Fractale – 05

The laundry and toilet-scrubbing episode

Fractale is back! Yay~ What perfect timing, since I have now officially finished all of my midterms. Now I can enjoy the Thursday-released anime without feeling guilty about ignoring my studies! Not only that, I HAVE A WEEK OFF OF SCHOOL!!!! Excuse me while I stand on a cliff and laugh heartily as the sun sets before me.

The airship is currently lurking in a dead spot in the Fractale system for a bit until they’re ready to head out. Sunda is quick to remind Clain that he’s just a freeloader and his choices are A) do chores like the rest of them or B) take a parachute and jump out. Preferring to not take a leap of faith, he starts cleaning toilets, moving cargo and doing laundry.

The laundry room is just a big room with a lot of windows and laundry lines, but it’s actually pretty neat. The moment is ruined once some old ladies strip Clain of his pants and then give us closeups of Clain’s loincloth for an uncomfortable amount of time. All I could think about was how hairless and smooth his legs were <_<

Nice view from here, huh?

Donning pink pants, Clain helps out in the kitchen too. As he’s doing his job, he notices that all this time, that little girl has has her visor on while she was playing. She tells Clain that she was playing with Nessa, who is apparently still on the ship. “Huh, odd.” Clain thinks to himself. Then he has dinner with all the murderers and they all laugh and have a swell time. Haha, terrorists are so great.

It must be Clain’s lucky day: he walked in on Phryne changing AND she’s in a good mood! Hot diggedy! Clain asks her about a whole bunch of things which he has the right to know, to which Phryne slips back into bitch mode and doesn’t respond to. The only tidbit we get is that “she can’t allow herself to love Nessa.” Sounds like she’s got some sort of agenda going on there.

Thanks all the gratuitous amounts of sex Clain and Phryne have been having, the entire airship is overheating. The system is going wonky, and the Last Millenium group is doing what they can to fix it. Maybe part of the reason it’s failing is because their programs are so bad Clain can hack it with his iPod. Using the bathroom computer. He snoops into all of their data and recognizes the noise signal as Nessa’s signature, and they must call her out to fix the system.

Everyone who has gathered in the laundry room is told that they need to do something Nessa would like to drag her out. What better to do than dance/have a dance-like seizure? It all ends with the ships tipping over in disgrace and everyone ending up in a heap. Nessa watches from afar and laughs, deciding to play hide and seek despite the fact she’s kind of steering the ship into a storm and could kill everyone.

1000 words, right?

I’m not sure how to feel a sense of impending doom when NESSA IS IN THE GODDAMNED OVEN, WHAT IS THIS. The hide the seek continues for a while with Nessa teleporting every so often. The only interruptance is a mechanical spider sent by the temple that is spying on Phryne and Nessa, the two “daughters”, and talking about bringing them back.

Phryne locks herself in the storage room and starts pounding on what I presume is the door to jump out of the airship. Except she doesn’t have a parachute ready, and she’s liable to just fall out given her weakling female body. Luckily (or unluckily, if you dislike the sassy brunette) the door is locked and Phryne is subjected to Clain’s friendship speech. The speech is actually quite decent, and should be enough to persuade to, you know, not kill herself and the more popular Nessa. She doesn’t buy it though, so there’s a bit more to it than “Waaa, Nessa is more popular, I didn’t want to awaken her”.

She’s stuck in that room, so she just goes behind a shelf and pouts. That’s right. Her mood swings right on over to the land of sunshine and rainbows as Nessa appears though. Didn’t you just talk about not being able to love her and a bunch of bitter…Okay, I give up trying to understand this women. Phryne lets Nessa take her back to everyone on the ship, somehow losing her hatred since Nessa can touch her now. From then on everyone is a big, happy family. THE END.

Bonus Bitchiness:

….No more Sengoku Basara for you.

Ohai, I’m just stripping and stuff, how bout chu?

GUYS, STOP PLAYING STARCRAFT! WE’RE SERIOUSLY TRYING TO FLY AN AIRSHIP HERE!

It’s getting hot in hurr~ So take off all yer clothes~

End Thoughts: Aaaaaand it’s another week of “Phryne has PMS.” All of the other characters are fine, but Phryne is out of her ever-loving mind. Okay, so apparently she’s been through some rough times, but you just eat a tub of Haagen Daz and move on. One moment she’s hurt and frustrated, then the next moment she cries happily upon seeing Nessa. Does she hate Nessa or like her? Whatever the case, it’s no excuse to make Phryne so inconsistent that she becomes unrealistic and grating. At this point I don’t give a damn what her deal is, just keep the cute one (Nessa) safe.

Now, this was a return to the nice relaxing feel…I enjoyed it in of itself, but Fractale is just as confused as Phryne. Are we doing something serious or fluffy? The switch from last episode to this was the most jarring one yet, and I’m losing faith in their ability to do both. 5 episodes in, we know next to nothing about the truth, and we’re doing laundry? I know some anime keep their cards close to their chest, but this is getting ridiculous. If they don’t start giving us more info, it’s all just going to be revealed in one giant monologue at the end…and that’s not gonna be fun.

Fractale has a lot of potential, and I hate seeing it wasted D= I can only hope they actually get around to solving this mystery OF THE ENTIRE FATE OF THE WORLD by at least halfway through. While I think now is a bad time to suddenly get all relaxing again, that episode was…well…calming. Fractale does a much better job at being flowing and gentle than it does at trying to tell a grand story. I can only hope they didn’t bite off more than they could chew with this massive plot.

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A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
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12 Responses to “Fractale – 05”

  1. Khal says:

    I’m assuming you don’t like Phyrne too much…? 😛 If no, that makes both of us. You’re right, she is unrealistic and grating.

    • Overcooled says:

      I liked her back in episode one when she was singing and smiling, and only slightly loopy…But for now, yeah, I’ll be in the “dislike” boat with you XD

  2. Foshizzel says:

    This episode made me flash back to Eureka7! After Renton joins gekko state they make him clean the ship and do all the work lol!

    Yeah I am not a fan of Phyrne either, she was alright in this episode after Nessa “found” her but still not that great.

    Slow progress so far but still keeps that RPG feel xD

    • Overcooled says:

      Hurrr, I only read a few chapters of Eureka 7…Maybe I should read more.

      Phryne is “okay” in moments and intolerable in the next. It’s really jolting @_@ I hope her calmness after Nessa found her continues for just a bit longer…

      • Foshizzel says:

        No worries there, only reminds me of Eureka here and there mostly because there are not many animes that use airships so its easy to compare to others.

        Oh it will not last long, bet she is back to her mean self in the next episode…

  3. Ifrit_Burner says:

    This show really reminds me of Laputa Castle in the Sky sooooooooooooooo ghibliish feeling, but nothing beats the original. Maybe XD

    Maybe Phryne has a disorder hahahaha or shes just the really erratic character in the show

    • Overcooled says:

      I felt that ghibli vibe SO MUCH when they were in the laundry room with the wind blowing. It’s like a mix of Ghibli films XD

      Yeeaaah, I hope at the end they just explain that she’s actually psycho so we feel bad for calling her a bitch LOL

  4. Hime says:

    *sees male being stripped*

    ….

    This is relevent to my interests.

  5. Vivi says:

    w-what I want midterms to be over toooooooo
    ;o;

Leave a Reply to Hime