Princess Connect! Re:Dive

Episode 10

“In which the audience proxy character is eaten alive.”

This episode is another one where nothing much happens to further the main plot. That said, it is a hilarious self-contained episode that succinctly introduces new characters while giving our most innocent pair their own little adventure.

Visiting the local restaurant the guild frequents with some leftover Kraken from the last episode, Yuuki and Kokkoro discover that the cook is being cursed by a ghost to make pudding all night every night. However, once it becomes apparent that Yuuki can see the ghost even when no one else can, he's taken before the ghost's guild master--a partially resurrected vampire who once took over the world (before the gods intervened directly anyway).

Each member of the guild has some boon they want from Iliya, the one-time vampire lord. Miyako, the ghost, wants to live again while Akari, on the other hand, wants to be the cutest girl in the world. The problem is that, while in her heyday, Iliya could have done this easily, she's now all but powerless the moment she leaves her crystal coffin--so much so that she reverts into the form of a little girl and her own bat minions bully her relentlessly.

Though Yuuki is able to use his own strange power to restore her for a few moments, it doesn't last. Worse yet, he ends up breaking Miyako's newly collected pudding--which, after a night of failed replacement pudding-making, turns out to be a fatal mistake.

The vast majority of this episode is straight-up comedy. From the ghost that longs only for more pudding to the vampire queen who is stuck in the body of a powerless little girl, there's plenty to laugh at. Yuuki is too ignorant to understand the danger he is in and by the time Kokkoro does, it's already far too late.

However, outside of the comedy is the episode's small b-plot. This time, the person who gets the real character development is Pecorine--though in a subtler way than you'd expect. While shopping in town, she ends up helping out at a local shop (owned by the mother of one of the thugs that stole her sword in the first episode). It's there that we learn a bit about her relationship with her family.

Pecorine has taken her parent's lessons on how to be a good person and applied them to her life--though likely not in a way they'd necessarily approve of. She has chosen the hands-on approach to making the world a better place--i.e., traveling the world and helping the little guy whenever she can. And while she is indeed a hero of the people, her little victories don't seem to be offsetting the evils coming down from on high.

It's clear that this bothers her--mainly because (as the series strongly hints) she has the power to change it. The problem is that, in doing so, she would need to give up the life she has come to love with Yuuki, Karyl, and Kokkoro. At the moment, the smiling faces of those she's helped around her are enough to sate her conscience and let her continue on as normal but the battle between who she wants to be and who she was born to be still wages inside her.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• Oh yeah, Karyl is super afraid of ghosts.

• There's got to be some tie-in cafe in Tokyo where you can eat Yuuki, Karyl, and Kokkoro-faced puddings, right?

• I have to say, I didn't expect them to kill off the main male lead off-screen and then roll the credits.

• The post-credits teaser showing that they made Miyako throw Yuuki up leaves me with so many logistical questions.

• “How crazy is that?” count for the week: 0

Princess Connect! Re:Dive is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Richard is an anime and video game journalist with over a decade of experience living and working in Japan. For more of his writings, check out his Twitter and blog.