Another week and The Reflection continue to improve. This week we get introduced to another character, more information on the Reflection and more stylish action. Lets dive in!
We open up right where we left off last episode, with Elen investigating the mysterious individual known as ‘Wraith’. During her search, she finds something and X-On appears over her shoulder! Curious how he got there. Has it been a day? Same night? Didnt he leave last episode or did she call him there? Confusing to say the least, and the silence as Elen clicks on the computer makes the scene rather akward in places. We soon hop into the OP on the image of a cloaked figure on a security camera. No doubt this is the enigmatic Wraith, the villain of our series?
Once the OP wraps up, we head back into Elen’s apartment. Presumably this is after X-On has left, after a few days have passed so she could research. Being oblivious to her environment, Elen fails to notice her entire apartment is on fire until she touches a hot soda can. I’m no expert, but I don’t believe fires work like that. Oddly, X-On is outside when this occurs. Either this is the same night as episodes 1 and 2, or he’s psychic. Considering they talk about Dayton, I believe this is all the same day and The Reflection is simply failing at conveying what is actually going on. After a brief argument, X-On agrees to take young Elen with him to Dayton in search of Wraith, if only because she has a car.
Before heading to Dayton, there is a brief interlude as our Japanese Idol group is getting interviewed. For some reason, these scenes are actually some of the most interesting. The still speaking scenes work well with The Reflections art and the voice acting sounds very natural. With them being a thousand miles away, I am legitimately curious how this idol group will become relevant to the story. They arn’t the only ones getting interviewed though.
We next cut to Lisa, the character the episode is named for, being interviewed just like the idol group. Makes me believe there is a connection, if only between the purpose of the interviews, but its a nice cut. Lisa says little here before we cut to X-On and Elen in the car, but only a few minutes of exposition laden banter later, our heroes collide! Quite literally in this case, as Elen almost hits the wheel-chair bound Lisa with her car. We learn a lot in these scenes, even if its thrown at us unabashedly.
We learn that the Reflection, the even that dolled out super powers and killed people, came in 2 forms. Green light and black smoke. Green light changed people internally, giving people like X-On and Elen their powers. The black smoke however changed people externally, resulting in people like the Lizard-man and the Water Skeleton. Apparently this smoke also effected their minds, causing them to become violent, making those hit by the smoke the obvious bad guys for our story. Simple but its good to get some more explanation of the even, fleshing it out as the season goes along.
Going back to Lisa, I have to call out Stan Lee. This is pretty lazy. Lisa is almost a carbon copy of Barbara Gordon from the Batman comics. A woman, trapped in a wheel chair, with an obsession on superheroes. Her father is even a cop, just like Commissioner Gordon from Batman! Similarities aside, Lisa is taking her condition better than Barbara Gordon. She competes in sports events and refuses to let her father coddle her. Its good to have a strong disabled character, who get little representation in anime. Lisa and her father wrap up their scene and we jump back over to X-On, who tracked someone to a junkyard. Surprise, its female Magneto! Another surprise, X-On isn’t stupid, has he points out a junkyard isn’t the best place to fight someone who can control metal. A rather dull fight, but an improvement in frame count once again.
What hasn’t improved though is the music, or in this case the lack there of. Aside from ‘Sky Show’, the best song of this season, there has been next to no background music. Nothing exists to augment the scenes. Lisa and her fathers kidnapping hits very weakly because of this, as there is no buildup. It just… happens. At least the kidnapping itself is interesting though, as the villains also bring out a new character. Apparently Lisa is a Reflected! Not surprising, but the villains strategy to use her powers is. They want to force her, through trauma, to awaken her powers and no doubt attempt to recruit her. Not a well thought out plan, but points for trying. As it is, the whole event seems almost comically designed to force Lisa and X-On/Elen into a team.
Once our heroes arrive on the scene, a quick fight breaks out and before I go any further there is one thing I want to talk about. You see the picture above this paragraph? That’s Putrid, a new villain. The man splits in to and turns into a crushing machine. That was the most unexpected thing to occur all season for me, and shockingly enough the art style and CGI make it work. Its still comic book levels of stupid, but visually it works. However he isn’t the only person with a power suited to the art style, as Lisa crawls to her chair and transforms into a giant robot! You read that right folks, The Reflection is actually a mecha anime. Jokes aside, it doesn’t look to bad. In most other styles such obvious CG would look out of place. With this rotoscoped style however, it only looks a little out of place. Some really fluid metal animations and a quick fight later, our heroes peace on out. We close on them flying into the horizon.
All in all a dull, but necessary episode. It setups up the larger story, introduces some more characters and explains some more about the world. The fight at the end had a noticeable up-tick in animation quality as well, which is a good sign. With any luck, our main cast will be introduced and we can leap into our first major arc soon.
Until then, this was Lenlo with Star Crossed anime news. See ya next week!
