Rolling Girls took a turn towards character drama this week, which unfortunately meant we had to grapple with the fact that the show has spent this entire season ignoring its main cast in order to futz around with side characters. Futzing around with side characters is fine, but if the show was going to eventually turn to this, it really needed to do more meaningful work humanizing its main cast – as is, this came off as a turn I wish worked, but just wasn’t supported by the show. A shame.
My full ANN post is available here. Notes below!
Now we’re in Hiroshima
Internal resistance broke out in it chivalrous vigilante squad, Noyatake Moonlight
Fight over succession between head family and five branches
Yakuza destroyed each other, single pirate girl emerged
Shima Ishizukuri, captain of the Ishuzukuri Stones
Former main family, Noyatake, now runs a cafe and is being evicted
and now the rolling girls are chilling on a beach
Montage of them derping and doing beach things
Slice of life as hell
Chiaya knows her time away will end soon
Her mom’s enforcer keeping an eye on her while lying to her mom for her sake
“Letting her get her license in the first place, and buying her a motorcycle…” So this guy’s got a long history of giving Chiaya independence
These backgrounds are soooo goooood
Otomo is Shima’s assistant dude
Man these backgrounds
Chiaya’s octupus-ness almost gets her caught for once
Yeah, big Chiaya focus
Chiaya thinks everyone turns into weird things aw jeez
Nozomi’s tired of Ai just doing as she pleases. As she should be, Ai’s kind of a prick
Nozomi’s argument is a natural one – Ai’s problem is just little things that build up over time. She’s constantly somewhat abrasive, not egregiously so
“I didn’t come along to be your lackey.” Ai throws down!
“I thought you were more honest and gallant than that, Ai. Ever since you found out the truth about the stones in Tokyo, that’s all you talk about. You’re the one being unfair, trying to get strong the easy way!” And Nozomi finally brings it to the disagreement at the heart of the show
And Ai storms off
Weirdly perky music for this sequence
This episode has weird pacing in general
Nozomi and Ai don’t really have enough of a friendship for this to feel particularly meaningful
The kids of the old Nayotake family apparently called for Maccha Green to fight against the pirate lady
Honor and humanity is dead!
Momiyama’s the assistant! A name!
Shigyo doesn’t want to leave the hospital because she lost her stone
Ma-chan is going to try to steal stones from Chiaya’s mom
Chiaya runs off looking for Ai
“I want friends!” Chiaya’s story’s understandable, at least. And why she’d run off after Ai
Chiaya’s an alien who must return to her home planet. Makes sense, and gives her a connection to the stones
The pirate’s assistant is taking the stones from the president
And Shigyo’s second-in-command gets kidnapped
Yeah, I agree that this episode fell a little flat in comparison to the previous ones. It was trying to set up a new area as well as the final arc, and the character drama. I was hoping they would do another 2 episode arc and then return to Tokorozawa for the conclusion. That way we would already know the side characters in play and could finally give full attention to the main characters and the whole mystery of the stones.
As it is right now either this Hiroshima conflict is going to be underdeveloped, or the main plot and main characters are not going to get a satisfying conflict. Unless of course this is the final arc and it’s 4 episodes, in which case they will probably get better over the course of all four of them and lead to a satisfying conclusion.
As a side note, we’ve known Momiyama’s name since the end of the Tokyo arc.