「「愛」が壊れた日」 (Ai, ga kowareta hi)
“The Day Love Died”

Even when arguably tripping over its own feet, Busou Shoujo manages to keep me charmed. No matter how many lacklustre treasure hunts or hilariously rushed backstories we get can dissuade me from this chunk of weekly humour. No, not even the showers, but having a really cute (U)Choka might help in that regard. This show keeps just getting crazier and I keep finding myself wanting more.

Although the Empress’ final appearance has been a given for a while now, I’m still surprised she acted this fast, and under her own will at that. She may be the end boss here, but I seriously pinned Nomura (and the Five Swords) confronting her first. Instead we have the girl going full Terminator on Satori, and potentially Warabi to boot? It seems to me Satori—or Misogi, more on that later—had ulterior motives when cockteasing judging Nomura’s stamina. Besides seeing how fisticuffs worked against her blade, Satori apparently decided having two playmates was better than one, and chose the Empress as the lucky follow up. How she was even aware the Empress and Nomura knew one another—and that riding cowboy would provoke the impaler—is also unclear, but it’s the logical explanation for why the lovable crazy found herself disemboweled on the school roof. Considering Warabi is also screwed against the Empress, it’s not a question of if but when Nomura now gets involved, because you can be sure the harem duo are the Empress’ next targets of opportunity.

The real shock for me this week though was Satori’s past. Besides the sudden 180 into grimdark, it was incredibly surprising that Satori is not only “not” Satori, but has a sister who is actually Satori. Freud would have a field day with the mental gymnastics going on here, especially regarding how our resident nutcase coopted her sister’s name and “switched” positions with her. It’s actually a pretty intriguing twist given the setup, although rushing through it in half an episode definitely leaves something to be desired. This was the sort of development and atmosphere which—if given the proper time—could have defined Busou Shoujo’s latter half, rather than being a simple stepping stone towards the big fight. Yeah it would still be hard sympathizing with crazy, but a better developed Satori could have easily improved the impact her quick fight with the Empress had. Might just me though, I do like my batsh*t insane characters.

While the rushing was real this episode, there’s no denying the next fight will be amazing. Tsukuyo and Nomura have finally met, and if appearances don’t lie, you can expect some glorious fireworks when they get down to business. Yes Warabi may die and the Empress will continue running unchecked, but sacrifices must be made for betterment of audience entertainment. Stick around boys and girls, Busou Shoujo has entered the home stretch, and I highly doubt it’s going to slow down anytime soon.

 

Preview

14 Comments

  1. Satori is best girl… but I have no idea what that means anymore, lol. I hope we’ll get some clarification before season’s end on why she stirred the hornet’s nest that is Amou so hastily. Did Satori know that being interested in Nomura meant going through Amou first, maybe?

    And wow, that Misogi reveal was a real whirlwind. Going forward I’m not sure I can take crazy characters seriously until they’ve stolen their own sibling’s identity like that.

    PurpleBomber
    1. Amou’s speech probably sums it up, Satori just needs an enemy to look down upon. When Nomura bested her, she needed a replacement, and decided Amou was the perfect solution. Power, unknown, and knowledgeable of Nomura, pretty much Satori crack lol.

      1. Didn’t she already beat the Five Swords way before Nomura arrived? At least they couldn’t dominate her. Considering how physical they tend to be, I think that’s a safe bet.

        Or was “Satori” not part of the Five Swords back then?

        theirs
  2. Sorry, a small explanation: Remember that in the first episode the empress is the one who tells the swords about Nomura and tells them that she fought him before, so miss nut knew that the empress was at least interested in him, and also since she gave the information out about “her and Nomura’s night activity” there was a chance it would reach the empress… who in the manga shows a LOT of yandere tendencies towards Nomura even if none where in the anime.

    Skurai
    1. She may have that “he’s my prey/target” thing going. Another possibility is that deep down, she’s attracted to him, but absolutely refuses to acknowledge it.

      Magnus Tancred
      1. This was pretty much a given during her whole thinking about him in front of the Buddha statue. She nearly admitted it to herself, so not surprising that Amou dislikes what Misogi did to Nomura.

        And yes, I’ll be using Misogi unless the two sisters swap it around.

        Also, I really sort of doubt that either Misogi or Warabi bite it. Not because of them being harem girls, but if this eventually leads to where I think it is going (the re-introduction of the prequel), then the girls won’t die just yet.

        Though, Satori probably will end up dying and Misogi then becomes Satori in rememberance.

        Dorian S.
    2. Yeah that could explain it, that moment definitely slipped my mind. Not sure the midnight escapades would have indirectly reached Amou though, she would have acted long before now if that’s the case IMO, especially with the yandere tendencies.

  3. I’m expecting, hoping even, that Nomura’s encounter with Tsukuyo will be the most cut and dry part of this series. Perhaps at most a friendly matchup taking a few minutes maybe without even a definitive winner before she just hands over her stamp.

    Tsukuyo may be among the most feared of the girls but she’s also the most informed and seemingly the most level headed. She’s been listening to everything since the show started. She doesn’t have any of the misconceptions that caused conflict between Nomura and Onigawara/Kikakujou/Warabi and she isn’t insane like Tamaba.

    All she probably wants is to have a matchup against Nomura after listening to all of his fights since it’s finally her turn.

    qwert
    1. After this episode, I could believe that Tsukuyo probably just wants to fight Nomura for simply fighting Nomura. Considering he fights Amou later on and it looks like his special move gets an upgrade, I’m betting it is Tsukuyo who figures out what Nomura is doing wrong with is technique and that the entire reason she wants to fight him is to fix it because it is grating on her ears.

      …run away sentence is run away. Geez.

      Dorian S.
    2. I suspect Tsukuyo wants a straight up fight too. She has not shown any hate or distaste towards Nomura, and if anything appears curious about him and his ability.

      @Dorian
      I actually hope that’s the case, it takes care of Nomura’s power up while keeping Tsukuyo rational. I’d have a hard time believing she holds a grudge or something similar against Nomura after seeing her actions up to now.

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