Billed for many as the most ambitious anime of this Winter season (myself included), Wonder Egg captures difficult, heavy topics with striking imaginaries and raw emotions from its characters, and by the process captures viewers’ hearts as well. I can see why many don’t tune in its heartbeats, as shows like Wonder Egg tend to be for acquired tastes. These two episodes introduce the remaining two lead cast members and Wonder Egg does wonder as presenting them as archetypal types at first, then adds more layers to their personality, making them as compelling and heartbreaking as any victim they are trying to save.
It’s clear from episode 3 and 4 – as we get past the introductory first 2 episodes – that Wonder Egg starts to get less focus on the victims’ cases, and more on the journeys of the main girls themselves. By that I mean the two fangirls that Ai and Rika are trying to save serve most as comedic reliefs – and even to this point I still wonder why they’re needed to be saved to begin with. Unlike other victims they don’t go through any traumatic experiences, making their situations at odds with other characters. I guess it’s supposed to strike a balance with another victim, Miwa, who gets introduced in episode 4. Her case is downright unsettling and heavy, as she is sexually assaulted by the adult. Like I mentioned in my previous post, with subject matter as disturbing as this, it’s the approach that counts – insensitive and too heavy-handed will carry the risks of overly-preachy and emotionally-manipulated. Thankfully, this episode avoids that pitfall by starting it with a consultant. It gives us time to hear the victim out, listen to their cries and feel it under their shoes.
But the main focus remains squarely on our new rescue members: Rika and Sawaki, and they raise up to be even more compelling than Ai and Neiru so far. Rika first appears to be a generic genki-girl who is abrasive and uses everyone for her needs. I’m certain she puts a lot of people off by calling her fans “fat, sweaty”, and she appears to be a shallow girl who cares more about her look. As we delve deeper into her backstory, her inconsistency arises – and I love that, It’s inconsistencies in the way humans talk and behave that tell you the real feeling and personality of that person. She has self-inflict scars in her arm and she carries even a bigger burden than Ai and as we soon learn, she blames herself entirely on the death of her one and only fan. She calls her fan Chiemi off with a good intention in a brash manner that she ends up killing herself. Unlike Ai who wants to save her best friends, Rika is doing this to atone herself to a burden that she isn’t equipped to deal with yet, mentally speaking.
Sawaki’s case is just as captivating. She’s the prince type that serves as a reliable shoulder for girls to rely on. But she’s also too perfect at that role that the girls are falling for her anyway, and that she’s becoming a host of conflicts of who she is and what image she wants to be or even what gender she sees herself as. She’s the kind of character that walks straight out from the mangaka Takako Shimura’s universe and that’s the highest praise I could think for a character coming to terms with their own gender. Hence, the solution at the end, where Ai catches her when she cries and just says awkwardly “you look like… a crying girl… who looks like a model” reaches directly to Sawaiki’s heart and I feel their laughs at the end are well-earned.
Wonder Egg does leave some intriguing plot threads to follow: the fact that Sawaki’s last name Momoe is the same with the counselor signals that we will deal with Ai’s past soon enough. I have a sense that there is something more between him and Koito that would lead to Koito’s committing suicide. As much as I like how these two episodes cover the third and fourth members of our rescue/ egg-breaking squad, Neiru remains the least developed character so far and her muted demeanor certainly doesn’t help. Here’s hoping Wonder Egg will do a wonderful job to her in the future.
The two fangirls committed suicide because their idol had died, this is why they needed to be saved.
My theory about the whole show is that the MCs are actually victims themselves, plagued by guilt and suicidal feelings, but still alive. The end will be about them realising that the whole saving trip is just a way of coping with their own depressions, and that the real solution is to learn to deal with it, move on and leave the dream, which they will manage to do now that they can share their feelings with friends that went through the same experiences.
A bad end would be that they manage to revive their dead friends (which will probably only happen in that dream world, not the real one) and commit some sort of suicide by choosing that world over the real one, getting them trapped there forever, together with their dead friend.
IIRC the puppets have never even said that the friends will revived, but said that Ai will “be reunited with” Koito.
First, you’ve got it backwards, Momoe is her first name and Sawaki is her last name. Second, your wishes might get answered as I saw info that episode 5 is finally going to show Neiru in action, and possibly explain why she’s here herself. But who knows? I have to admit though, episode 4 has me rather conflicted. I love Momoe as a character so far, and the unanswered questions around her have me intrigued. But I’m really wondering what the deal is with her and that girl Haruka, who put Momoe’s hand on her breast in once scene. Did Momoe want her to do that or not? That’s the question I wish the show would answer in time, because I really want to know the context behind that. It wasn’t played for fanservice or anything, but seeing the act on screen in a non-consensual way is just a HUGE turn-off for me.
Thanks for the feedback, Firechick. My take on that scene is that even though Momoe doesn’t “actively” want it, she is torn because she doesn’t know what to feel or what to do to response to Haruka’s feeling. I didn’t mention it in my post, but it’s interesting to note the locations where the statues are, which I suspect is where they committed suicide (not sure on Chiemi’s field with aurora though).