Gleipnir

Episode 10

There are a lot of good romances currently airing. Kaguya-sama's uproarious second season easily solidifies the series as one of the funniest comedies of the past few years. My Next Life As A Villainess is a feel-good and refreshing take on both anime harems and otome games. Only Gleipnir, however, is brave enough to test the mettle of its main couple with a literal war crime.

This story has so far relished in the over-the-top grotesqueries of its body horror and ultraviolence, but this episode quite deliberately reigns itself in to articulate the subtler and more familiar terrors that slither under Gleipnir's flamboyant surface. Clair herself explains it best: “Special powers, incredible strength — these things aren't scary. What's scary are the people who use those powers.” While we all know by now that great power comes with great responsibility, Gleipnir takes this idea a step further and interrogates the inherent horror of such responsibility. Shuichi has been attacked by all kinds of monstrosities, and he himself contains a monster he still doesn't fully understand. In fact, every one of the gatherers has a deeply embedded desire that informs and defines their transformations. An iceberg, no matter how intimidating its tip appears to be, hides most of its goliath form in the dark water of the ocean. Beneath every bizarre ally or enemy is a person who decided to use their powers, and a person's resolve can be both beautiful and terrifying.

It's extremely appropriate, then, that the villain of this arc is Madoka, an enemy whom Gleipnir refuses to color with black-and-white morality. He's obviously not a good person, but he's not a moustache-twirling villain either. As we saw last week, he behaves like a natural and charismatic leader with a strict set of codes and a genuine sense of duty when it comes to fellow pieces of shit like himself. His self-identification as a loser is important, and I really like his off-the-cuff remark that he only discovered his first chip because he had gotten so used to staring at the ground instead of looking at other people. The very nature of this game seems to select for outsiders. Madoka's frustrations from his prior life inform his creation of a collective where outcasts like himself could band together and earn everything that society had denied them. Like many groups that define themselves by a mutual sense of indignation, it gets filled with a lot of unsavory and selfish characters, but that desire for camaraderie is not intrinsically toxic.

It's similarly appropriate that the peril Sayaka's group finds themselves in is not a result of any one gatherer's special powers, but a simple matter of being surrounded and outnumbered. And the choice Madoka gives them is just a variation of the good old-fashioned trolley problem: is it more ethical to choose a sacrifice for the survival of the group, or for the whole group to go down together. Yota is quick to bark some shonen-flavored bombast about overpowering Madoka's team with pure moxie, but Gleipnir refuses to let our heroes off that easy. In fact, Clair takes the reins of the conversation and Socratically tears down the other members' attempts to rationalize their way out of the situation. There's a kindness in her cruelty, however; she wants these people to understand that they are fundamentally unequipped to handle a person like Madoka. Luckily for them, she is.

Clair's statement about the frightening people behind these powers is a bit misleading. She's certainly talking about other gatherers — especially smart and ruthless ones like Madoka — but she's primarily talking about herself. It's ironic that, despite having no powers of her own, she's been able to survive and thrive in this world better than most just by utilizing the powers of those around her. It's an irony that doesn't escape her, and it foments the kind of self-hatred that compels her to see herself as frightening. Her way of coping is to turn that into her strength, to become the cold, calculating, Machiavellian anti-hero behind some of the series' most outrageous moments. That's a genuine part of who she is, and it's part of what makes Gleipnir so much fun to watch, but she's a much more three-dimensional character than her menacing GLASGOW grin. The wistful pain on her face as she asks Isao to grow the oleander says it all.

Clair's playing the role she believes is expected of her. She takes the yoke of villainy to spare others the pain of wrestling with their own morality. She does so with the knowledge that she will be feared and hated for it. It's a terrible burden, but despite her depressive impulse towards self-flagellation, it's not one she has to bear on her own. This whole episode is built around this one moment where Shuichi repeats the words back to her about the two of them being one, followed by a long embrace that allows Clair some momentary yet momentous emotional release. It's the single most romantic gesture in the show to date, and it's about our heroes enabling each other to commit a literal war crime. This is why I love Gleipnir.

Love is powerful. Even swept up in the swell of emotions brought on by Shuichi's conviction, Clair ruminates how that kind of love and support will only further foster her ruthlessness, but she respects him for it all the same. After all, Shuichi does here for Clair what Clair was unable to do for Elena back when she received her first chip. Elena might be stronger than the two of them, but she also doesn't have anybody to share or relieve her of her own burdens. That will likely be the deciding factor when and if the two sisters confront each other again, and it also may be Clair's own personal undoing. Whether she and Shuichi can channel the strength of their bond into something healthy and sustainable remains to be seen, but for the time being, it's weird, passionate, and exactly what they need to survive.

This proves to be Gleipnir's most compelling episode yet, letting its character drama do all the heavy lifting while solidifying its main couple as the fascinating and delightfully problematic emotional core of the series. In other words, I wanna see these two depressed horny teens do even more war crimes together. There's a liberating toxicity to their dynamic, reminiscent of why I couldn't help but root for Nakamura and Kasuga in Flowers of Evil, despite their inevitable self-destructive destination. That's a very tough needle to thread, but Gleipnir has no fear of getting messy, and that continues to be its greatest asset.

Rating:

Gleipnir is currently streaming on Funimation.

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