First Impressions / Sacred Seven

「マゴコロを込めて」 (Magokoro wo Komete)
“With Sincerity”

Ask and I shall receive, as Onigawara sets Alma up on a date with Ruri so that he can finally get a clue. It’s just too bad that it revolved around a misunderstanding over Alma’s overuse of the phrase “for now”, since it made him come off as an insensitive jerk for most of the episode. From my point of view, it was pretty apparent that he wasn’t confident about protecting Ruri, so it felt like we were always one quick line away from clearing things up and saving her a lot of grief. The fact that Alma decided to whittle away in his own lack of confidence and completely ignore how Ruri was wearing her heart on her sleeve made most of the episode somewhat frustrating to watch.

I was fully aware of the scenario they were going for, and Alma’s flashback with Nakajima Megumi’s insert song “Love” helped in that regard, but the insecurities seen in them both seemed to drag out a fair bit. The contract at Alma’s house, the wait on the train platform, the realization that he left her behind, and the tears in the ramen shop — we had at least one scene too many for Alma to catch on. Even then, he didn’t realize himself, as Ruri had to speak up about how he was making her feel unwanted. In hindsight, Ruri should’ve just taken Onigawara’s advice and leaped into Alma with open arms to save us all from going through that. It worked wonders on our fellow Ashi after all.

In all fairness, this episode did make a point of how Alma closed himself off to any sort of friends after losing control of his powers when he was younger. He clearly isn’t good with people since then, making a date with Ruri being the furthest thing he’d be able to handle. He also made a point of how she should speak up if something’s bothering her, which was crude yet admirably straight to the point. The only problem I had with it all is that he stayed clueless for too long. There’s a tolerance level for density (at least for me) and Alma was really pushing the boundaries of it. I didn’t really mind how he manhandled her when he plucked her out of the water, and actually liked how he accepted Ruri’s proposal will, so most of my personal angst came from stuff like fiddling over holding hands. (If only it was as easy as home base.)

As for Alma’s flashback, we didn’t really learn too much about his mother, plus we’re still left wondering if he actually protected Ruri in the past. There wasn’t much to take away in either case, so the focus is all on Kenmi now. Kagami knows they’re bad news but Kenmi knows that they’re onto him, which sounds like a precursor to things heating up between them. My money’s on Night and Fei stepping in to lend a hand once it does.

* The series makes a point of contrasting how much taller Alma is than Ruri, but some scenes look pretty ridiculous.
* Arakune get a cameo mid-episode, but doesn’t say anything to spice up their date unfortunately.

 

Preview

37 Comments

  1. That shot with Alma running past Ruri while chasing the train is just… Oh my the proprtions!!

    Those two are just so cute and innocent! I do hope Sunrise properly gets them together!

    Amiena
    Reply

  6. I liked most of the episodes of this anime so far, but I wasn’t sold on it being anything more than just nostalgia inducing fun until this episode. Them fixing Onigawara so easily was a surprise to me, I thought they might have to keep him tied together for a few more episodes XD

    So now Alma and Ruri are on “equal footing” somewhat. Though they still have a long ways to go in the relationship front. Sigh, and here I was going about shipping Alma with the Wakana. Now I like these two as a couple as well.

    x
    Reply

    2. People kept giving them crap about how Alma’s name is supposed to be romanized (some people wanted Alma, some people wanted Arma, some even wanted Arima), so they just responded by making it Squall. Outside of that, though, the subs aren’t bad at all

      Bass.EXE
      Reply

  8. Damn gg with that Squall bull. They just can’t stop trolling. They may as well just call ‘Kagame’ “Mirror” & ‘Haruhi’ “Spring Day”. But his name isn’t actually Aruma – those fools.

    Anyway, Alma may as well be 2 ft taller than Ruri. Sure she’s unnaturally small & he can be a center on my team any day, heh. Someone had to she such a weird couple in real life in-order to go to such lengths to get this point across. I wonder what poor saps they used as an example…

    Megas
    Reply

  9. I have always been a hopless romantic and I love theese episode’s in anime! And it was nice seeing some of Ruri’s cute side for once. It was a good episode, but of course it was also a little frustrating to watch!

    Pera
    Reply

  11. bah its just as bad as the date of taito and himea. when they’re pushing the main pair too much, especially when everyone else is, its bland and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. this would work out if one of the couple is oblivious about it but in this case they were too obvious.
    it would also work out good if it was some other pair than the main couple like madoka in hoshizora, to show other kinds of flavors. or better yet, like yuruyuri.

    the only thing that got me interested here was that alma still doesnt remember ruri from his childhood. theres the obvious diff as shown that in pictures 25 and 27 about how their powers work. I hope they make a curve ball in showing that it was someone else other than alma. but I hope it doesnt mean he has a secret twin or that it really is just a memory screw up.

    amado
    Reply

  12. Urgh…god finally grant me a pretty hawt megane butler in a “normal love” series where I don’t have to be paranoid about seeing two guys hot for each other, but in his cruelty punishes me by making that said butler so generic and boring to hell when he has potentials to go down the Butler Hall of Fame…Damn it Kagami ;_;…Damn it Sunrise ;_;…

    You know what, 8 episodes have passed and I still find Kenmi and co. a lot more interesting than the protagonists, to the point that sometimes I do root for them! Things (at least seems to) make sense when they are around…

    Jellyfish Marine
    Reply

  15. This episode was surprisingly enjoyable, considering boy/girl relationship is not exactly Sunrise’s strong suit. Throw in an insert song by Nakajima Megumi? Pretty darn good, I must say!
    The plot is still moving rather slowly and with only 4 episodes to go, it remains to be seen whether Sunrise can wrap things up nicely. Not sure how the ratings and dvd sales are doing, but should we expect a season 2 for Sacred Seven?

    Seishun Otoko
    Reply

  18. Here’s a pro tip, just don’t bother with gg subs. They’re subtitles are at best passable (can’t get much better with a speed subbing philosophy), their encoding frequently oversized (they don’t seem to know how to do 10-bit or anything appropriately sized for 24 minute progams for that matter. Hell they don’t even seem to understand how to remove commercials half the time), and their gags (some people call it trolling, but I’d almost argue that’s demeaning to actual trolls) incredibly stale and rarely funny with only a few exceptions.

    Unlike most of the time where they seem to position themselves to be the only option and have equally lazy and crappy subbers rip off their stuff to create what amounts to a monopoly on certain shows, this time there are other options that are also legal, like crunchy rolls subs. And yes I will say that crunchy roll actually has better subtitles and encoding than gg by a wide margin.

    Kaioshin Sama
    Reply

  21. He either saved her sister or someone else entirely, with all the subtle suggestion I would be severely disappointed if Arma just forgot that it happened. They had that “I take your memories” line way too many times in the past episodes for it to be coincidence.

    UnknownVoid
    Reply

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