Short Synopsis: Mainly a building-up episode where Daxus II searches 044’s location and 426’s past gets revealed.
Highlights: Garcia.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Ultraviolet is really one of those “anime as entertainment” series that does a wonderful job fulfilling its purpose. A lot of this is also thanks to Osamu Dezaki’s specific style of directing, and all the interesting camera-shots and angles and animation styles he throws at the viewer. This is exactly why I like anime that aren’t afraid to do something more with their graphics than just the necessary animation that matches their budget. I guess that that’s also one of my problems with 90% of all visual novel adaptations. It’s not just their premises that sound boring and formulaic, but nearly all of them (and their art/animation styles) just look the same, and hardly take any risks when it comes to animation, and instead they just go for the safest and laziest way (there are a number of notable exceptions, of course). I know that experimenting is much more financially risky than the tried and true formula (like this series showed), but a lot of my favourite series have experimental elements in them (the biggest of course being Mahou Shoujotai).
Okay, enough ranting for now, about the episode: 724’s little action of the previous episode indeed caught Daxus’s attention, and Garcia managed to accidentally get caught on camera when the incident was reported. Garcia, not knowing any of this and thinking that he’s safe, meanwhile goes to investigate on 724. I liked him in this episode, and how he seems to have himself devoted entirely to protect 044.
044 herself didn’t do much in this episode (Luka was also gone entirely; he doesn’t have a clue where 044 is, after all), but what was interesting is that she showed a more female side of her when her sickness that signals the end of her life popped up. I’m quite curious as to how the creators plan to end this series. There are five episodes left, and both Luka and Daxus II still need to do their thing, while at the same time 044 doesn’t have much time left anyway.
