ClassicaLoid

Episode 6

From the start, this episode gets right down to business. Episode 6 promises to tell us the secrets behind who the Classicaloids are, starting with a video call to Kanae's father about the subject. He's reluctant to disclose all their secrets, leading Kanae to have nightmares about the possibilities. Slowly but surely, we get a few hints throughout the episode, if never as many as we might want.

ClassicaLoid is far more interested in implications than explicit revelations. It shows most of what we learn this week through flashbacks to the early days of the Classicaloids' creation. The episode focuses mostly on Mozart and Beethoven's flashbacks, but also on Bach's, as he takes a more prominent role this week. Bach has always loomed in the background of the show, but we've never learned much about how he ticks. This episode sets that character development in motion, putting him in closer contact with the main cast.

We Never Learn exactly why Kanae's father created them, but we see Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach's early days in his lab. Her dad bestows the "Motes" and "Beethes" nicknames upon them, after the characters try to insist on using their historical names. With Bach, who seems to either be the first prototype or a superior version created after the first two left, we see the project investors' initial dumbfounded reaction. They refuse to believe this creation is really Johann Sebastian Bach reincarnated, until he demonstrates his music. His organ mastery makes his identity undeniable.

This fits well with the historical Johann Sebastian Bach, someone who never set out to be one of the most influential composers alive. He was a church organist who never left Germany in his lifetime—a far cry from the cosmopolitan Mozart or Beethoven. (That said, Bach did walk hundreds of miles to meet one of the great organ masters of his time, Dietrich Buxtehude.) While Bach wrote for numerous instrumental and vocal combinations in his lifetime, it feels fitting that his "Musik" is one of his organ compositions: the famously spooky Toccata and Fugue in D minor. This plays an important role not only in the Classicaloids' backstory, but also in the plot of the episode.

Aside from the flashbacks, the main conflict here is a retread of episode 1. The demolition team is suddenly back, determined to go forward with destroying Otowakan whether Kanae wants it or not. (Why they're so dead-set on demolishing such a beautiful, unique, historical landmark of a house is beyond me. ClassicaLoid never explains this.) Like before, Beethoven uses his Musik to stop them, but so do Mozart, Liszt, Chopin and Schubert, who has happened by the house in his search for Beethoven-senpai. Their conflicting effects stop the demolition but also result in chaos, until Bach's Musik neutralizes everything. It's just enough to scare the construction workers off while putting everything back to normal—and making the rest of the cast wonder what happened.

I think my favorite aspect of this episode was how well it developed Kanae. It's become clearer why she's such a stick in the mud. She comes from a truly unusual family, where she had to be the glue holding it together. Her father put a lot of responsibility on her shoulders, sending his Classicaloids after her when they were looking for a home. It's good to have this aspect of her character resolved, because not much else gets resolved this episode. Despite its definitive-sounding title, this is still just the beginning of the Classicaloids' origin story. We knew already that Kanae's dad created them, but the episode never answers the most important question: why? Nor the next best one: how?

I don't know if I'm going to be fully satisfied with this backstory until I get those answers. Outside of Kanae, the character work was also too flat this week. Bach's relationship with the other Classicaloids is in an uncertain place, lacking the previous tension he held as a potential villain, for unexplained reasons. Schubert also comes out of nowhere. I'm glad he's joined the team at the house, but I would have preferred a more satisfying buildup, especially considering how strong his original focus episode was.

ClassicaLoid has a lot of exciting spectacle and some important emotional scenes, but it needs to work on keeping its plot threads together. It's frustrating to title an episode as though it will answer a question and then not do that. In one sense, I'm glad ClassicaLoid is stretching out this important revelation. Unfortunately, it makes this episode, with its dangling threads and retreads of previous weeks' events, feel a little superfluous.

Rating: B

ClassicaLoid is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose plays the cello, and loves Bach's solo cello suites the best out of his music. Follow her on her media blog Rose's Turn, and on Twitter.