Just your regular, everyday shiny horse on fire...
...who happens to maybe be a confused boy who can cry a lot... and has been a narrator in his time...
DO NOT CONFUSE ME WITH A NARCISSIST WHO IS WILLING TO SELL HIS SOUL FOR BEAUTY
1. I'm an easy rater.
---- Actually, I'm REALLY easy, don't focus on my ratings... Go to the manga page and go see other people's reviews, recommendations and ratings... ----
2. I think that I'm a pretty flexible person in terms of genre.
...it's just a question of getting into the story and relating to the characters, I think... There are few mangas that I can say I dislike... and I think that I can count them on my fingers... if I remembered them...
In fact, is there really something as "not my genre" or anything like that? I think that it's just... depending on WHEN you watch it in your life.
Utterly disappointing. The whole time I was irked at how this episode-nay, the series itself- is just constantly rubbing on the audience's face at how perfect and incorruptible Mana is while making everyone else appear plebeian in comparison. She's undeniably everything that defines a Mary Sue, and it's clearly hurting the show a lot. It's a shame, because Rikka (especially her), Alice and Makoto are interesting and I would have loved to see more focus on them individually. But no, Mana's the only main character of the show. For now, I'm just enduring this in hopes that this will improved sometime soon, or else I fear I might drop this one if this keeps up...
B]
Jokes aside, I'm happy to see this week's victim is fleshed out before getting his heart taken out. While it's not at Heartcatch's level, it's a good start in that we might be seeing a few more like this, hopefully in an even more interesting way. Remember that discussion we had about selfishness? (Actually, I don't recall but I'm pretty sure we talked about it. Maybe. Or not?) It would be great if we get a few episodes where it is explored in different forms and reasoning other than the usual petty stereotype that children often see in a kids' show. If this does happen, that would be qwesime! Or, have one of the Cures get her heart tainted as a plot twist! And to make this ironic, Heart being the victim :D
I also like how it's clear that Bel, Mammo and Ira (mostly the last two) weren't very serious with their fights up until recently; now we see them being irked regarding the Cures' meddling and are starting to fight them a bit more seriously (even though their Powered-Up forms were silly hahaha). When comparing their current state to how they were initially, it kind of makes sense at how they appeared relaxed and confident; they had just recently destroyed a whole kingdom, and therefore regarded the girls' as an exceptionally minimal threat. I feel that this is a foreshadowing for something that might happen sometime later, maybe at mid-season.
This brings back to a little something that happened at the 2nd episode; Makoto did say to Mana that she shouldn't take the situation lightly, and questioned her whether or not she would be ready to protect those who are close to her if the enemies decided to seriously fight back. That same episode where she hesitated and didn't want to involve Rikka into the mess. Well, this week's episode made me wonder a bit... Ever since the beginning, Mana is most of the time shown to be competent and capable, and the instances where she sort of goofed up weren't that many nor bad. While I can see why some people are complaining that there aren't any moments where she something really wrong (hence them labeling her a Mary Sue), I think this is intentional from the writer's part to make her appear great on screen. I think all of this is for building up for a plot point where something bad will happen, which will hurt her, specifically, a lot. And I think this will tie in with the bad guys getting more serious, more destructive. If this really happens, I would be impressed.
But then again, this is probably just me going too far xD
Since you plan to watch Sakasama no Patema (full-length movie). Might I recommend you other another work by the same director/creator: Time of Eve (or Eve no Jikan in Japanese).
And if you like the type of setting Patema has : Pale Cocoon (also by the same person).
Well, it IS hard to not download it. The second opening is definitely part of my list of qwesime OPs/Eds. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the show and maybe eventually see the charm and beauty in Duke Damiya ;P
