What happens when trauma materializes in dreams? This is the writer's take in this episode. But before diving to this week's dream game, let us talk about the real life events first.
So it seemed Ohto (will refrain using Ai now) is eager to be closer with Aonuma, the new girl from the last episode, knowing she is not alone in her current situation. What I find interesting is, Ohto looks like an enthusiastic person despite being hikikimori or shut-in as she admitted, both in reality and dream. I could say, she is really a friendly person outside the real life school. On the otherhand, Aonuma seems like a tough one to crack, but certainly, showing signs they could cooperate in some way for their individual goals. Giving business card and being a vice president of a company in her age is surprising though. Hope to see more details about her and to her sister as well.
Meanwhile, to give progress in achieving Ohto's goal, another Wonder Egg was cracked in this episode. I find it odd, why Ohto did not seem to intentionally crack it at all since it was rather by accident. But anyway, she already knew what to do and can summon her weapon effortlessly after just one episode. Right off the bat, she just dragged our Wonder Egg Girl of the Week, Minami Suzuhara, to what seems to be the safe zone based on our first episode, the rooftop. I must say, the character designs for even for one-episode characters looks great so far. Though unlike the first one, more details were shown for this episode.
We got to know that Suzuhara is a gymnast, pressured too much by her coach which materialized as her "trauma". Not only that, her coach transformed to some sort of colorful mascot with alien-like body parts and to some degree, becomes more powerful. This strongly reminded me of Madoka Magica, if you know what I mean.
Initially defeated, Ohto's flashbacks were shown while gathering her motivation to fight again. This time, more details of Koito's bullying were known. She seems to have ways of how to deal with her bullies with Ohto to help her. Unfortunately, Ohto got scared of what will happen so she failed to help Koito for that certain time. Remembering that, Ohto had the will again to defeat Suzuhara's trauma, not to fail helping someone again.
As much as I wanted to talk about the fight scene since its screentime was a bit longer than previous episode, I cannot say anything that impressed me. It felt generic and quite lacking substance from the fighting action perspective though they are trying. I noticed, Ohto can use the Wonder Egg Girl's thing as a weapon, which in this case, is a ribbon. Let us see if this will be a trend in the next episodes.
What I wanted to talk about rather is the issue in this episode - abusive perfectionists coach to their athletes. This does not apply to only sports but as to other disciplines as well. I may not have seen or experienced such type of person directly, but I can see why such persons exist. The aim of the coach/mentor/teacher/ is for their students/trainees to become the best, if not to become better in their field. They measure their own success in what their students/trainees' achieve. So they adopt a lot of approaches that they find effective and being harsh and relies on heavy pressure is not an exception. This episode shed a light on the idea, that in the end, both physical and mental well-being of the student/trainees should not be taken for granted for the sake of success through this tough love. And to think of this idea, made me appreciate this week's episode. Could it be we are getting "mental health topics" for every episode? First is bullying, and now, abusive mentoring?
After watching, I think the format of the series will be "The Wonder Egg Girl and her Trauma" of the week on top of my prediction in my previous lines. This seems to be formulaic but will be effective, provided we have progress to our main storyline. I liked how they added flashbacks for two reasons. First, we could see more relevant details, which in this case, about Koito. Second, they used it as a stepping stone for character developments. Though I still think, they still need to flesh out more of this to be more convincing.
Other new things for this episode, is the OP & ED. For some reason, I was expecting the opposite & usual - upbeat OP & slow ED but oh well, it does not mean it is bad though. I particularly liked the big vocal chorus of the OP. For the ED, it was ok for me. Liked the art-like postcard of the characters, which seems to show their daily life snapshots. Two other characters have yet to make an appearance. I wonder if they are also "Wonder Egg Breakers". Also, Acca and Ura-Acca, please explain yourselves. What or who exactly are you guys? Are you just doing business? Why do we have Wonder Eggs? Hope these questions will be answered later on.
Overall, a nice episode with even better production quality.
What do you think of this episode? Do you have realizations too?
Please share your thoughts as well.
Thanks for the visit and keep safe!