What They Say:
It’s just about time to escape from Goran Academy and Ai is determined to leave with everyone in Class Q. However, Tanya doesn’t want to leave the confines of the school. Can Ai convince her to join them before it’s time to go?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The introduction of the Goran Academy in the previous episode was kind of awkward, especially coming off of the Ortus arc, but the throwing of Ai into the school in the way they did was amusing. Having someone who doesn’t understand what school is like and finding all the bad things she was told about it are true -for this school – definitely makes you laugh. But the way it shifted to the escape plan and having several people working towards it that she gets caught up in was just a bit more forced for my tastes and it didn’t really click all that well. Partially because even though it’s just for this particular arc, I was enjoying a non-school based show and dealing with something that wanted to try and play with some bigger concepts, even weakly.
With the group having expanded a bit and a number of them all working towards escape, complete with Ai being a big part of it now as she’s fully endorsed it and wants to be a part of it, she gives an amusing little speech at the start to help motivate everyone to do what’s needed. There’s not exactly dissent in the ranks, but there are issues among some of them as Tanya just can’t handle the way Ai is and it causes a bit of a short term falling out that everyone else is unsure of how to handle. While Tanya is on the outs, the rest of the group slowly decides that they’ll join in the escape in a firm way, but Ai wants to hold off until they can get Tanya to go with them so that it’s basically everyone in the class, giving it a more cohesive feeling since Ai desperately doesn’t want to leave anyone behind.
Ai’s need to save her is definitely rooted in her short but interesting past and her role as a gravekeeper, so seeing her making the effort and being so honest about it with no true ulterior motive works well. But she’s also getting a lot of new ideas thrown at her, such as the concept of destroying the world to save it as there’s a strong vein of that due to how it all works now. Though this is something that she can’t quite grapple with, it’s also not something that weighs heavily on her at this point as they start to move forward with the escape plan, with things having come together. The nature of the show is interesting with how it works its pacing and progress, making it a very tension-free escape for the group as they make their way to the outside.
In Summary:
Though the series got me early on, it’s had a hard time holding me in some ways. This arc has been light for the most part – not fun – but it’s dipped its toes into some more serious material here and there. But the show as a whole at this stage feels like the original author didn’t plot too far ahead and that leaves us with a less than engaging story. The cast is pretty big here in contrast to earlier arcs so that makes it a bit more to take in but it also has lost that emotional edge that was driven in hard early on but has been hard to see since outside of a brief time or two in the Ortus arc. With the time spent trying to get to the execution of the plan here, it has its moments but even with the trappings of the series, it still feels like a somewhat off normal school episode of some sort and just failed to really capture me.
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.
