So her whole life is a lie, huh?
Now that she realizes Yayaka’s friendship as a fake, Cocona’s partnership as a substitute, Flip Flapp organization downright used her for their gains, obaa-chan even betrayed her; Cocona is on a verge of complete breakdown, but who would’ve thought she transforms into the-other-dark-magical-girl-show level of insanity? Struck down your own house by summoning “meteors” falling from the sky? Floating from the ground so she doesn’t have to step on fallen pieces of the robots and her obaa-chan? Totally mean but serve you right, obaa-chan. But girls, here a lesson for you: if you want to confess your sins or tell your dear friend a secret, DO IT RIGHT AWAY; don’t wait until the robots attacking you and then they will somehow ruin the mood by spoiling what you’re about to say with such meaner spirit.
Kidding aside, everything starts to make sense now that we know the true nature of who Coconami…uh… I mean Mimi is. That’s Cocona with long hair and red collar. She seems to be the first one who can enter Pure Illusion world, who partnered up with Papika(na) and young Salt in the process. It leaves another clue to Papika as somehow she hasn’t aged since that time and started to regain her memory once the fragments were completely collected. Which still doesn’t explain how she screws up on answering that simple question from Cocona’s (and ours for a full three weeks): “Who’s Mimi” that leads Cocona to completely distrusts everyone around her. I wonder, instead of that 5-minutes flashback (I counted it), Papika could have just answered: “She’s your Mom” and all the misunderstanding will be resolved in a flash. You can argue that she lost her memories but the fact remains that Cocona is an exact replica of Mimi so it’s not hard for her to reach a conclusion, ya’ know.
Okay, I’ll be serious now. I swear I have heaps of fun talking about this episode. The sad news is, with the fragments collecting comes to an end, it means there could be no more Pure Illusion world for us to enjoy. I already missed those adventures where under the surface might or might not have a deeper meaning, but it sure is fun to talk about those worlds. Admittedly, I think we will encounter the ultimate Pure Illusion world, which I guess the clue of that world is the big painting from Iroha-sensei that Cocona was quite interested in. Now, the Cult going full force in order to capture Cocona so that they can complete the mission and step up to rule the world, and that new amorphous girl is yet to reach her full potential so I expect the match between her and Cocona in coming episodes.
Looks like we will learn a bit more about the backstory of Papika, Mimi and Dr. Salt in next episode, but judging from the brief flashback couple episodes ago, Dr. Salt was already mature at the time of the “incident” so it would be 4,5 years after this week’s flashback; and the baby that Mimi hold is none other than Cocona. It’s pure speculation but I guess something happened in the Pure Illusion world and Mimi was shattered into fragments, one of which implanted inside Coconas thigh. That might be the reason why Cocona is rather famous in that world: is totally controlled by fake life, fake friend who was assigned to be near her to keep an eye on the fragment and that might be the reason why she was chosen by Papika in the first place. This episode surely is a life-changer in terms of plot, connecting all the connective tissues and making it a collective whole. For one thing Flip Flappers might be one of the rare shows that you won’t see what come next, it could go west or east or up the sky depending on its moods and I’m totally fine with that. Let’s hope this wacky little show ends on a high and conclusive note.