Urara Meirochou – 10
Take a tour of the snakes and ladders factory…
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The stage was set last episode and now it’s time for our gang to reach for the next level. Ready! Steady! PLOTZ!!!! |
The Belly of the Cursed Serpent
OooOooooOoOo Scaaaaaary!
Well, this is the (part one of a few) payoff episode, and it has more than enough set up for the next. Pretty much everything we know about the characters so far get’s put to the test in the most literal of fashions – and with that cliffhanger, the meta-plot is about to manifest itself sooner rather than later. That’s just the place to be for the tail end of the tale. The set-up follows from last time, as the girls are going into the test that will take them from novice tenth-rank urara to the next level – probably! To that end, I love how Tokie-san is putting on the lovingly macabre exterior (well it may be put on!) just to push any sort of feelings the girls may have that this will be a pushover, or a one-and-done. This is Serious Business. So of course all of them, even when forged as team, have the jitters. So before they descend into the testing grounds, they shake off the pre-test stresses, reassure themselves, and then they start to get down to that business…
Time flies like an arrow…that’s the key!
One of the things I’ve come to love about the writing and pacing of this show is how well it handles progress. There isn’t too much they can do for the characters, being at tenth-level as they are, and keep it reasonable for novice challenges. By default it has to be pretty basic stuff or else it would be simple escapes with pratfalls. So the meat of the challenges presented here is the culmination of what they have learned so far, and not just the positives, but what they were able grasp by realizing the negatives. Kon is able to trust herself more with her kitsune-spirit because she knows from her embarrassment last time that she has to control it more. Nono simply has to find her bravery by trusting in her own inner reserves. Koume found that she had to really lean into her performance and oddball tendencies and be proud of that. And Chiya, well…Chiya get’s left behind….goodness…
Well, that was a drag…
This one was laid out much like episode seven, with no real break between stories – being one singular one there was no need to do that; it also only had the one interstitial card, but that’s just an odd detail. I’ve been patiently waiting for the show to give us a bit more in the plot department, and it looks like that promise is heading this way. Of course, I said that with another episode earlier on, and that didn’t quite turn out like I thought it would, so I’ll continue to curry patience. The show rewards that, I think. Chiya has been the wild child since the beginning, and standing out without an obvious fortune telling tool has been smoothed over as much as it can be. She has those instincts, and those can be sharpened, but that seems like a solo adventure and not the team story this one told. So we wait….
…til next time…
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
