Hidan no Aria AA – 11

I like a loli with a huge gun….

I have to admit, that after a while, the formula for Aria AA does add up. We’ve been dealt a ton of half-measures as the series has gone by and they do count for something…cause half o’ somethin’ is better than nothin’ o’ somthin’….

The Villain Wrote the Script

…spider-loli, spider-loli…

You can tell how good your hero is by how bad your villain is. It’s one o’ them inverse proportion thingies. So here we have an uncanny ninja who’s beauty is perhaps only skin deep, with the rest of her consisting mainly of bubbling poison just beneath the surface. She’s crazy prepared, she’s in her lair, and she knows what hurts you. This is some great opposition, right?

Well, yes actually, she is. Kyouchikutou, as I said last week, is an interesting villain. She’s got some built in chops, and I like how they can play with her mysterious nature; giving her powers on command that can look like the real deal, only to be revealed as clever illusions. Then they can play around with real weapons beneath the facade as a result. She’s an ace of a bad guy that doesn’t need to be in every hand, but should be played with a great hand.

One shot! And she missed! For reasons!

And that’s the weaksauce weakness of the episode, and it’s as bad as Fuuma-chan’s silly “don’t unmask me” deal. I mean, where the heck did that come from? Well, same place as Urara’s sudden lose of all facilities, and the same place as Raika suddenly getting a padlock on her rifle. The writer cheats. Well, writers cheat all the time, it’s what they do, being great big evil fibbers. But the trick is blending the cheat, making it part of the process.

Having this many characters, that the story has been putting effort into telling us they are so high ranked, Kyouchikutou should have been breathing a little harder by the time she got to her showdown with Akari. But, nope, they give us the puppet show, and the strings are in full view the whole time; tiny little battles of who could care less all along…

I mean, let these characters kick some ass…

…or, you know, just put them in old 1970s Spider-man cartoons..

So the hidden technique was….

…just Dress Break, all along?

Which is a real shame, as I kinda liked the showdown at the end. When the chips were down, Akari came to the fore, bringing the much ballyoo’ed style with her. I like that sort of character facet, when they possesses a power so fearful they only use it when necessary, and even they you have to push them to the edge. We have so much in video games that about the only punishment we get for using a big power is “cool down for an hour or so then you can use it”. I just wish Akari’s power were in the hands of some storytellers that knew how to make it all pay off in the end a bit better….Like, the loyalty she inspires, and the friendship that brings with it. Friends, that could have, you know, fought a fight without being hamstrung by a bad script….

But, I’m the forgiving type if you put a loli in a mecha….shit, I’m easy….mea culpa….

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