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EP. REVIEW: GATE

She carefully maneuvers her dialogue to give him no outs, no paths to safety, without him even suspecting that he and the empire are being set up for a big fall.

There's a simple, practical explanation for some of that: she could have cooperated at first because she wasn't aware of how far things would be taken. (After all, Zorzal had assured her that she wasn't personally in danger.) And it's entirely possible that she did struggle at some point prior to the scene where she's put in the cell, as she did look like she'd been roughed up some. We just don't know what went on with her between those two scenes, so it's all speculation.

However, I do agree that the "damsel in distress" angle is being forced a bit. Granted, she has clearly been shown afraid before, but unless they're going to reveal that she has claustrophobia, she seemed to be panicking to a degree that is out of character.

ryanvamp wrote:

After checking the last few pages of this thread, I have to wonder if I'm the only one who found Leilei's arc the worst the series has ever offered in terms of plot and side characters.

You are most definitely not the only one. The assassin arc should have been fascinating, the Pied Piper sounded like an intriguing antagonist for Itami's party to face, but they failed miserably.

Episode 22 was definitely the worst episode this season purely due to the stupidity surrounding this stuff. It was awful.

No, you're not. These episodes have been mostly terrible, to me.

THANK YOU; I was in shock that the reviews haven't been mentioning this. I can deal with stupid characters and some lazy writing but this arc had me thinking about dropping the series more than once. There are only two episodes left so it would be a waste but it seriously got on my nerves. I do love the setting and the genre mix and I guess the newest episode would play the strenghts of the series a little bit more, but storywise the damage is already done.

It just bothers me how every action she takes is in complete contrast to her character and seems to only be for her to be a damsel in distress and an objective for the finale.

So, I'm not quite sure why it never became a topic of discussion for the reviewers.

It seems like she thinks she's been abandoned and forgotten and is alone in the building.

But even if she took no action, just showing she still has some spine would've gone a long way. Instead we get blubbering and screaming. Did Zorzal lock her in a cupboard as a child?

Perhaps because the reviewer didn't actually see it as a problem big enough to be worth commenting on, especially since there's been so much else in this series to comment on?

Yes, I'll grant you that the business with Shandy could have been handled a bit better, and that the whole story thread involving Lelei definitely hasn't been the series' best, but I did not find them to be even remotely close to "kill my enthusiasm for the series"-level issues. At worst, they're minor nuisances.

Gina Szanboti wrote:

It seems like she thinks she's been abandoned and forgotten and is alone in the building.

Oh, that seems entirely reasonable. Did you notice in that last scene that there were no sign of guards near her door? ... And she has to believe that no one with any real power to accomplish anything is left in the palace whom she could call an ally. She's also seen first-hand how her brother treats people who are completely at his mercy, and she is now that her blood is no longer a protection for her.

I think I know why Tyuure seems like she's out for revenge against Pina. Honestly, there's no way in Hell Pina doesn't know about her brother's sex slaves. Even if Pina doesn't get along with Zorzal, it probably pissed Tyuure off that, even as a fellow woman, Pina never did anything whatsoever to try to intervene on her and the other slave girls' situation.

She seems so blatant about it that I have to wonder how dumb Zorzal has to be to fall for it If if he doesn't, not one of his friend/advisors?

As for the JSDF's performance I would be more impressed if they had anything like a capable opposition. Although the sheer weight of numbers of the Empire doesn't make it fully risk free this episode looked mostly like mowing down unarmed enemies. It is easy to keep parade-ground precision when you are not only nearly immune to enemy attack but you can withdraw to the air at will.

Still, it was pretty clear that someone who had trained in the military wrote all this.

My biggest issue with this episode, however, was the eye-rolling moment when, after successfully seizing control and achieving all of their objectives in a swift and orderly manner, the on-the-field JSDF commander (whose name escapes me at the moment) went, "What Would Brian Boitano Itami Do?" Bringing back the old discussion in this forum, about whether or not the JSDF itself should be viewed as a character unto itself, that particular moment (among a few others from previous episodes) is where I feel that they "broke character;" the show is trying hard to pit Itami as the "LN hero," and it hurts the show.

I dunno how long this manga is or light novel or whatever the basis of the show is, but it seems like this show could go on for hundreds of episodes. I love this show and its premise and it seems like virtually nothing has greatly been delved into in any detail, and the main character and his girl group haven't even been involved much in this second half of the season, or if this is season 2. I hope there are a lot more seasons of this.