Mekaku City Actors Episode 3
What lovely eyes you have.
What They Say:
Momo has managed to get away from the crowd chasing her, but has gotten lost in the process. A confrontation with a strange girl leaves her overwhelmed, but the outcome will change how she sees the world.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After how the first two episodes played out, I went into this one fully expecting to start on a completely different story that only finds any kind of relation to the first two at the very end, if at all. That’s not the case, though, as we pick up right where we left Momo, making her seem more like the main character than anyone, despite the series opening up by introducing us to the life of Shintaro… what was his last name again?
Oh right, Kisaragi. The connection was definitely there, and unsurprisingly given the setting, Momo and the people she’s met run into Shintaro and his group, revealing that the two are in fact siblings. The irony of the popular idol yelling out “onii-chan” to a hikikomori who only interacts with an AI girl is certainly felt, and it makes me hope they won’t go too far into anime male fantasy fulfillment when the two get to hang out around each other. As was pretty clearly the case as each character outside of these two appeared in each episode thus far, they all belong to the same group, the Mekakushi-Dan, and as the leader and several other members bring Momo onboard, they reveal the connection and why she was scouted by them: they all have eyes that turn red and affect people in some way. It’s both an interesting concept to explore with each character in this sizable cast and so utterly generic for anime. When this part of the group sees the others, it reveals that the events of the two halves have been happening simultaneously, and we see the climax of and follow-up to the first episode from a new perspective, with more information. I generally like that touch, although there’s nothing particularly special done with its use here. At least we now know the connections, which should help the story to move forward in a more cohesive way, while still giving each character at least some semblance of exploration.
And as is standard for this series, we move on to a musical number to go with the protagonists showing off how cool they are and saving the faceless civilians all around them. As much as it seems appropriate for a story that originated from songs, these weekly pieces risk taking one out of the moment, instead feeling like the episode was just setup for a stylish music video. That the story managed to succeed in various print formats makes me confident that there’s a lot of potential on that end, but if the ability to return to the roots existing makes that aspect a priority, the primary purpose of a TV show may suffer in the process.
It wasn’t clear before this point, but it appears that, while the insert song of each episode corresponds to the original song that the episode is named after, the OP and ED both stay consistent, both created by Jin outside of the vocals, and titled “daze” and “days” respectively, amusing as the second word of the fourth song in the series can be Romanized as either.
In Summary:
It’s another display of perhaps a tad too much style in comparison to the substance we get, but at least the connection is starting to be made. The camaraderie between the characters is a fun thing to watch, and when they want to act cool, they certainly can. Unfortunately, a lot of that is at the expense of truly valuable storytelling and satisfactorily complementary execution.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Custom-Built PC, 27” 1080p HDTV.
