There must be a way out of the N-Field. There must be a way for younger Jun to free the trapped real body of Shinku. So, we wait to see the path forward.
What They Say:
Episode 11: “Tale 11”
Souseiseki has come back to life thanks to Suiseiseki’s donation of her own twin ‘soul fragment,’ her Rosa Mystica, but this renders Suiseiseki lifeless. Now Jun, Shinku, Suigintou, and the twins are trapped in an N-Field with Kirakisho. The 7th and most wicked doll without a body to call her own, is hiding and regenerating, watching Jun from the shadows, desperate for him to become her master.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As things left off last time, Unwound Jun and Kanaria had managed to break the crystal trapping them all in World Zero, revealing the big grandfather clock that is likely the key to returning them all to their worlds and out of Kirakisho’s N-Field. Kanaria goes off to get younger Jun to help while Unwound Jun and the others try get the clock to work. Younger Jun is himself on the move, trying to find the real Shinku, who was trapped by Kirakisho. He gains the Laplace Demon for a journeying companion for a while, though he doesn’t trust nor like the giant rabbit in formalwear. The rabbit demon offers the excuse for his behavior that we have heard from him before, that he is only the umpire and must remain neutral, taking no particular side. That doesn’t really help too much, since he is the umpire of a largely unfair and rotten to the core game, whose rules are, in the final analysis, repulsive.
“Get lost, I don’t have any Trix.”
Eventually, Souseiseki proposes a plan: Suigintou will temporarily return her Rosa Mystica, so that she can replace Suiseiseki’s into her own body. This is necessary because the twins together have the power to get the clock moving again, which will open the path to their original worlds. It proceeds, but not without opposition, since Kirakisho does not want them, especially Unwound Jun, to leave. Once the clock begins to move she appears in the shadows and even attempts to grasp Souseiseki with her tentacle-like vines, though Suigintou and then Jun himself come in and rip them off of Souseiseki. Most importantly, in what is perhaps meant to be the crowning moment of Unwound Jun’s escape from his malaise is his complete repudiation of Kirakisho and the easy path to a better life she offers him. He makes the triumphant statement that it is meaningless if the doll is simply handed to him. He must make his own doll. “I will change my world for myself!”
The complete rejection of Kirakisho has an impact, however. It appears to kill her as she sinks into an utter despair at being rejected as useless. At the same time, the real Shinku’s body, which has been watched over by Hinaichigo’s artificial spirit assistant Berrybell this whole time, brings Shinku’s body to the younger Jun, who was at a loss as to how to retrieve it, as it was trapped in a deep chasm. But when this happens, the replica Shinku that Unwound Jun created falls apart. Her time is up. It’s followed by Souseiseki giving up her Rosa Mystica, as promised, back to Suigintou, which sends Suiseiseki into a paroxysm of tears.
So much for the action. The subtext is everything. If it hasn’t been made clear before in earlier series, at the root of the Rozen Maidens’ existence is a basic need: a need to be loved and a need to be wanted by their Masters. A Rozen Maiden without a Master is incomplete, not able to use her full power and not able to win the Alice Game. It goes deeper than that, though. They were built incomplete, as they even mention this episode, and this makes them needy by nature. That they all turn out to be emotionally needy is perhaps just the lazy choice of having their personalities reflect their basic construction. Even standoffish, seemingly self-sufficient Suigintou needs her Master.
We see this play out in stark terms with Kirakisho, who may have stated that she has no interest in the Alice Game, but in her desire for a Master is perhaps the neediest of all the dolls, to the point that she kidnapped the Masters of the other dolls whenever she could. When Jun rejects her, no matter what it is she can offer to make his world “better” for him, it is a rejection of her fundamental reason for existence and it shatters her, with the seeming destruction of her very life (but that is somewhat hard to believe, for then why did not her Rosa Mystica appear, for one of the other dolls to seize?).
The most important development, however, is Jun’s decision to take charge of his own life, and not just rely on magical wishes and wish granters to improve it for him. The lesson is reinforced for the audience in yet another one of the allegorical book passages which have been given regularly every episode, talking about the little girl with the matryoshka doll, who was granted a wish every time she opened up one layer to reveal a new doll inside. For the fifth doll, we are told, she wished to go a trip. The wish was granted…by having her grandfather die, so she and her parents took a long train trip for the funeral. Relying upon wishes can be dangerous or can cost you more than you might gain from them, so it is better to take action yourself.
The way one words a wish can be important too, as we see from this allegorical story. The same is true of Jun, who orders the twins to restore things to their rightful places, which gets the clock moving, but also results in replica Shinku falling apart and Souseiseki being forced to return her Rosa Mystica to Suigintou. With most things now settled, all that is left is the return to the Unwound World for Unwound Jun and younger Jun’s reunion with Shinku. I don’t think things will end with the Alice Game being any closer to coming to a conclusion one way or another.
In Summary:
Trapped in Kirakisho’s N-Field, older Jun and the dolls with him must find a way to get the grandfather clock, which is not only a prop from the play but also a gateway linking Kirakisho’s world with both the Wound and Unwound Worlds, moving again. Younger Jun is also searching for Shinku’s real body. Both Juns achieve their goals, though for one of them it may come at a price.
Episode Grade: B+
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
