What They Say:
With Diva’s help, Ai becomes good friends with Princess Ulla! Ai is constantly impressed with how happy the deceased in Ortus seem. But beneath the dazzling exterior, she is starting to catch glimpses of the darkness that shrouds Ortus…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sunday Without God brought us to an interesting place in the previous episode with Ortus, following the events that had what seemed like a regular character getting killed off. Ai’s interest in Ortus definitely makes for a good story, especially when you realize that it’s largely a city of the dead and someone like her would be brutalized pretty quickly. With so many people now dead but not moving on, a growing number have realized they don’t want to move on and having places like this seems like a realistic turn that things would take so there’d be some safety in numbers. Ai’s interest is definitely there, but she’s also still a bit naive to the world and we see a number of instances early on where she can’t quite grasp the need to hide her identity and to be very aware of not letting others in on things.
Ai does get filled in on some of the larger things going on within the city as we get a bit about a group called Lapstar, which involves some unusual people that age slowly and have their own larger goals. It’s not something that’s spelled out in plain terms for Ai, but it’s used to make it clear there’s a lot of things going on in this place that she doesn’t understand. Kiriko’s attempts to explain it are interesting overall, but there’s just this sense of something positively disturbing under the layer of everything. Which is why some cute bits of comedy are thrown in when we get our split personality doctor showing up to spend some time with ai for a minute before helping Scar with her illness.
Some of the quirks of having a city of the dead are explored here and it’s certainly intriguing, but it’s the kind of material that is best to not scratch below the surface on. Some of the fun also comes in when Ai meets Her Royal Highness and has quite a good time with her since Ai’s personality can make people so much more accessible to her. The mood of the show has its enjoyable moments to be sure and Ai’s ability to bring smiles definitely helps, but we also get a deeper look at her as it progresses and we see her talking about her dream, but realizing that it may not be the best dream to have now that she’s been exposed to more of the world and the way the dead here operate. It’s a good revelation to have at the age she’s at and reminds her that the world does not conform to her views alone.
In Summary:
With this arc we’re starting to get into some more interesting material about how the world works and allowing some of the blinds that have existed for Ai to be removed as well. She’s had a fairly limited experience in her village and the time in Ortus, where the others did not want to go, may help her become a far better person and gravekeeper as she grows up and understands the variety that exists when it comes to the human heart. The exploration of the city is somewhat limited itself, but the people we meet help to expand our understanding of it overall and how those who have died but cannot pass on have adapted and created their own customs and beliefs in order to cope with it. The series continues to be quite intriguing and asks a lot of good questions, all while making our lead open her eyes more and more.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
