03.14
A wolf's head can still bite.
Well, this had a bit more elbow grease than usual. I must give a hand to Trigger for the fight between Ryuko and Harime. Actions were nail-bitingly intense, with the oncoming Cocoon Planet threat only being at an arm’s length. As always, good fights in this show are as common as a flick of the wrist. I don’t need to point fingers, because everyone in Trigger should be given a hand of applause. They handled it quite well, with the amount of talent in most studios combined not matching the power in Imaishi’s mere pinky. Yes, thumbing through a lot of the show leaves a lengthy amount of cheap animation, with a bit of stiffness in the joints, but they always nail it when the opportunity is ready to grasp.
And just like the above paragraph, this episode also had incomprehensibility as a theme, particularly in how humanity’s virtue lies in how confusing they are. Again, it’s another element to how the plot is a battle between order versus chaos. In the scene where Ryuko can’t punch Satsuki, we get a defense on how chaos can be a good thing. The unexpected and the serendipitous have helped Ryuko and her friends time and time again, like the first encounter with Senketsu. While unpredictability also proves to be a vice like anything Harime pulls, it only shows how Ragyo’s idea for order is wrong even amongst her subordinates. Besides, if your foes are going to be crazy, just act even crazier to outwit them.
Satsuki realizes that, dropping the chessmaster act and realizing what kind of show she’s been in for the last five months. If you find yourself in Wonderland, you may as well become madder than all of the other madmen in order to thrive. Play by their rules, and twist them to make them your own. But this isn’t giving in to insanity, not at all. Rather, it’s just a shift in worldviews. The plan with Honnouji only worked in one aspect: Maturing Ryuko into Satsuki’s trump card. But that was only maneuvered through an unlikely chain of events rather than a concise plan, whereas all of Satsuki’s premeditated actions often fall apart. Because of that, she can’t abide by this flawed order anymore if she wants to excel in her motivations. And when the supposedly sane faction consists of alien suits that eat people, is it really difficult to see incomprehensibility as the preferable route?
Jumping from that point, this episode has many shifts from the perceived norm, the prime example being how Ryuko’s being the catty sister to Satsuki. Even when Satsuki offers a helping hand with rarely a hint of betrayal in mind, Ryuko’s on the aggressive. I guess you could pass it off as Ryuko playing the role of the bratty younger sister, though thankfully nowhere near the Kirino side of the spectrum. It shows Ryuko still has some growing up to do for this show’s remaining episodes, with that hot-blooded spirit either breaking from the pressure or rising like an ever-reincarnating phoenix.
And that maturity applies to the show itself too, as Nudist Beach prepares to face off against the spitting image of Chouginga Gurren Lagann. It represents the final challenge for the series, to deliver a complete product that can outdo its predecessors. While this might be a bit silly, since Kill la Kill’s already done far more than Gurren Lagann at this rate, but it’s still a necessary mark. Gurren Lagann is the show that put Imaishi on the map, establishing his fame across shores and being the first root to Trigger’s foundation. By using that show’s mascot as the looming threat, Kill la Kill creates its final step to climb in terms of Trigger’s ascension.