Akira’s showboating sociopathy continues, but it seems Iona may be the one to really fear.
What They Say
Ruko and Yuzuki become friends with Hitoe, with hope for a lasting friendship. Akira, wanting to battle Ruko, faces her, but then Iona appears…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
For a show with such a familiar premise, WIXOSS certainly does a good job of drawing me in every week. Ruka is pondering what she should do about Yuzuki’s moods, but upon coming home, she finds that Yuzuki has invited herself over to spend the night. She’s clearly doing so to avoid her brother, and she’s acting suspiciously positive about everything. She becomes vulnerable for a moment and tells Ruka how mean Akira was, and how she has someone she likes, but how it can never be. Ruka tries re-assuring her, telling Yuzuki that she’s cute and nice, but Yuzuki insists it can’t happen. Ruka’s no dummy, and starts to ask Yuzuki if she means Ka… just before being the victim of a tickle attack.
Ruka sleeps easily but Yuzuki stays up reading messages on her phone. Kazuki has kept some leftovers from dinner just for her, painfully thoughtful as ever. Akira sends multiple threatening messages demanding that Yuzuki send Ruka to fight her. The next day at school, Ruka works on a notebook of strategies just like Hitoe, and Ruka and Yuzuki bump into Hitoe there. She’s first too shy and runs off, but ends up making friends of Ruka and Yuzuki. “WIXOSS is wonderful,” Hitoe says ever so ominously.
The three decide to play WIXOSS casually, as it turns out as long as LRIGs aren’t involved you can play normal games on a playmat. Yuzuki observes that Ruka is both very good and very enthusiastic about WIXOSS. Meanwhile, the LRIGs have their own conversation. Tama is enthusiastic about battle as always, but the other two LRIGs feel sorry for her. “Tama doesn’t know…” they say, as though Ruka’s lack of a wish poses some kind of threat to Tama herself.
Eventually, Akira just sends some of her thugs to Ruka’s school to pick her up. Yuzuki helps her run, and they hide in the storehouse near the gym. In the dark, Yuzuki tells Ruka that Akira is mean, and she doesn’t want Akira to ruin WIXOSS for Ruka, who seems to enjoy it so much. True, or is she afraid of what Akira might reveal to Ruka? She also confesses to Ruka that her passion for battle is a little “scary,” and we flash back to Ruka as a toddler, and an older brother or cousin telling Ruka’s grandmother? that Ruka is scary, and that he can never tell what she is thinking. What dark secret does our beloved Ruka have?
Ruka is eventually caught and escorted to the photo studio where Akira has the battle set up. But things are interrupted by Iona, who apparently intimidates Akira even though Akira screams at her in rage. Iona suggests battling her instead, as Ruka thirsts for battle. She looks deeply into Ruka’s eyes, and sees that Ruka has no wish of her own. “A selector who has no wish is a blasphemy,” she warns. “Don’t think it will go unpunished.” WIXOSS seems like a great way of making enemies as well as friends.
In Summary
I compared WIXOSS to Madoka, but it seems to have left all of its magical girl origins and hostile forces to the emotional battles between these strong willed girls, with Ruka just kind of floating in the middle. The flashback, and the ominous Tama, suggests that Ruka has dirty secrets of her own that are being kept in check. It feels like not much happens any given episode, but it’s like watching a tightrope walker. Sometime along here, episode 6, or episode 9, or who knows when, everything is just going to get unspeakably nasty. I fear it as much as I want to see it.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation
Review Equipment: Sony VAIO 17″ HD screen
