2017 Week 6: Episodes 21-24

[Milieva]

This thread is for the discussion of Season 2: episodes 21-24.  Please mind the rewatch rules.

[Somariel]

Finally getting around to writing up my extended thoughts on these episodes, although I'm sure I'll be coming back to this post after rewatching the episodes again.

Episode 21
I really, really, fucking HATE the fact that the "Hikaru is the Sole Protagonist" thing started this early (before the title screen for this ep). And yes, I do realize that the Season 1 clip show could be considered a Hikaru-centric recap, but if that was the intent, they should have used the plot-important first evolution of her sword instead of clips from the ONLY Season 1 episode that is 100% filler (as well as being the first time Hikaru was given the Sole Protagonist treatment). From this point on, you can take it as a given that I'm grumbling every time the anime has changed something to make Hikaru seem more speshul, whether it's the dream-visions or simply giving her her own room.

I really don't understand why so many people think that Hikaru's family is so much poorer than Umi's and Fuu's. I mean, yes she does go to a public school and her house is smaller than either of theirs, but the plot of land her house is on is at least as big as plots for Umi's and Fuu's houses and it's the amount of land that determines the price of the property and the property taxes, not the size of the house. That much land, within Tokyo city limits (and it's very clear the house is within the city limits), is NOT cheap. (Also, as a side note about Hikaru's house, it's in a more traditional Japanese style, which, at least to my knowledge, does tend to run to smaller houses than Western style houses.)

I can very easily believe that Hikaru's family doesn't have as much money, but I just have one hell of a lot of trouble accepting the "Hikaru's family is middle class while Umi's and Fuu's are upper class" concept that I see so often. And I'd also like to point out that Hikaru's family is larger than either Umi's or Fuu's, meaning the family expenses are naturally higher, so Hikaru (and even her brothers) going to a public school could very easily be a practical choice to allow them to keep the property that quite easily could have been in the family for generations.

I really hate how they took out Fuu's line about not being able to play video games anymore because it feels too real for her now. It was a great line that really showed how ALL of the girls have had parts of their life altered by their experiences in Cephiro, but noooooooooooooo, the anime can't possibly have Umi or Fuu being as strongly affected by those experiences as Hikaru was.


Episode 22
I am so incredibly salty about Presea's goddamn "resurrection". It's just something that you shouldn't even PRETEND happened in a CLAMP series. I mean, their number one rule is that NO ONE can be resurrected. NO ONE! It's such a hard rule that CLAMP characters automatically receive a 4 on the Sliding Scale of Deadness on TvTropes and TRC establishes that you would literally have to break reality as we know it before you could resurrect anyone.


Episode 23
Something I didn't really notice until this time around is that the anime has this annoying tendency to make guys in wide-shouldered outfits look like kids playing dress-up Daddy's robes or armor. Clef has had that look from the moment he appeared in Episode 1, Zagato sometimes suffered from it in Season 1, Ferio suffers from it for a large part of this season, and I think even Lafarga occasionally falls victim to it.

I know I sort of touched on this in the rewatch chat, but the anime actually managed to make Primera's possessiveness of Lantis worse than it was in the manga. It was actually amusing in the manga, but here she comes across as enough of a stalker that it honestly feels sort of like she might try to rape Lantis if they were the same size.


Episode 24
Given how much the anime pushes the Umi/Clef ship, it's really odd that it left out Clef holding Umi's hand during their scene together in this episode.

I am so incredibly bitter about the fact that the anime failed to use the rings as the gift from Ferio to Fuu. The communication orbs do have a very little bit of the same significance, at least at this point, but the rings were so much BETTER, what with their being a physical embodiment of Emeraude's wish for Ferio to have the happiness that she could never have.

Honest to God, Mira is the only 100% positive change or addition that the anime made. She's definitely a bit filler-y, but it's good filler that enhances the plot by giving the girls (and us) an ordinary Cephiran's perspective on things, which is something I rather wish we had gotten in the manga.