Scarlet Nexus – 07

「追跡、ナギ」 (Tsuiseki, Nagi)
“The Hunt for Nagi”

Arashi said it best, this episode: ‘The best way to defy authority is to pretend to play their game.’

This episode was a little bit more on the downside of things, it featured a lot of recaps and flashback moments that stalled the action to reiterate something that has already happened (As if the plot was difficult to follow, more like it’s boring me to tears.) Yuito is suffering from memory loss because of some BS reason and Kasane is placed under the looking glass by Karen as he now knows she’s been to the future and wants to know all the deets.

Yuito and Kasane 2nd officer in command

It’s true that they’re trying really hard to sell Yuito as the new Hero of New Himuka, while he is in the hospital he sees a news broadcast that paints him as a war pulsar. He was the one who managed to save everyone with his heroic actions during the heavy attack by the Others, who also happened to be used by Karen to make his coup. Like in real life, the media is twisting the story and taking out only the bits that matter so that they can paint Yuito in the light they want. And Kasane is now under the command of Karen who is also assigned 2nd in command as a lieutenant, she is tasked with researching the quasi-black hole and see what is making it expand. But we all know that Yuito’s powers feed the black hole and make it bigger. I love (sarcastically) that this series disregards all the laws of physics and dumbs down mysterious cosmic anomalies that in reality are just gravity wells that could crush you in an instant and make your limbs like spaghetti. But no – let’s throw all that out the window and make it a time-traveling device. Yes, its main market might be teens (based on the ESRB) but that doesn’t mean you can pretend your audience is dumb and make an interesting story at the same time. Miyazaki (ghibli not from sof) said it best, kids will get it, kids are smart, and pretending they’re not, show’s a lack of trust in your audience and even in your story. All of this leaves a weird taste in my mouth that this project was just rushed.

The Duds

The hospital visit did prove something interesting to the lore and that’s in New Himuka there are at least 1% of people that don’t have access to the psynet or all the technological advancements that it brings, I thought this was really interesting, as everything in New Himuka takes advantage of the psynet and the holographic it uses. Even down to the sign’s that point the way in the hospital. This woman was looking for the Neurological department. Conveniently Hanabi ends up seeing Nagi being brought into a room in a zombie-like state, he is being taken down to the hangers where he is loaded into a truck and taken to another hospital within a barren wasteland

Yuito’s memory loss

Because of stress and whatever, Yuito is having some time dilation problems, he doesn’t remember being tasked as a lieutenant, but it’s just a plot device that takes the cast to the hospital where Yuito is given a prescription and all is better thanks to the doctor. But they leave to follow Nagi, what gives? The plot, that’s what gives.

A dragged-out episode

Is it noting that I’m starting to resent this anime because not only is it really bad at this point, it thinks it can drag out its story and we can still call it entertaining? However that is exactly the case, I was extremely bored during this episode. Apart from one or two little lore bits, there wasn’t really anything interesting going on. This episode is called The Hunt for Nagi. Did they actually hunt him down? Well during the B part of the episode we can say that’s kinda true, they did track him down all the way to the wasteland hospital. But only by casualty, never because the characters took action. Oh, there’s Nagi, let’s follow him! Literally, that was their reason. And the recon was totally useless in this episode. Not being able to find any info on the old hospital or assist the cast in any way shape or form. I bet the next episode Nagi gets turned into an Other and everyone becomes sad. But honestly, this episode just felt like a big waste of my time. And I recon to those still sticking with this anime as well, which I congruous is not the lot who reads RandomC.

Preview