In my last post I assumed that this episode would be about Tenga as the episodes title seems to suggest but it turned out to be more an episode about Agata than anything else. It basically confirmed my previous assumptions about Agata and Noriko being involved with the previous Kiznaiver project when they were children and the episode ends, at a rather inconvenient time, when Agata realises who Noriko is and regains his memories. The end of the episode was certainly the best part for me as it was done marvelously but I do feel bad for Chidori as she’s outright ignored while confessing. I am not sure what triggered Agata’s flashback to the past and cause him to start running to Noriko. The last scene was a little unclear on just how he got to her. It seems to suggest that he ran from the front door to the courtyard and pushed Noriko out of the way of a falling statue.. As for the reason why he ran to Noriko, I like to believe that he and her are still connected to each other because of the last Kiznaiver experiment. But there may be more meaning behind what Noriko said at the end about Agata being inside herself. Chances are it’s simply her mentioning that they knew each other in the past as she theorised in the first episode about wanting to see yourself in others. However to go off the rails a bit, what if she was saying that when the Kiznaiver project ended, her and Agata’s personalities somehow got switched? It would be rather interesting if the reason Agata changed was because he had his traits switched with Noriko and in turn Noriko inherited his. After all, Noriko despite her appearance is very confident and brash whereas Agata became more shy and reserved. Seeing Agata in the past this could suggest that his consciousness may have swapped with Noriko’s. It’s unlikely but I would find it quite fascinating if that was the case.
It’s truly a fourth wall breaker when characters within the show start shipping characters together. For the most part the pairings are as you would expect except for one. To some this may not be as much of a surprise but to me I found it was something that came out of nowhere. Namely that Niko has feelings for Tenga. Now when I heard this I assumed this was just the project managers making a mistake but the rest of the episode seems to suggest the same thing. As far as I can tell, there have only been three signs that indicated this development. One, when Tenga groped her in the first episode. Two, when Niko was pouting over Tenga lavishing attention on Chidori. And three, when he patted her on the head in the last episode. Other than that this seems as out of the blue as that romance between Hulk and Black Widow that nobody should have wanted.(I see absolutely no reason why people thought they would be interested in each other in the first place.) I see more evidence to suggest that Niko likes Maki rather than Tenga. I don’t really like what this brings as we now have a long line of crushes which might lead to unnecessary drama later on. Niko likes Tenga, Tenga likes Chidori, Chidori likes Agata, Agata likes Noriko and nobodies with who they want to be with. Before I felt like this whole thing could work out as Noriko and Agata seems pretty mutual and Chidori’s feelings for Agata feel more like the remnants of a crush rather than genuine love. Things could have easily been resolved in a nice little bow but now we have a third wheel to the party. Oh Niko, if Chidori’s love is doomed to set sail, yours is doomed before it can even be built. If Niko manages to get together with Tenga then by all means I will be very surprised but as far as I am concerned I say the only thing that awaits her is a jealous hissy fit and a forever alone. I certainly don’t want that to happen to her but really it’s the usual fate for these types. What makes me not in favor of this development is that it sucks the fun out of Niko and then she could fall to the fate of many a comedic character that falls in love. They get too serious and stop being fun.
We have gone over the halfway point of the season and what concerns me is that I still don’t really know what Kiznaiver is striving for. Certainly things have happened over the past 8 episodes but if feels disjointed and unorganised. When looking it over I fail to see a connecting narrative, instead a series a events with no defined goal or purpose. For example, we had an entire episode devoted to Hazama and yet after that he has had no real purpose within the narrative. It’s possible they might start using him for something like here to rile up the Kiznaivers but I fail to see the purpose of devoting an episode to him joining when he could have just been in the group from the start. The only thing that seems to have dominant narrative purpose is romance which I think is a poor use of the setup. The sharing pain aspect hasn’t had much of a definitive purpose besides giving them a reason to interact with one another. While I do not consider the past episodes bad it does feel rather directionless. I think if this continues I will look back on the series and find that it didn’t really feel like anything happened.
~AidanAK47~
