Wonder Egg Priority – 10

「告白」 (Kokuhaku)
“Confession”

Who does Sawaki-sensei love?

I find it hard to believe. That Sawaki had so many suspicious interactions with Koito, and weird behavior patterns which would suggest an obsession with Ai, to believe he’s genuinely in love with her mother. He claims he painted Ai’s mother and that Ai is like a younger version of her mother. But that statement seems so unreliable to me. Like Humbert Humbert from Lolita. If it was a painting of Ai’s mother, why would he paint on the heterochromia that Ai has? That’s what gives me the impression that he just drew an older version of Ai, and loves Ai’s mother because she’s like a partially older version of Ai – plus a relationship with her will give him close proximity and access to properly groom Ai.

Maybe I’ve misjudged his intentions and the show’s doing a fantastic job of misleading us. But these are the clear vibes I’m getting from him. Nevertheless, I’m enjoying the dimensions he brings to this show. And when the mannequins mention Thanatos, it makes me wonder if Sawaki-sensei is an agent of Thanatos. If not an avatar of Thanatos itself. Other than that, judging from his telling look when Ai posed him the final question, it’s pretty clear he seemed to know something more about Koito’s death. So I will be interested to find out how he responds to Ai. Other than that, what a brutal week for Wonder Egg Priority.

Momoe Overcomes Her Gender Identity Crisis

My heart really goes out to Momoe – who really received the short end of the stick. We know she’s been struggling with her gender identity throughout life. I really felt for her when the guy she’d been seeing for dates rejected her, after discovering she was a girl. And in the Wonder Egg Realm, she meets a female turned male boy who’s been placed in the opposite situation, since he looks effeminately close to his biological sex.

It’s beyond tragic how he was raped and impregnated by a teacher who he trusted – culminating in what has to presumably be the boy’s suicide. However, through the boy and his experience, it helps Momoe comes to term with her sexual identity as a girl in spite of being frequently mistaken as a boy. Especially after the boy confesses his feelings to Momoe, recognising her as a girl before disappearing after she saves him. But if we thought this was going to be a wonderful closure to cap off Momoe’s character development, well, we couldn’t have been any more wrong.

And Immediately Faces a New Crisis

Where Momoe finally reached an end to her journey through a gender identity crisis, she is met with an unspeakable violation. The Statue of Haruka transforms back to life, then vanishes – and she gets ambushed by a girl with a butterfly head wielding a scythe. Who murders Momoe’s beloved pet, Panic, before force feeding Panic’s flesh into her mouth. My heart ached seeing the impact this traumatic event has on Momoe – who cannot eat food without puking and is huddled up within her blankets, shell shocked, inside her bedroom. Losing a pet is traumatic enough. Seeing it murdered then having it force fed to you is another level of horrific cruelty.

What annoys me is how the other girls who are supposed to be Momoe’s friends took the mannequins words for granted, that Momoe overcame her struggles and has ‘graduated’ from doing Wonder Egg missions. Good friends will check up on each other regardless, and not leave things to assumption. Additionally, this horrific apathy speaks volumes about how these mannequins view these girls as being disposable. They couldn’t care less about Momoe now that she cannot conduct any more Wonder Egg missions.

Fortunately, Ai seems to worry deeply for her friend despite receiving assurances Momoe is doing perfectly fine. So we’ll wait and see what happens. My money will be on our Wonder Egg girls being psychologically conditioned to be placed in a vulnerable state that makes them more susceptible to committing suicide. Momoe is looking to be in a terrible spot – and I have a hunch Ai will arrive in time to prevent her from going to a place that cannot be returned from.

Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post and see you all next week!