Turkey!-Time to Strike-

Episode 4

In contrast to how last week we saw the girls panicking over potentially causing butterfly effects, this week Mai has taken them to the Kagome Higurashi School of Haha Who Cares. While it hasn't always resembled modern bowling, bowling-like games have existed a lot longer than most people realize. Still, the bowling alley that's built in the first half of this episode looks pretty explicitly modern. In a more Steins;Gate-like time travel show, the consequences to this would be dire. And to be fair, we haven't seen them re-enter the modern world yet. So the idea that this could err more Steins;Gates than Inu Yasha after all isn't off the table yet.

We've already seen this anime take everyone by surprise by sending its protagonists to the Sengoku era, so who's to say it's not also trying to lull us into a false sense of security by having everyone suddenly caring a lot less about the ripples their actions might cause? “Well well,” they'll say upon their return home, as they come to learn that all sports in Japan now have to use bowling balls (pool is virtually unplayable, dodgeball is a death sport), “if it isn't the direct consequences of our foolhardy actions.” Cue them trying to go back in time to prevent themselves from going back in time in the first place.

This is all to say that despite this show's lighthearted veneer and Mai's lax attitude about the implications of teaching Sengoku-era Japanese people how to build a bowling alley, I don't think we should rule out the possibility that the girls have, as they previously worried, caused a massive butterfly effect and irrevocably changed the course of history. Still, that's a bridge we can't cross until we get there. And I hope we do! I like the idea of this bowling anime featuring a group of girls who look like an off-duty sentai squad getting darker at every turn.

Phrased a bit differently: I think Inu Yasha and Steins;Gate exist on opposite extremes of the grand spectrum of time travel anime. One end (Inu Yasha) represents a mostly hands-off attitude that's light on reality, and more interested in the past as an abstract setting. If the anime gets dark, it gets dark in ways that are disconnected from the time travel and historical aspects of it all; time travel and history itself is treated in a way I can only describe as, “shrug emoji,” if they're explored meaningfully at all. The other, then (Steins;Gate), represents a side that wants to get into the weeds of what the real-world implications would be to time travel, in any capacity, being achieved, and the pain, suffering, and political conflicts that would surely entail. And the idea of a series that begins more on the Inu Yasha side of the Bone Eaters Well but goes full Steins;Gate by the end is delicious. But while I hope that happens, I'm having a good enough time as-is that I won't be upset if we stay firmly in Inu Yasha territory.

Still, the highlight of the episode was, without a doubt, the bowling match between Rina and Mai that they hope will send them back home. This comes after (and then in tandem) with us learning more about Rina, and how she feels rejected—how she thinks usefulness supersedes likability (if she can even be said to think likability matters at all). Tensions are running high, the crash of the pins meets the crash of the thunder, the score in the background sounds like something out of a Lord of the Rings movie, and—sure, everything's on fire now. Why not? It fits the vibe. And to be clear, that vibe is very samurai movie, or shonen protagonist about to meet the final boss. Sports anime are no strangers to the over-the-top, but this is in a class all its own. It's brilliant, it's dramatic, it's absurd in all the right ways, and it's got me absolutely hooked.

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Turkey!-Time to Strike- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.