When you enjoy this future that’s so exciting, why not venture further out as well?
What They Say:
The brilliant inventor Gennai is working on a time machine to take her to the future. The current world has inspired her to see what the future has in store. But her plans become derailed when her assistant is in accident.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While the cast of characters so far have been based on ones I’ve been familiar with, Sengoku Collection brings in someone relatively new to me with Gennai. Her time in the present of this reality is amusing right from the get go as, like some of the others, she’s pretty outgoing and personable but also something of an inventor. So she does some showing off in public of a variety of her gadgets and toys she’s created, not that they all work well or right each time. But she has that bright enthusiasm that makes her very fun to watch from the get go, leaving you wanting to see what trouble she’s going to get into.
What Gennai has done in the present though is to really enjoy everything that she’s seen to the fullest and wants to experience more. But that more is in the future rather than the present, which is why she’s building a time travel device (shaped like a swan) that will be a one way ticket to that future. She has a definite interest in going forward but she’s also drawn a bit to the present as well. Seeing her and her “assistant,” a young boy only called Assistant, who wonders if he’ll be a famous soccer player some day, the two have a fun conversation about life and what one can find out with it and the hard work that goes into it. Which is a little undercut by the way she wants to leapfrog forward to the future.
While she intends to take him with her to the future at his request, things go wrong when he ends up in an accident. Nothing life threatening, but enough to hobble if not kill his soccer career at a young age. Gennai’s concern for him is genuine and you can easily imagine how things are going to go from there with her, though you really just have to feel things are a setback more than anything else. Gennai’s a fun character to watch here similar to some others we’ve seen because she’s just generally enjoying the world as is and not the constant squabble for power. For an inventor like her though, she’s just into all the new things she can build and experiment with and learn. There’s a lot to learn of course, but it’s the kind of life that she easily craves.
In Summary:
One of the things I like about this series is the way we see the alternate reality incarnations of these people hit “our” reality and just find it a pleasant place to be and to enjoy living a peaceful life. Not all of them get into this, but a lot of them do as they pursue dreams that were otherwise unavailable to them in their own lifetimes. This episode works well with Gennai and her assistant as it does a nice job of showing how she connected with someone and just has fun with it while doing something good for him in the long run too. In some ways this episode reminds me a little bit of Popotan because of the time travel, but it’s not the main element. What sells it here are the characters and the easy relationship we see that leaves you wondering if they’re going to get used again before it’s all over.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
