Not Red Reviews

 
Aliens obviously don’t use Windows – or this scene would be much bluer.

It seems that what I thought was obvious in the end of episode 7 wasn’t all so obvious after all – Ichika’s ship didn’t leave, but there’s definitely something wrong with it. The orange wall of screens covered in Rinon faces is a really, how should I put it… modern way of displaying an error message. Though in retrospect it might not be an error message at all.

Anyway, the movie seems to have turned into a Japanese-style supermonster movie, and the boys are filming with amazing audiovisual effects. It’s all so realistic!

 
We are Godzilla, you are Japan!

The Hero’s Return

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To be honest, I have no idea what the “MIA missiles” are supposed to be. Missiles missing in action? Anyway, the missiles are Ultraman fireworks, perfectly matching the setting.

Mio seems a lot more straightforward since the events of the last episode, and personally I like the way her character is changing. Though I’d rather if she didn’t use all those stock phrases. On the other hand, my little favorite, Kanna hardly shows any development. She’s still trying to cling onto what the four of them had going before Ichika crashed into their lives just as her spaceship did into Kaito. She’s still trying to avoid the subject, and changes the topic quite hastily when she’s alone with Tetsuro. Even though poor Tetsuro is trying so hard…

 
Do you feel the awkwardness too?

Trolls of the world unite!

It also seems that Lemon and Tetsuro’s sister go back a while. Not that I’m really surprised, considering how conveniently the characters are connected in this series. In this scene Lemon tells Manami that she’s “forever seventeen”, which of course could be interpreted as her mental freshness, but if she was in high school already when Manami was (who seems to be quite a few years older than a fresh high school graduate), then that “forever” may actually be closer to eternity than a metaphor. Which would mean she’s just like that similar character from the relevant Onegai series. Lemon also calls Manami senpai, the meaning of which I guess all of you know, indicating that she’s an even greater troll, a teacher or master to Lemon. All that Lemon’s done in the series so far, someone being an even bigger troll than her is a bit of a scary prospect.

 
Something is coming. And Rinon knows it.

So while the kids leave for the vunderful fantastic summer festival, Rinon is again facing some trouble. This time it’s blue, which is very fitting, considering all the love life blues the blues of the series are going through.

So, Ichika is forgetting about herself again. Every now and then she used words from her alien language, but never before so much. In the festival hype she keeps shouting shuteki which is a quite obvious mispronunciation of suteki (wonderful). Thus, vunderful. She’s apparently having lots of fun, wearing Japanese traditional summer clothes, trying out (and loving) every single (and as we know from Katawa Shoujo, unhealthy) usual food of the Japanese summer festivals, bouncing around with her cotton candy, when—

—when suddenly Lemon shows up, and challenges them to a test of courage.

 

As usual from Ano Natsu, the location is real. There really is a temple called 布引山釈尊寺 (Nunohiki-yama Shakusonji) in Nagano prefecture where all the non-Okinawa episodes took place so far. You can find photos of the place where—

 
 

—where the first kiss of the series just happened. I don’t know why are the writers of romantic anime so obsessed with the idea of an “accidental kiss”. It might be that I’m just some terribly unlucky guy here, but according to my experience, usually you don’t end up kissing the girl (who also has a crush on you) when you trip and fall on her. It seemed just a bit too cliche even for this series. At least Manami has done a great job messing up her brother’s life even more. Though after all that goes down in the remaining few minutes of the episode, it won’t really matter either…

 

Do the people on Ichika’s planet seriously “speak” like Rinon? She does unconsciously switch to Rinon’s “nononono” when she keeps apologizing to the “ghost” she bumped into… If they do talk like that, that would be hilarious. Imagine a battlecry in that language…

It wouldn’t have been surprised if we heard it too, since right after Rinon confesses what happened when a certain ass landed on it two episodes earlier, the thing we saw swooshing through space (I guess in the previous episode’s ending as well) lands with a huge crash. It’s a lifeboat, an unmanned rescue pod automatically responding to the emergency beacon of Ichika’s ship (which activated when Rinon was knocked out). Apparently these machines aren’t sophisticated enough to understand that the person they want to save doesn’t want to be saved, so a bloody (then thanks to Ichika’s healing nanotechnology, un-bloody-ed) bottle engages between the pod and Kaito, both trying to “save” Ichika. It pushes Kaito off a cliff, but luckily Rinon arrives just in time on Rinna to catch him.

 
 

In the end Rinon ends up crashing into the pod with Rinna, eventually destroying both. While Ichika was infinite looping “I’m sorry”, I was wondering if the League (連盟 renmei) would now send manned ships to rescue Ichika… It would surely seem like a logical step. In the next few episodes we can enjoy the characters having serious trouble with accepting Ichika’s extraterrestriality (is that even a word?), but of course in the end it will all work out and they will all stand up against the “common enemy” (probably the League rescue team) together. It would be fun if it didn’t end up like that though.

This entry was posted by Vale.