Wish Upon the Pleiades

Episode 10

Warning: This review contains minor spoilers for Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

This was a really moving and sad episode of Wish Upon the Pleiades. Poor, poor Minato. Hey, at least it answered our questions about him and how this world works!

Subaru confronts Minato, following up on the previous episode. He transforms into his "evil" self and goes riding into the sky with the fragments. He has all eleven that have been gathered so far, including those grabbed by the girls. Someone has to go after him to stop him, and Subaru insists that it has to be her. She had no idea until today that he was their adversary, but she still feels guilty over it. Aoi tries to stop her, but when Subaru insists, they let her go. Then it's backstory time.

Finally, we see Minato's childhood and history with the aliens and stars. He was a sick little kid, stuck in the hospital for some terminal illness, full of an inner sense of adventure that his body couldn't match. One night, an alien chases a fragment into his room and discovers to his surprise that Minato can see him. Most humans lose that ability when they're that old, but Minato has "a star in his heart." Minato names the alien Elnath, and he gives Minato magical powers, so they can travel together to capture fragments. Elnath is Minato's first and only friend, and they enjoy roaming around together, unseen by anyone else. That is, until Minato finds another human who can see all this: Subaru.

Subaru visits his hospital room looking for her mom and admits that she wished for her to get better on the "falling stars" that were actually the two boys. Minato uses his magic to take Subaru to a pocket dimension. This was the bonding moment we saw last episode. The problem arises when Minato tells Elnath he wants to use the latest fragment to grant Subaru's wish and heal her mom. This leads Elnath to admit to Minato that all of this is an illusion: he's just living out one of his "potential" selves or something. His true self is still in the hospital bed, even worse off than we first saw. Minato crumbles into despair, insisting on using his powers to change his destiny. This "rejection" of his "present" self is evil apparently, and this leads to the corruption of his abilities. That explains why he looks like he does today, as a horned demon instead of the cutesy prince outfit we see Minato in as a kid.

The explanations for this are still a little on the flimsy side, but they make more sense than they ever have before in Wish Upon the Pleiades. It's also clear how much the show is indebted to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, despite being of a wildly different aesthetic. The idea of trying to undo previous mistakes by resetting the timeline and tapping into other "potential" selves was the cornerstone of one character's arc in that show. It backfired for her just as much as it backfires for Minato. Wish Upon the Pleiades is not written nearly as well as Madoka Magica, so I'm not surprised it has trouble handling something as complicated as alternate timelines. Hey, at least it tries.

I was hoping Minato would ultimately be sympathetic, and this episode wins points for doing just that. His outfit and demeanor as a "magical boy" are adorable. I could watch a show all about the exploits of Minato and his alien friend. Okay, I could watch a few episodes at least. It sure is more fun than the "training with the drive shaft" nonsense we've seen from our heroines in the past. The "sad sick kid whose magical powers are all they live for" is a cliché in this kind of anime, but it's a cliché because it works. It's heart-wrenching as the backstory for a tragic villain, especially here. It's hard to know who to root for by the end of this episode. Minato wants to use the fragments to find another world where he has more potential than in this one. Is that really a less worthwhile goal than Subaru and friends getting some little alien back to his home planet? Minato can tell Subaru is wavering and tells her not to bother lest she corrupt herself. She's forced to listen, as she falls to the earth with all twelve fragments ready to go. (I'm guessing the last one powered Minato's illusions.) Still, she goes as far as to de-transform while floating in space in order to make Minato recognize who she is. He saves her at the last second, but ultimately sacrifices himself for Subaru.

The Minato-Subaru relationship always had the most potential of all the plotlines in this show. I know this isn't the last we'll see of Minato, even if it's only in the form of the "other potential self" he left in the greenhouse. Still, I'm glad that his backstory and motivation were this good. No matter where the final episodes go, we'll always have this. Wish Upon the Pleiades will never be a great show, but it shines brightly in individual episodes. This one might be the brightest.

Rating: B+

Wish Upon the Pleiades is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Rose is a musicologist who studies film music. She writes about anime and many other topics on Autostraddle.com, her blog and her Twitter.