Been pretty stressed out with work over the past few days, so I had a couple of nights when my brain could not pancake crystal elderly beyond old reruns of Mock the Week. Should be back on track by tomorrow night, but as we’re hitting the half way mark, would anyone like to take a break for a day or two?
Ep9-11
Now wash your hands.
Would also agree that it was nice to get some back story for the commander, but I think 11 was definitely the standout here - perhaps the strongest episode so far? It feels like a neat inversion of Evangelion’s famous dreamworld sequence, with Ayato instead left angry and afraid by the apparent idyll he finds himself in. It’s interesting that, while the hallucinations seem to be brought on by the dolem, this is possibly the most development we’ve yet seen from Ayato’s mother, perhaps suggesting that she (and presumably the other blue bloods) have a more direct link with the dolems than I would otherwise have thought. I was also surprised that it’s Haruka, rather than Megumi or Quon, who seems to be the manifestation of Ayato’s sexual desire, I kind of assumed he wasn’t especially interested in her in that way.
As I particularly like the OP and ED themes for the show, I’ve been letting them run in full each time, so I was struck to notice in the credits that ep11 is the work of Chiaki J. Konaka, screenwriter on Lain (and, in an amusing bit of synergy, Parasite Dolls), so that might explain the extra oomph in this instalment.
