Nomi’s presence becomes a lot more pronounced here as he plays with Haru.
What They Say:
Takumu loses a kendo match to a new student named Nomi, who appears to be using the power to accelerate. But the matching list does not show any new Duel Avatars appearing in the area.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Haru having been heavily involve with Kuroyuki and others as of late, he’s obviously given less time to Chiyuri. Now that she’s shown she’s quite special in the Accelerated World, it’s good to see that he’s more comfortable spending time with her in the company of Takumu and the like. The trio have a friendship tht goes back a ways so there was definitely some hurt feelings going on when they all ended up pushing each other away in different ways. Of course, now that she’s got some ability and is back in his life, she’s able to give him a bit more grief and playful fun that makes him nervous and uncomfortable, which is admittedly fun to watch.
While Chiyuri got the obvious focus recently, this episode turns towards Takumu to give him some additional time. After some of what he experienced in the last fight, he’s concerned about how he was take advantage of. For Haru, he makes the connection that it might have been a Physical Full Burst, but Takumu is aware it may be a different version of that which he’s familiar with from the world of kendo. There’s some good back and forth throughout the episode that helps to fill in some of the blanks about things and we also get the exploration of a new student that made his debut in the previous episode with Nomi. With Haru doing his version of an investigation, it reveals some basics and uses his own kind of meek way of doing things.
When it does finally bring Nomi himself into it in a real fashion, not just photographs and talking about him, it definitely picks up a bit more. His personality is certainly an intense one in the way he acts, carries himself and talks. Nomi miesses with him a fair bit as well in some rather amusing ways, especially when he leads him into a trap that pushes him into the girls locker room where he finds himself in the shower with a near naked Chiyuri. You can understand his problem with it, but man, what bad situation to be in. While we get to see just how tricky Nomi can be, we also get to see some very cute stuff come from it, including how Chiyuri handles it in total since she does know what’s really going on. All of it does lead to an actual confrontation, which is expected, and plays out pretty well since you have someone like Nomi who feels like he’s playing from a superior position.
In Summary:
While the first half of the episode focuses on giving us a look at what the core crew knows about Nomi and their experiences with him, the second half goes into Haru dealing with him directly as he investigates and follows him, which leads to a rather tense encounter when Chiyuri becomes something of a prize in all of it because of what her abilities are. It’s coming at an amusing point for her since she’s complaining about how the others seem to be having more fun in the game and regarding the game than she is, so having her become an object of competition has its fun little moment. What I do like is that even as Haru is physically weak, even with what he can do with the Physical Burst, it doesn’t stop him from essentially trying to push back against a bully. He’s got the wimp and coward look but he stands his ground as much as he can, even if it probably has his body shaking as a whole.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Viz Media
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.
