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Luck & Logic
Episode 4

by Lauren Orsini,

How would you rate episode 4 of
Luck & Logic ?
Community score: 3.2

What even happened on this whirlwind episode of Luck & Logic? The focus landed on energetic, athletic Chloe, and the pace surged to match her impulsive personality. Like snapshots from a fever dream that don't make sense once you wake up, this episode left me longing for more detail, context, and time spent getting to know each of the characters.

Chloe is one of those annoying people who jog in place until they can cross the street (while the rest of us runners are catching our breaths). It's a great metaphor for this episode, which definitely bit off more plot than it could chew, leaving viewers in the dust. I swear it couldn't have been more confusing than if they had tried to condense two or three episodes into just this one. We learn that Chloe isn't a team player and has always wanted to handle everything herself—a pretty poor personality for somebody whose work depends on Trancing with another person and collaborating with other Logicalists on a team. It's unbelievable that her issues never came up before now. As the Logicalists battle an increasingly confusing series of Foreigners that seem to be stretching the very world-building rules we were just taught in episode 2, Chloe and Tamaki's resentment comes to a head in an argument the rest of the team listens to via loudspeaker. It's great to see these essential police resources being allocated for teen squabbles. Finally, in a non-memorable way, Chloe and Tamaki decide their friendship is stronger than their pride.

Meanwhile, Tsurugi and Athena have problems of their own. Distracted by seeing the powerful foreigner Lucifer (and only reluctantly telling the others about it for some undisclosed reason), Athena can't Trance as strongly as usual. As a result (or maybe as a result of Chloe's pigheadedness?) Tsurugi gets a truck dropped on him in a scene that moves so quickly and senselessly it might as well have a Loony Toons sound effect to go with it. I thought Tsurugi was inexplicably powerful, but now when the plot calls for it, he can't do anything himself. He wakes up in the hospital to realize that there are even more Foreigners to deal with, and for some reason the Chief won't let the girls move forward until their injured meatshield leader is ready. This leads to Tsurugi trying to fight poorly, and the newly made-up Tamaki and Chloe coming to his rescue, maybe to show how far they've come. Tsurugi isn't just a cliché at this point, he's an empty vessel for the other characters to fill with their own needs and meaning, whether that be a leader, a brother figure, a romantic partner, or anything else.

As always, this episode looks great and sounds even better, but now I'm just kind of resentful about that. It shows the potential this anime has, and its plot simply didn't live up to that today. It stretches the rules of the world in a way that makes me question just how rigid they are—so Foreigners can use corpses as well as people? So not everyone has to kiss to Trance? The only character building it did (with Chloe and Tamaki) made me like those characters less. This plot has the depth and complexity of an after-school special, and looking pretty isn't enough to save it.

Rating: D

Luck & Logic is currently streaming on Funimation.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.


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