「違う世界[フラグメント]」 (Fragment)
“Another Fragment”

Following an intriguing first episode, Akanesasu Shoujo explores the possibility of other worlds within the parallel timelines that the Broadcasting Club finds themselves stuck in. But rather than taking place solely within the golden dimension, the girls end up getting caught in fragments of time that branch off from a tree of different possibilities. Because numerous dimensions are now within the equation, however, the anime shows us the potential that the story has to dive into futures or realities that are drastically different yet pivotal to the growth that characters can have.

The Asuka from the outside dimension, dubbed by the Broadcasting Club’s Asuka as “Seriousuka”, broke down the logistics behind the worlds within frequencies as it opens the door to several alternate realities as vast as the stars in the sky. Measures that the girls will take will determine which girl will be selected to act as a link to enter and leave the specific fragment they travel to. However, the link must also be assimilated into that world’s version of themselves, meaning that the girl selected as the link is chosen to take their alternate version’s place.

For most of the girls, this would just be an inconvenience that could be solved by regrouping to conduct the 4.44 Ritual to return. Especially since they were quick to accept Seriousuka being a possibility after their first run-in with a timeline separate from their own. And especially since Chloe specifically wants to learn more from Seriousuka about her motivations and abilities. But unfortunately, Nana is more prone to manipulation as she is selected to take on the role of herself in a reality where children turning seventeen must get married in a live broadcast as a rite of passage. On top of taunting at her own frustrations about her father-in-law and using her second friend group to live vicariously through their romantic endeavors, the fragment sets the motions in place to get her together with celebrity / matchmaking site promoter Tomoya Chiba. At that point, it’s too late and the episode ends with her enthusiastically declaring that she would like to stay in this universe and live out her existence in her other version’s body as she goes through with that universe’s wedding. It’s revealed that there is a seedy third party that triggered all of this to happen considering that she was told by a mysterious fortune-teller to give that world’s frequency a spin after mentioning her family issues, but what her identity true identity would be is still in the cards.

Akanesasu Shoujo’s second episode gives us many details to work with as we learn about the rules and mechanics behind the divergent timelines that the girls travel to, what their roles become whenever they teleport through the ritual, and entities that are able to travel from reality to reality with ease. The premise offered by Episode 02 opens up the potential to show us different realities they can come up with like The Giver / Koi to Uso universe in this episode, and pave the way towards giving us insight on how the other girls tick as well. The faces were off-model at many points in the episode, but hopefully this is an aspect that will be ironed out at some point.

ED Sequence

ED: 「壊れかけのRadio」 (Kowarekake no Radio ) by Ami Wajima

7 Comments

  1. Sounds like we’ll be spending 2-3 episodes with each girl in a different parallel world that (conveniently) falls right into some sort of issue they are having and their experiences in that parallel world will help them overcome them.

    Already many people have predicted that Tomoya will turn out NOT to be anything like Nana and her friends envision him to be beyond his good looks and maybe her stepfather will end up being the one to get her out of the marriage or something thus allowing Nana to learn not to take everything at face value; both in physical looks and emotionally in that the stepfather will show that he loves her and isn’t trying to “replace” her biological father and such.

    https://randomc.net/image/Akanesasu%20Shoujo/Akanesasu%20Shoujo%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2005.jpg

    First Claudine and now Chloe. <3

    https://randomc.net/image/Akanesasu%20Shoujo/Akanesasu%20Shoujo%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
    https://randomc.net/image/Akanesasu%20Shoujo/Akanesasu%20Shoujo%20-%2002%20-%20Large%2009.jpg

    Evil parallel Yu is sexy Yu.

    HalfDemonInuyasha
  2. I had certain expectations from episode 1 since the focus was on the “cool” Asuka, but… the way the girls are so nonchalant about traveling to parallel worlds makes it harder to take seriously, like Sliders meets K-On I guess.

    Player
    1. It’s harder on the men than the women with a females-married-at-17 law. Most young men don’t have the money, let alone the intellectual/emotional maturity, to be married at 17 years. This would lead to a lot of men in their thirties marrying the under-the-gun young women. You might as well separate the boys from the girls after elementary school, so romantic relationships don’t form in high school.

      While younger brides and restricted birth control would lead to a population explosion, it means no more “puppy love” among teenagers, unless one or the other has a successful family business, more arranged marriages, and even expatriation if young women who don’t want to marry are forced to leave the country before their 17th birthday.

      jhpace1

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