Shameful Otaku Secret!

Howdy! Bye, now!

Oh, Chiko. I don’t envy you. Your aunt’s still trying to off you with soup, or the occasional desperate and ineffectual sneak-attack on a boat. Your best friend thinks you’re a novelty and occasionally pretends to be you just to get in trouble. Your only real friend is your murderous aunt’s servant. And now the latter two, along with the numbnuts detective who “found” you, have all gone hypnotized by some white-haired zombie cyborg demon doll who’s in love with Twenty Faces.

Oh yeah, you’re homeless, and it’s raining. That just sucks. What? Cyborg woman is holding your only friend ransom… Jesus.

Well, all is well, since you’ve found Twenty Faces! Sure, zombie doll bitch is all about killing you out of jealousy, but didn’t we all know that Akechi secretly was Twenty Faces all along?

Wait, he’s not? Okay, so Twenty Faces just disguised himself as Detective Akechi. Hm. Still following, just less so.

So Twenty Faces kills zombie doll lady, cool, but then he falls off a blimp to save you? Ouch! Meaning, you got him back, stabbed him while hypnotized, finally came to your senses, and he’s gone again?

Wow. Did I mention I don’t envy Chiko?

What the hell is going on?

The reunion of Ken, Chiko, and the Boss didn’t have time to be sweet and sappy because they were pretty much under threat of death the whole time. I think that gave us a nice indication of the new darker and more urgent atmosphere — that it’s never going to be the happy Robin Hood’s merry-men party that they used to be living in. Of course, an eyepatch is always a dead giveaway too.

Cyborg-love-interest is gone, but so is Twenty Faces. Or is he? The scene near the end of episode 13 really hints that he’s actually dead this time, but his work isn’t finished, and TF seems like the kind of guy who would gladly cheat death to get the job done.

Say what you will about Twenty Faces (no one is saying much, actually), but these past three episodes gave me what I like the most about the show. First, the rare action scenes are creative and well-animated with a sense of style that I think only Bones could really pull off. And more importantly, the story keeps me guessing, something it’s been doing ever since Twenty Faces disappeared. Love it. I also love the way the writers gave viewers an “I knew it!” moment when Akechi turned out to be Twenty Faces, only to take it away by revealing that he wasn’t.

This backstory on Akine really seems superfluous, and cyborg lover went down pretty easy (she just kind of gave up living), but I can’t say I have real complaints about the direction of the show lately.

As a side note, anyone notice that the visual effects in the OP make noise now, like motion graphics on a Fox TV broadcast? Kind of goofy and lame.

Remote Island Syndrome

Movie time! Chiko, her aunt, and Tame trek to a secluded island under the guise of seeing a movie shoot, each with her own ulterior motives. See if you can match the goal to the character, kids!

• Find the jewel and see if it leads to Twenty Faces‘ whereabouts
• Kill Chiko
• Stop Chiko from being killed

There they run into Eye-Patch, aka Ken, aka Akito Tenkawa from Nadesico after he comes back all dark and broody in Prince of Darkness. He ain’t happy.

But it’s a funtime family reunion when it comes down to saving each others’ lives. Little do either of them know, Twenty Faces may have been working on a project during the war to turn ordinary humans into rubber Mazinger Z dolls. And one of them lured Chiko to the island using the jewel.

Chiko graduates

The highlight for me was the scene from one of the nifty action sequences in the show’s OP. That’s pretty neat to finally see in itself, but in this scene Chiko goes from spunky thief-girl to ultimate badass. Ken and the humonculus (or whatever she is) both notice how much like Twenty Faces she suddenly looks. And they’re both scared by it.

What’s next?

OGT has been speculating on the nature of the second half the series; his thoughts are that either Chiko’s going to get increasingly bitter and angry as she finds out more about Twenty Faces’ seedy past experimenting with Frakenstein-esque human hax, or she’s going to find out she’s been punked. I lean more toward the former, possibly because I just hope it’s not the other. For Twenty Faces to pop out at the end and say… “You passed!” reeks too much of the old “it was all a dream” trick.

No matter what, the Twenty Faces continues to be super-fun, and I’ll bet you anything that the first season ends with a bitching cliffhanger.

I’ll leave you dirty, dirty, fanboys with a bonus.