Popolocrois Story 1998 – 10

It’s a shame that you never hear anyone talking about Popolocrois. This anime’s brilliant! I guess that people are turned off because of the strange character-designs and the fact that it’s based on an RPG. Well, guess what? These people are making a HUGE mistake. Just because Final Fantasy Unlimited sucked, it suddenly is common knowledge that every anime based on an RPG sucks, is just like saying that Tekken was horrible, so that must mean that every anime which involves fights is horrible as well. HUGE mistake.

This episode was one of the best yet, even if you consider the already high standards Popolocrois set. After last time’s intermezzo, we now get to see Gamigami actually carry out his plans to try and steal the Crown of Wisdom. It was in one word brilliant.

We start with the night before it all happens. Both parties prepare themselves. Pietoro swears that he’ll protect the crown, and Narcia decides to help him. The two of them looked so cute at that time. Anyway, the king’s advisor is getting more nervous by the minute, though the king uses as argument that if he can’t protect the crown, he’s not fit as a ruler. Gamigami, meanwhile, completed his newest invention, which he shows to Ston and Sanda. Hyuu, meanwhile still is in doubts.

We then switch to the next day. We’ve got a happy middle-aged woman, coming from the country and carrying a whole bunch of apples who tries to enter the castle. It then appears to be Gamigami is his new invention: a robot, capable of just about anything, including a middle-aged woman disguise. He manages to get inside the castle, and rushes to the king’s chamber. His plan is to shoot the crown right off the king’s head, though right at the moment he wants to shoot, Pietoro runs into him. It was hilarious to see Gamigami talk himself out of that situation. Then he finds another quiet spot, and Narcia runs into him. Again, the same scene of Gamigami talking himself hilariously out of the situation occurs. Then, the knight runs into him. This time, though, Gamigami’s moustache gets a bit stuck in his robot, which gives a strange moustache to the disguise.

Anyway, Gamigami begins to see that things aren’t going too well, so he decides to wait until dark. He presses a button, and what once was a woman, suddenly turned into a large cubical shelter, complete with bathroom and television. It’s a surprise nobody actually noticed it during the day. ^^;

We switch to the night. Ston and Sanda head to the castle on their own, as they have no idea what Gamigami was up to. Pietoro, meanwhile is tired, so the knight offers to take his place, so he can get some sleep. Gamigami, meanwhile, reveals his latest plan: an invisible, wall-crawling, mechanical spider. He takes a little detour, mistaking the king’s advisor’s room for the king’s, though in the end, he manages to find the right window. He enters the room, and instead of just grabbing the damned crown like Ston and Sanda (who just arrived) suggest, he reveals another one of his inventions: a crane game. This, of course, doesn’t work at all. I do love Gamigami, though. He takes simple concepts, and somehow manages to solve turn these into incredibly creative, though unneeded behemoths of concepts. Though, I guess that that’s the reason he’s brilliant.

Sanda meanwhile found an apple, dropped by Gamigami’s invention, while Gamigami begins to get a bit tired of his failures. So what does he do? He takes out even more cranes. This seems to work. They manage to hold the king down, so Gamigami has a good aim. Though, then Pietoro manages to rush in at the last possible moment, warned by Sanda and the apple he managed to find. This was probably the weakest moment of the episode. Still, I enjoyed it. And Gamigami afterwards totally makes up for this, by resorting to the thing he should’ve done in the first place: he grabs the crown and runs off. ^^;

Then we get to see a brilliant chase. Gamigami’s trying to get out of the castle, and of course, the different members of the cast try to stop him. The knight come in first, by cutting off the mechanical spider’s legs, only to reveal a couple of wheels afterwards. Then Pietoro gets a bit of help from Kai in flying mode, but Gamigami literally drives into a building to avoid the two of them. When he reaches the end of the building, he crashes though a wall, and seems to fall, only to reveal that his invention also flies. He then takes off, though Pietoro finally manages to get the crown, simply by throwing himself on Gamigami. He leaves along with Kai, and Gamigami smiles.

Popolocrois castle rejoices, Pietoro gets praised, though Gamigami isn’t done with his plans. He grabs a large speaker, takes his time in testing it, and then declares that the crown that Pietoro took back was a fake, and puts on the real one to prove it. Pablo gets angry, and throws his crown away, only to reveal that Gamigami lied about him having the real crown, which means that Pablo just threw the real crown away. Gamigami grabs the real crown of wisdom, and his mission has succeeded. Pablo admits his defeat.

Pietoro is destroyed by this moment, and breaks down. After all, he vowed to not let anyone have it, and for the second time, he couldn’t protect something important. It was just too sad to see him like that, and it also gives great potential for coming episodes. I’m beginning to like Pietoro more and more. Okay, he’s impulsive, and he wants to make as much people as possible happy. Though there’s a difference with him and all other main characters out there: he acts genuine. That’s something only girls seem to be doing in anime nowadays, though it works perfectly.