D_Cide Traumerei: The Animation – 02

「繭糸」 (Kenshi)
“Cocoon Thread”

Awaken as a Knocker Up by eating a dream candy that turns you into a giant monster, but if you have enough conviction/emotions you can let go of the weird (that’s what they’re called) and become a super sailor. Hip Haraujuku outfit and everything!

This episode sees a deep dive into Ibusaki Eri’s (Kouno Marika) personal life, when she comes home she is greeted by her mother who has a grim and bitter expression on her face. You can already see the abuse running through the family. This episode was heavy with Eri’s private life, not faltering, it never actually showed the degradation happening, but it dealt with the aftermath of it all. From the last episode, I got a big vibe that Eri was dealing with something like this in her own home, but I guess I wasn’t prepared for how exactly.

Non less, that happened, the episode tried hard to make us hate Eri as she might come off as a cold-hearted ice queen, but when you realize that maybe lunch break is the only time she could get a chance to read because of emotional turmoil currently going on in her house. It sort of shows her in a new light.

I think Rena sort of feels this, even before she asked Eri to go to Karaoke, Rena already knew that something was going on, she just didn’t know how to explain or even begin to explore that subject with her. So that’s why she reached out in the first place. Sometimes we know we have to help someone because they might be in an inescapable hell not of their own making. But we just don’t know where to start or what to do. I think it speaks for Rena as this kind-hearted energetic girl, and they’re nailing her character, she expresses her kind and caring personality not through overly meaningful actions, but in the subtleties that go unnoticed. Great job on making what could have easily been washed as simply the comedy relief of the show.

Comedy relief? That role is probably gonna go to Teddy Tris (Momono Haruna) since it’s clear they’re trying to make him the mascot character of the show.

All Eri wants to do is get stronger, and she managed to do so in the span of one single episode. She went from being the ice queen to denoting into a likable character in just one episode. Good news though, it seems the whole team is now together and is ready to start fighting baddies. I liked this introduction of Eri as a Knocker Up, as it also allowed the introduction of Rena as one. Two birds with one stone sort to speak. I don’t know why the abuse story was so important in the writer’s room, but I guess they were trying to make some drama! This episode wholeheartedly commits to Eri, while making the rest of the cast side characters just for this episode. (Makoto is that you?)

Other than that, the animation continues to be skilled in its execution, and when monsters appear it’s not that jarring because everything is already in CGi. But that being said, there are moments where I genuinely can’t tell, is it a 2D drawing or is it CGi. The answer is it’s generated by computers, I just genuinely can’t tell. It’s more notorious when the action delivers on the high octane moments. But it’s not bothersome because it’s so stylized that it never looks bad.

You do have to enjoy this type of show to get into it. But at the same time, I can’t help but be glued at it during its runtime because both visually and story-wise, it’s refreshing.

This episode was sort of a second prologue to the story, as from now I bet the show is going to delve into a more monster of the week type format. But that’s okay since we’ll be seeing what sort of extents it can go to.

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