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Punch Line
Episode 7

by Theron Martin,

If episode 6 was the Big Reveal episode then episode 7 is the Big Reveal Part 2. Pretty nearly everything about the series which still didn't make sense after 6 gets elucidated upon here, including some things that you might not have expected a clear explanation for, such as why Yuta's spirit reacted so strongly to seeing panties. (It was not just a running joke, as it turns out.) Coupled with that is a startling – but yet in retrospect also logical – revelation which binds together details from the flashbacks to the research facility and last episode's revelation to create one screwy major plot twist.

And that twist, which comes near the end of the episode, explains the whole business about Yuta supposedly being a girl even though he always looks and sounds like a boy, as well as why Yuta's spirit was able to detach from his body. (Apparently that can happen easily while Yubafied.) Apparently when the big escape happened from the research facility nine years ago, lightning struck the vehicle that Pino, Chiyoko, and Guriko were riding in while they were all Yubafied, which jarred their spirits loose and resulted in them being scrambled amongst themselves. Hence the person now called Yuta is actually Pino in Chiyoko's body and the person we now call Mikatan is actually Chiyoko in Guriko's body, which means that Pino's actual body, wherever it is, has Guriko in it. (See the screen shot below.) The trio was never able to sort it out because they got split up in an accident they were in the middle of during the lightning strike. That provides all sorts of juicy fodder and implications going forward.

One of the two other big revelations is why seeing panties = losing control = Earth decimated by an asteroid. According to Chiyonosuke, people in spirit form are more sensitive to certain kinds of stimuli, so with having the power to Yubafy, getting even slightly stimulated by seeing panties can result in him quickly spiraling out of control – and him losing control distracts from efforts to avoid the asteroid collision. The cat also reveals that Yuta has actually repeated this scenario billions of times as part of the Human Preservation Project in order to find some way to stop the asteroid collision. Even though he has traveled back in time to change that, he cannot use his foreknowledge to change events too much because certain events still have to happen in order to ensure that the inhabitants of Korai House bond well enough to be able to combine their efforts to somehow stop the asteroid. That doesn't stop Yuba from trying, although Chiyonosuke gives him a foot to the face whenever he tries to go too far. Hence he has to make more subtle, rather than wholesale, changes.

What this does result in is Yuta playing through some of the events seen in earlier episodes but now from the perspective of his body. This looks like it is going to be a regular feature in upcoming episodes, too, so we will eventually find out what happened during the Christmas party and the truth of certain other things seen earlier. Most importantly, it continues the process of bringing together what had previously been some very random-seeming content. There was an actual method to the earlier madness after all, and the pay-off for earlier patience is steadily proving to be worth it. As things come together, this is turning out to be a cleverer show than what it initially seemed.

Rating: B+

Punch Line is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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