I just finished rewatching ep 12, the last ep proper of the Level Upper arc. Usually when I rewatch I skip some things but this time I wanted to rewatch everything.

I wonder why I never realized that Mikoto is one year older than the other three girls?

Saten's phone call is one of the things I usually skip, but I watched it this time. It brought a tear to my eye. The image of her sprawled on the floor, clutching the charm her mother gave her, is really tragic. I think it's the single most affecting moment in the part of the series I've seen.

But Kiyama's flashback is a close second. Though that's more horrific than tragic. Still, it's very affecting and it certainly explains why Kiyama does what she does.

There's a word, hitojichi. It means "hostage", and it's pronounced hi sto ju chi, for some reason. Pronunciation drift, presumably. It's like how hitotsu (which means "first") is pronounced shtohts. Japanese pronunciation is very regular, but there are exceptions.

I've been hearing hitojichi but hadn't looked it up. For instance, Falce uses it in the third episode of Macademi Wasshoi. It sounds enough like "hostage" that I had thought it was a Japanized pronunciation of the English word. But I looked it up just now and found it it's really a Japanese word, spelled 人質.

Kuroko scares me. But in some ways Uiharu scares me more. Once that girl gets determined to do something, neither hell nor high water will get in her way. Watching her running through a mortar barrage to save her friend is both inspiring and terrifying. I'm not sure I'd have that kind of courage.

And now for ep 13, the swimsuit ep, which also marks the third appearance of Kongou. She's mostly in the series (briefly) as comic relief, and also as a contrast, because she truly is the classic oujo that everyone seems to think that all the students at Tokiwadai Middle School should be, even though most of them are not.

I saw from Aroduc's frame grabs that she shows up in ep 23, and I wonder if we get to find out what her power is? Whatever it is, we know she's good at it. I assume she's level 4, but she has to be at least level 3 in order to be a student at Tokiwadai. Since she was in the same area as Kuroko in the first ep on measurement day, I assume her power is in the same kind of area as Kuroko's. But it probably isn't identical, given Kuroko's eagerness to claim it wasn't the same.

The best scene in ep 13 is Kongou's snake, and Uiharu's reaction to it.

UPDATE:

UPDATE: You know what bothers me most about ep 14? The people teaching the remedial courst that day, none of them have any powers themselves. It's almost a classic example of, "Those who cannot do, teach."

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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