Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Rolling Girls
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Episode #9
While Hibiki Ai does have that I'm-a-freeter attitude, (and it can be somewhat annoying at times,) I think that Moritomo Nozomi's take on the adventure is slightly worst, and here's why: so far, the (Rolling☆)Girls have taken client requests in Utoku Masami's (Maccha Green) behalf. She has repeatedly declined to receive the agreed-upon rewards (the clients' Stones), and tried to dissuade the rest of the Girls from accepting Stones as payments as well. Now, Misono Chiaya was against collecting the Stones from the start of the trip, so Nozomi's wish wasn't followed by Chiaya per se, more like their viewpoints coincided with one another. Kosaka Yukina, so far, was shown to be the socially-passive and having "follow the group" mentality, so if someone with a strong(er) presence is around her, she would probably follow them or their mantra/way of thinking. I could be wrong and she's just socially-awkward, I'm willing to accept that, if the character will be built in that direction (and this late into the cour seems unlikely). So, what about Ai? She clearly wants a Stone, but it isn't clear if it's in order to be a Best herself, give someone else the change to be the Best, collecting them in order to achieve something else (a la Misono Haruka and her whatever-it-is space program). Is she on the trip out for personal gain? Yes. Has she worked towards accomplishing her goal? Yes. Has she persuaded or otherwise pressured the others in the group to aid her? Partly, she tried to motivate them to collect the Stones (at this point, even a Stone would suffice her) verbally and was courteous/patient about it, but it ended at that. No overbearing pressure, no continuous nagging (again, she has only done it when the chances of getting a Stone were good, not all the time) and no demands to do things her way... until now. While the trigger was somewhat small and insignificant (as it usually is with those Slice-of-Life things), their relationships were superficial and shallow at best, from my point of view. No real bonding or trusting, not a lot of inter-personal interactions (and the few interaction that did took place where mostly quest-related, short and about how to aid the clients), and, as stated in the Review, are mostly supporting characters in their own show. Frankly, I'm pleasantly surprised they lasted this long, I've thought it would happen in around episode #6 or #7, so kudos to them, I guess? What I want to see from here on out is, with the group practically splintered apart, how each one will handle herself, and which resolution(s) each will reach (and how). I'm going to guess that the group will be back together officially with the Hiroshima Arc's end - by the end of the next episode. TL;DR Between the two, I'm supporting Ai's view on the matter. On a side-note: The captain of the Ishizukuri Stones name is displayed in a quite interesting way: The hiragana is いしづくり しま Suppose to be pronounced Ishidzukuri Shima Written within the show in English as Ishidukuri Shima Was subtitled as Ishizukuri Shima Ain't transliterating fun? |
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darkchibi07
 Posts: 5471 |
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It weird how having these simultaneous subplots (especially with those 2 images in the ED being combined into an arc) made me even more invested in how this will turn out. It's kind of ironic how the main girls being separated ended up making them be more involved in these events.
Hopefully they could tie all that stuff nicely. |
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Via_01
 Posts: 551 |
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Ok, I'll admit that I didn't even try this show when it first started airing. In fact, I finally checked the first episode today, but it was so enjoyable that I ended up watching everything on 1 sitting. Overall, I'm pretty happy with the energy of this show and the road-trip style of the story. Seriously, I didn't think I'd like it so much.
Regarding episode 9, I don't think the intent was to make us feel sad about the girls scattering around. Though stuff happened, the episode didn't exactly have a dramatic feel to it... it was more neutral than anything. Sure, the group hasn't had any special moments to make the girls bond with each other, but do they need to? I felt that it was ok with them being just casual friends and growing 1 cm closer with each passing city, and I thought that seeing Nozomi slowly realize that she missed Ai more than she expected to be a sign that their friendship is not close, but could be. In any case, yeah, caught up and ready to see what's left. |
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1363 |
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ep #11
"Busy in a bad way but still very entertaining" is how I'd described this episode, too. This series is such a mixed bag, but often, even when it's at it's worst it still manages to be entertaining. But then, topping the Kyoto-arc would be pretty hard. So: a spaceship powered by "octopus pots" and an episode-ending gift of takoyaki? |
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darkchibi07
Posts: 5471 |
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It makes me wonder if the staff at Wit Studio ingested so much colorful bishoujo sugary stuff in attempts to have their own moe show IP that the concept of having a coherent screenplay went out the window. Because MAN, that last episode was a colorful, tangled mess!
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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For some perverse reason I came here to defend this show from this pan review and found that Creamer already wrote the line I would have to do so. Yeah this was a mess and I just couldn't relate to any of the characters. As I type this I can't even remember any of their names. And I don't even know at this point if those little heart stones that fall from the sky do anything like grant superpowers or not. I don't want to spend any more time on this so I'll just stop here. |
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John Hayabusa
Posts: 1270 |
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While I feel underwhelmed about this show, it was a fun ride in the end. Love the battles and art style. That ending was a real tear-jerker.
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15483 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Good to see that I was not the only who was totally confused and had trouble following the characters or the plot. Too much happening and no time to properly explain it or make us care.
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phia_one
Posts: 1657 Location: Pennsylvania |
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Despite the fact that most of the side characters had more depth than the main four, I still enjoyed this show. The ending was sloppy so it would have been nice for it to have a few more episodes.
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Ohoni
Posts: 3421 |
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Honestly, while the show had a lot of flaws, it was still kinda cute and the emotions actual got to me a bit at the end. The plot was mostly nonsense, the "big bad" should have been set up several episodes before the finale arc to make her more "present" and give her more depth, they should have cut an episode someplace to make room for that development. In the end they really did a poor job of defining the various characters and their motivations, in many cases I had a better handle on one-arc characters than I did on the main cast by the end of the series.
I still would have given it more of a C+ than a D though, it wasn't terrible, it just wasn't very good. |
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