That was the best episode of Darling in the Franxx to date. Truly I am impressed with this though it may be perhaps because the fanservice aspects of the show were not present at all during this episode. Todays episode was spent entirely on the past of Hiro and Zero Two. When this episode is over it brings a whole new light on events before this. All the strange disconnected things that Zero Two did throughout the series just suddenly click and you realize just what she was trying to do. Her distaste for tests, her love for sweet things, searching for picture books in the library, her insistence on Hiro calling her Zero Two over giving a new nickname and even why she calls him Darling. It all connects right back to when they were children as Hiro is the one who influenced all of this. Well the picture book seems influenced by what we can assume is her creator which appears to not be the plantation. They were shocked to find a creature as humanlike as Zero Two.
On that front Dr Franxx certainly lost a lot of points today. Up till now he seemed like the voice of reason within the society but seeing him torture Zero Two with delight over her Kalozuar characteristics certainly paints him in a new light. It’s possible that in the future he wishes to somehow atone for his actions but it’s just as likely that he’s motivated by pure cold scientific curiosity. HIro also could go through a massive character shift here as well as in his memories he certainly is more confident and motivated when compared to his teenage self. But the memory erase seems to have screwed him up bad. With the return of his memories by episodes end this could very well spell a return of the confident Hiro of the past which I would find most agreeable. But yes that moment, when Hiro confirms that he remembers to Zero Two and her turning back to realize that Hiro is indeed the boy she loved in the past. Damn that was a cruel cliffhanger. When taking into account Zero Two’s breakdown it does seem to be more the product of deciding that after all these hints with no results that Hiro wasn’t the boy she knew in the past which pushed her objective to “Becoming human.” So I suspect shes going to cool down quite a bit with his return. What’s more I wonder if the return of Hiro’s memories cause him to start responding more confidently to her advances. Now that would certainly be fun to see.
I will admit that it’s not as if the events in this episode were surprising or unpredictable as I pretty much knew where it was going the whole way through. What makes this episode work was the the execution was on point throughout and it didn’t matter if the events could be guessed beforehand, you were still glued to the screen to see them all unfold. This could very well be a changing point for Darling in the Franxx, where it stops being that strange enjoyable mecha show with weird fanservice and actually branches out into something truly taking note of. Or this could very well be a Little Witch Academia situation where episodes promise greatness only to let down once the next episode starts. Regardless I have found during the string of strong episodes this series is having that it is essentially the only anime I covered during the Winter season that I actually felt interested in seeing what it was to bring each week. Depending on what comes I may even start recommending that people watch this show and be frustrated that they can’t get past the ass controls. Yes, they certainly could have used more subtlety in that department.
