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「真実／終わりと始まり」 (Shinjitsu / Owari to Hajimari)
“Truth / Ending and Beginning”
Well it only took nine episodes, but the obvious is finally confirmed: Lostorage is a sequel. Mayu was the progenitor, Ruuko broke the cycle of the first battles, Piruluk is actually Piruluk, and this round of battles is all due to the tormented thoughts of past Selectors. Hard to get worse than that in one episode don’t you think? Too bad it does. Oh boy does it ever.
I’m not terribly surprised by the revelations dropped this week, but I definitely wasn’t expecting the actual Piruluk to casually give them over to Chinatsu without a second thought. Always pinned Hanna being our fact finding guinea pig, but I guess she’s destined for “better” things (more on that in a bit). The big reveal of course rests with the actual setup of these new Selector battles. These fights are definitely a Danganronpa-esque form of despair creation, generated off the feelings of prior Selectors failing to achieve their wishes. Although the game is no longer one of “heads I win, tails you lose” given victorious Selectors are not body swapped, that is little consolation for the girls, guys, and LRIGs stuck in this seemingly endless spiral. After all, Piruluk originally won only to see her friend still die, LRIGs have “won” only to find out life isn’t everything they desired, and Hanna too discovered the truth is often harsher than you’d like it to be. Little need for extra gimmicks when the sheer weight of cold, nihilistic life provides enough despair—and then some.
Particularly intriguing for me though is with all of this now revealed, we still don’t know how things will end. The operator behind this second round of WIXOSS battles remains glaringly hidden (guaranteed there’s someone beyond Mayu involved), and we also have the fallout of a successful win to witness. It’s not clear what happened to Hanna’s LRIG for example, and there furthermore is the possibility that the LRIG even manipulated Hanna’s memories (or deliberately kept them hidden) just for the sh*ts and giggles. Wouldn’t it be funny too if Hanna actually hasn’t ceased being a Selector? There remains a surprising amount of unknown material left alongside our “disappeared” Selectors to discover, and Hanna offers the perfect opportunity to do so.
Beyond Hanna’s torment lies our festering Chinatsu-Suzuko feud which now increasingly feels close to fizzling out. Chinatsu unsurprisingly still cannot figure out what she actually wants, handing over Shouhei’s previously withheld contract one minute and standing in shock at Piruluk correctly calling her out the next. Our cute body-swapped LRIG’s suicide though is likely what will finally snap Chinatsu out of things and back towards some sense of stability (especially if Meru’s pep talk scene was anything to go by). Suzuko on the other hand is now firmly set up for the endgame given her dueling battling equality with Hanna, while Shouhei, in his white knighted splendour (and Stockholm syndrome), has strangely settled on freeing Chinatsu from her self-made prison. We are clearly running straight towards one big clash of desires, mediated by the ever trusty Bookmaker and his sadistic fetish. I have no firm idea who will fight who (bets on Chinatsu-Shouhei or Suzuko-Shouhei though) or what new information will come from it, but I definitely know it’s going to be hard, painful, and exceptionally brutal for those Selectors involved. Keep the popcorn in reach people, we are nowhere close to hitting bottom yet.
Preview
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I don’t remember the first series being quite so brutal. (I don’t remember anyone killing themselves, at least.) I do like the link to the first series, though, since it ended a bit too cleanly–thanks to Ruuko’s wish, everyone got their bodies back without any lasting consequences.
Speaking of Ruuko, I wonder what she and Tama are up to in this series. Maybe they started up a game shop.
Also, why did Hanna flip out and decide that her brother’s death was her fault? It seemed like he just vanished or fell.
Because, at least according to the memory, she was the one who brought him out to such a dangerous location to play hide-and-seek.
I think its moreover the fact that she had validation that her brothers’ death was her fault (will not really but she blames herself) + Over-the-top Japanese-anime emotions.I guess I can understand her freaking out but clawing the ground so that her fingers bleed was over-the-top.
As for her brother….either he fell or was kidnapped then murdered.
So now one wonders how many of the LRIGs are like Anonymous or not. Even someone like Aya, after becoming human, had similar comments to how boring things were. I hope Riru isn’t that like too…though I wouldn’t be surprised if Meru turns out like Anonymous either…imagine if “Mama” was like that, oy…
That revelation…
So the current LRIGS are the despair of Selector Infected and Selector Spread WIXOSS right? So what are the odds that Bookman or Anon-chan was formerly Akira Aoi? That batshit insane girl.
Or could Bookman possibly be Ulith?
I’m definitely betting on Bookman being Ulith, seems more likely than Aoi given the love of hurting. Aoi never really was like that, she simply liked having people grovel towards her (and lashed out when they didn’t), whereas Ulith was downright sadistic.
I doubt Bookman is Akira or Ulith. There are 2 reasons for this:
First, the LRIGs in this series appear to be blanks formed from the hatred and despair of the Selectors who lost 3 battles from the first series. Bookman certainly implies he was originally an LRIG, what with his comment to Aya last episode about punishing the humans who use them. Akira and Ulith are both originally human.
Second, Akira appears to have made peace with her life and have become friends with Iona. Ulith, at least by the end of the Destructed movie, also made peace with her life. I do not see either following up their ending in the first series by becoming Bookman.
I doubt either Bookman or his LRIG is Yuki either.