamics.
Raika doesn’t know….
I have to admit, that I grinned ear to ear watching Raika slowly but surely fall into the CVS team’s honeytrap. I does make me wonder if that Pretty Gothic Lolita look is standard for them at all time, a specific fetish that drives Raika wild, or if it’s just the style of dress they are studying this particular school term. It hardly matters, as it did the job of pushing all the right buttons. Don’t know how that makes this an especially worthwhile Amica in terms of these two, but hey, it was fun.
Extra Shots….
07) Money Can’t Buy Me Love
Come, be my ticklish plaything!
What dreams may come, eh? Urara’s crush on Akari deepens, and you know that is just going to hit Shino harder than ever. She’s barely gotten over the sting of Akari pairing with Aria in a conditional Amica, and now one of her main rivals just has to stick her rich nose in where it isn’t wanted. But for all her wealth, Urara is terribly lonely, and wants her own special relationship with her new crush. Which is a silly silly shame, with Yuyu and Yaya right there, both are perfectly loyal and pretty in their own rights; not to mention, twins!
Shino: Those are my tracts of land!
But when Urara tries to ply her poorer junior with ostentatious displays of wealth and power, Shino hits ninja mode hard and infiltrates. Leading to a unofficial duel. I rather liked how this displayed the levels of power both Urara and Shino possess, and how it underscores thier own weaknesses. Shino is far to sneaky and not direct when she needs to be. Urara has flexibility when she’s engaged in combat, but not in social situations. The CVS brigade, however, distracts everyone equally.
Well, at least they can recover their own fumble…
But, in the end a valuable lesson was learned. Urara knows her place as Second Runner in Akari’s heart, if not as an actual Amica sister. As as second best, she just has to try harder. You just can’t expect her to give up just yet. That simply isn’t done in animeland. But at least they have come to terms after coming to blows. I think everyone can learn a valuable lesson after all is said and done. Probably cold showers solve lots of problems….as there is a much higher sexual element going on in this love triangle when compared to Shima, Riko, and Raika…but I wouldn’t count it out in that group either….
More Shots…
Meanwhile, plot things are happening….
Ninja: Good for exposition…
Painting her nails in with her “collection”? Also the butterflies at the end of the OP have a connection….
They’ve only done this stuff in bits and pieces, here and there, and haven’t really stitched it up into anything like a proper sub-plot or background plot. But with Riko as part of the team, what would you expect? I don’t think she ever really knows what she is going to do next. I have no idea what they might be driving towards, and I have a terrible idea that the writer’s don’t really, either….at least it won’t be anything more facepalm worthy than episode five, right? Right…..? But they haven’t forgotten the first dream sequence along with the convenient burst as far as Akari’s nascent power’s are concerned either.
Well, these sorts of episodes are defiantly more in Doga Kobo’s wheelhouse than the whole of episode five was. It was mostly repetitive information, but I thought it did a great job in giving us these characters motivations, and the things they’ve got to work out to get along. Above all else, Butei likes to build on a team structure, and to do that trust has to be developed over the long term, as does a healthy amount of respect, and most important, understanding the abilities of others. These girls have been scrapping and fighting from the get-go but they are learning more and more about each other as time goes by. So whatever surprise team Background has cooking up, they better serve the table sooner rather than later, cause next time….
…once a show get’s to the obligatory breather/pool episode, a Team is officially The Team, and can’t be beaten!
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
I haven’t had a chance to finish episode 7 yet (started it, but was interrupted). However, my reaction to episode 6 was “ok, the series is back to doing what it does well.” Which is kind of sad, because I feel like the potential is here for them to do the more dramatic and action-based scenes well also, they just… failed miserably in episode 5.
Episode 6 showed us that Raika is totally a lolicon. I don’t think that can even be questioned at this point. Which makes her perfect prey for the CVR girls: she is exactly the sort of target they are trained to take down. And boy was their training effective against her. She could probably have beaten the stuffing out of all of them together in a straight fight, yet they rendered her completely helpless in seconds with targeted seduction.
On a different note, I am very worried about Akari’s sister. She has shown multiple signs of deteriorating physical condition, and Akari is not catching them. Our girl is failing at the biggest piece of advice Aria has given her: always be aware of your surroundings, and I very much fear that this time the price of failure is going to be very bad indeed.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yep, the studio has the chops to do this. I don’t know if it’s a classic case, like the excuse we make for sub-standard animation, of them “saving it for later”. But episode five was poorly directed, which is something you don’t plan from the start.
…except I will. Raika and the younger students are very close in age, and none of the younger students have the standard youlo components. If she does have a complex then it’s a penchant for Pretty Gothic Lolita fashion combined with cuteness of the girls that trips her buttons. That being the case, call me pushed as well…
Thanks for bringing this one up. I do like to leave a small plot point from a review every now and again, just to see it picked up here in the comments. We talked about her sister earlier, and how she might be some sort of embedded agent, but she has had these fainting spells way to often…I wonder if her mental conditioning is breaking? That’s what I’m betting…
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
The CVR girls don’t even come up to her shoulder, and from the moment she entered the class they were treating her like little girls reacting to an older
boyperson they have a crush on. The whole training exercise was a targeted seduction attempt from the moment Raika showed up, and it was working.Yes the clothes helped later, because they appeal to her tastes, but she clearly likes her girls small and cute. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, cause these girls are frikkin adorable. On the other hand, they train to be that way in order to catch the sort of people who would be attracted to them, so…
That’s… an interesting take on it. I hadn’t reached that conclusion.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yeah, but Reika is like Gwendolyn Christie tall, so I barely come up to her shoulders (btw so does does Kit Harrington, never knew the Stark bastard was so short). I don’t really know what that has to do with anything….but I still don’t think she’s a lolicon.
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
…Raika is 165 cm tall. That’s 5’5. 5 feet and 5 inches tall. Not exactly a giant. Well within normal height range for a woman, although perhaps on the tall side for Japanese. I’m taller than her, and I’m not exactly a giant.
Height is one measure of physical development used to indicate age, and girls who are particularly short generally are flagged as lolis, which is what that has to do with anything. From Raika’s perspective those girls are lolis.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Height is so relative….I’m just two inches taller than she is, but she just looks like she’s taller than me. Maybe my inner-LOLi is seeing things?
POWUH: 400-499 with 462 comments
Well, it probably doesn’t help that most of the time she only hangs out with Shino (who’s 5’1), Akari (who’s slightly less than 4’6, good gracious), and Kirin (whose height hasn’t been given, but she looks about even with Akari). In a world of short people, she looks tall.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
A female LOLicon is perfectly fine (too).