Three episode coverage this week as many things got in the way of my casual blogging, the much late preview being one of them. I must say that the last few episodes of Franxx have been quite strong as we have had a string of character development episodes which have really fleshed out the cast. As well as shed some light on the situation of the world itself. First up we have Zoromes episode where he manages to meet what may be his biological mother in the lower city plantation and through talking with her found that becoming an adult isn’t quite what he expected. My previous theory of there being no true humans in the city turned out to not be true and instead it seems that adults just spend their time in a machine that partially drugs them with doses of happiness. Social interaction has more or less disappeared as the woman states she hasn’t talked with her husband in years. Ultimately it seems that the children above are distinctly more human than the seemingly privileged adults living in the plantation. By episodes end it seems Zorome stopped caring about becoming an adult and prefers to enjoy his time up with the others, even mentioning his fondness for arguing with Miku. While locking away his memories of something devastating the woman told him and the way the officers treated him like some kind of contaminant.
Our second episode mainly focuses on Kokoro, Mitsuru and Futoshi with a rather disheartening route as Kokoro chooses to swap partners so she can work with Mitsuru, leaving Futoshi devastated. While in one way this could be considered a betrayal on Kokoro’s part as before there relationship was shown to be rather wholesome, it does bring some more context to those previous interactions. Futoshi is obviously head over heels for Kokoro but when examining previous interaction it does feel like a one sided arrangement. Kokoro very much puts up with Futoshi and his general overbearing affection most likely pushed Kokoro away. Whereas Mitsuru gives her space and doesn’t treat her like everyone else does. Seeing the greenhouse conversations I felt things were moving in this direction but you still feel bad for Futoshi. Though hopefully this is a good lesson for him. As for Ikuno this episode gave more credence to the theory of her being a lesbian considering her attempting a girl on girl control of a Franxx. I am not quite sold on her batting for the other team considering there is little evidence of her having sexual interest in women. I feel the internet is jumping to extremes again. It’s clear she holds a disdain for boys, likely thanks to Mitsuru, but just because she doesn’t like boys doesn’t mean she wants to pull ichigo under the covers. In the same way that just because Mitsuru is salty over Hiro forgetting their promise to pilot together doesn’t mean he’s secretly thirsty for man meat. Though considering that the mechs are often used as a metaphor for sexual intercourse I can’t say that people are wrong for coming to these conclusions.
The third episode focuses on Zero Two and has thrown the Red and Blue Oni theory back on the table. With her going increasingly more out of control and monstrous shes pushing aside her own teammates. Ultimately her fixtation to become human is pushing her to kill Klaxosaurs while being unaware that her fixation is only making her less human. But what makes this rather interesting is that Zero Two apparently met Hiro back then at a point where he was a golden boy and lost his memories. Theories are going around that Hiro might be a clone and that Zero Two is attempting to find the original Hiro who died through him. Either way we basically find that the squad of the series is indeed an oddball within the facility as they see children who go through much more rigorous testing to make them nice little puppets. The fact that the kids developed more human charistics may indeed be some sort of plan by Franxx, either because of curiously or some end goal. It’s clear the man wants these kids to be human and is slowly letting them know of society. Perhaps so they can judge it? We reach the middle point of Franxx and if there is to be a turning point, this is most likely it. This show could potentially become something else entirely in it’s next cour or we could just continue as things have been. What’s your move Franxx?
