Ep22: Flower and Moon
It’s been a while! Since encoding was so long, I took some time off from Mitsuganae to translate other projects… so I finally finished episode 22 today, two weeks late! This episode is rather straightforward, so the number of notes is very small:
00:59 Kiritsu! – In Japanese schools, it is customary to start classes formally with a greeting. Whoever is on day duty gives the orders, “Kiritsu! Kiotsuke! Rei!” which means “Stand! Attention! Bow!” which sounds a lot more vulgar than the Japanese ^^. After this, depending on the class/time of day, you can say “Good morning,” “Let’s begin,” “Let’s end,” or “Good bye.” My English professor makes us bow as well (he’s an interesting fellow ^_- who lived in Japan), so it’s not THAT weird.
02:10 Guidance Counseling – Japanese schools hold conferences for rising high school freshmen to discuss career paths, since high schools in Japan can be very specialized (remember, it is not required).
07:27 Eye Exam – Just thought I’d point out that instead of using letters for an eye exam, you tell the examiner where the hole in the “C” is in Japan, by saying “Right,” “Left,” etc.
Anyway, that was an interesting episode, I guess. Who ended up sending whom to hell? The candle was obscured, and you can always cover-up a birthmark with make-up (since you can with tattoos…). But ultimately, it doesn’t matter much, since they ended up the same person, basically. Right? Right.
As always, feel free to comment!
Huh, thank God I wasn’t the only one who thought they deliberately made it unclear who sent who to hell. Everyone else (well, everyone else who is still watching this series, lol!) thought it was Yuika that sent her sister to hell, based on that screenshot from the award ceremony. I myself thought her arm obscured the birthmark, but I’ll take the make-up theory as well.
I still hold that it really doesn’t matter: either Yuika sent Sumika to hell, and she stayed the way she was, or vice versa, and Sumika would’ve developed the same personality as Yuika anyway (see fight scenes). There was no “good” twin in this episode; both turned “bad.”
This episode made me really want to see which of the two got sent to Hell even though it doesn’t matter.
This one was nothing special, but I liked it fine. A good “twin dilemma” is always fun. I know the ending is deliberately vague, but for my money, Sumika has gotta be the one who sent Yuika to hell. We see her pull the string right after being “dumped” by Masato, and I can’t see him dumping the real Yuika. He seems like a decent guy; leaving your girlfriend for her twin is not a decent thing to do. And while he probably gave in to Sumika’s temptation for a while, it was obvious that she only wanted him because Yuika had him. He couldn’t be okay with that.
This particular twin storyline reminded me strongly of the one in Tsukihime. Have you played it? (Watching the anime wouldn’t do it — you have to play the twins’ route to find out what their deal is.) One can also draw a silly parallel with Lucky Star: you’ve got one twin with pigtails whose non-pigtailed twin is dependent on her for schoolwork.
Seeing Mikage’s friends again reminded me that I’m surprised they’re still around. Considering the last shot of the OP (group photo burning up), I figured that one by one, we’d see them sent to hell or marked for damnation. But so far the only casualty is Akie. Ah well; the image still makes enough sense. But we’d better find out what’s up with that damn teddy bear.
By the way, did you notice that during the Tsugumi scene around 7:30, Ai’s team is standing around a kettle? Didn’t have three legs, though…