Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I\u2019m eager to return to <\/span>Blue Reflection Ray, after an episode that proved the series\u2019 strongest yet. With our core team of Ruka, Hiori, Miyako, and Momo established, the team set to work hunting down \u201cPrincess Yuki,\u201d who appeared to possess the power to remove the Fragments of others. However, this turned out to be a ruse \u2013 the true Yuki was being manipulated by the sadistic Uta, who only wished her to become so isolated that her <\/span>own<\/span><\/i> fragment would naturally emerge.<\/span><\/p>\n Alongside serving as a fine mystery caper in its own right, that episode offered a satisfyingly nuanced exploration of social media\u2019s positive and negative potential. To those who are isolated within their own lives, the internet can become a lifeline, a path to community and mutual support. But at the same time, the inherent distancing effect and public nature of online discourse can make anyone a lightning rod for abuse, offering a sobering reminder that anonymous strangers make fickle confidants.<\/span><\/p>\n As an antidote to this crowdsourcing of intimacy, Miyako offered herself, making a genuine, vulnerable connection with the lonely Yukiko. I quite liked how this resulted in the episode ending without a fight altogether; rather than banishing Yukiko\u2019s negative feelings via magic, Miyako actually challenged the emotional root of the problem. She\u2019s already proven a key voice of reason within the group, and I\u2019m looking forward to seeing how her journey continues from here. Let\u2019s get to it!<\/span><\/p>\n Episode 6<\/b><\/p>\n We open with a quote by renowned Romantic poet Lord Byron, stating \u201cTis Done! Love, Hope, and Joy alike adieu! Would I could add Remembrance too!\u201d An appropriately melodramatic quotation by a man of profound emotional intensity, and also a fitting line for Blue Reflection Ray, where Byron\u2019s desire to forget his painful memories is essentially the main mechanic being manipulated by our heroes and villains alike<\/span><\/p>\n Back at Chateau Villain, Uta is living her best life, smiling as she gets choked out for disobeying orders<\/span><\/p>\n Niina calls Uta\u2019s feelings \u201clukewarm. Hiding your loneliness with a sneer and relying on pain just to feel alive.\u201d It\u2019s true \u2013 Uta has embraced a profoundly adolescent philosophy, little different from any emo kid attesting that joy is fleeting and only pain is eternal<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere are plenty of people like that in this world.\u201d Yep, it\u2019s a very popular phase<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cResonating with some smiley-psycho girl won\u2019t bring out my pure potential.\u201d I\u2019m sorry Uta, but ya basic<\/span><\/p>\n Even as Niina walks out the door, Uta attempts to maintain her poise. Very in keeping with Blue Reflection Ray\u2019s general nuance of characterization that Uta\u2019s affectation would be swiftly recognized as such, a performance of self-confidence papering over a void of genuine personal identity<\/span><\/p>\n Niina instead elects to join with their elder sister, who is apparently still a mystery even to them<\/span><\/p>\n Meanwhile, our heroes are prepping for a Tanabata festival<\/span><\/p>\n Ruka rattles off the entire Tanabata Festival paragraph from their dorm arrival pamphlet, which greatly impresses Hiori<\/span><\/p>\n A very Ruka way of keeping conversation going \u2013 she\u2019s still not offering many personal opinions, merely filling space with information like she\u2019s responding to a teacher\u2019s question<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all crooked again. Why?\u201d \u201cBecause you\u2019re clumsy.\u201d And this is why \u2013 Ruka is accustomed to being frank and accurate rather than sculpting her statements to accommodate the feelings of her conversational partners, which can easily get her in trouble. As such, she normally just doesn\u2019t talk much, and restrains herself to only answering neutral, factual questions<\/span><\/p>\n Miyako cross-referenced the name \u201cKana\u201d from Yuki\u2019s story against all the taped interviews by Momo, and discovered a girl with that name stuck to her bag. She really is becoming an accomplished detective<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019m only now coming to realize how the magical girl genre naturally dovetails with mystery fiction; in Sailor Moon, most episodes opened with a \u201cfind the lurking enemy\u201d plot leading into the action, and that\u2019s holding true here as well. I suppose I was somewhat mislead due to my first brushes with magical girl fiction falling more in the Nanoha-Madoka lineage, which have a bit more in common with shonen action in their focus on training and combat<\/span><\/p>\n Miyako successfully foists her festival work off on the others, claiming she is overwhelmed working on all this reflector business. Love her<\/span><\/p>\n And thus the tanabata trees are adorned with wishes, yet another ritual I have some purely secondhand nostalgia for due to watching too much anime<\/span><\/p>\n A young girl stares up at the tree. This show\u2019s color design can result in some odd visual effects, like this girl\u2019s gradient orange-yellow dress<\/span><\/p>\n Aw jeez, and then we jump right into this girl being abused by her single mother at home. Clearly this episode isn\u2019t going to be any lighter than the last one!<\/span><\/p>\n I appreciate it, though. A show\u2019s philosophical takeaways can only be as weighty as its subject matter \u2013 if Blue Reflection Ray really wants to demonstrate routes out of self-hatred, it can\u2019t skimp on the conditions that bring about such feelings in the first place. And as Niina\u2019s conversation with Uta clearly demonstrates, this writer understands the difference between life\u2019s actual, incidental cruelties and the melodrama of self-serious adolescent fiction<\/span><\/p>\n A televised discussion on manic depression gives us a clear guidepoint for her mother\u2019s behavior, while she engages in the heartbreaking activity of wetting napkins and eating them just to put something in her empty stomach. That\u2019s the sharp stuff \u2013 well-observed details like that strike with more impact than a dozen Uta speeches<\/span><\/p>\n Devastating moment of this girl \u201cforgiving\u201d her mother, saying it\u2019s just the sickness that makes her do these things<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou can go ahead and eat whatever\u2019s in the fridge,\u201d she says again, even though there hasn\u2019t been anything in the fridge for days. There are parts of a loving mother here, but she\u2019s just not in a condition to be caring for her daughter<\/span><\/p>\n With the TV program maintaining congruity between scenes, we cut to this same girl years later, revealing both this was Niina\u2019s childhood, and that her life has remained consistent since then, still sitting in the dark watching figures on a screen<\/span><\/p>\n Walking outside, Niina learns a woman has been stabbed in the apartment next door<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want there to have to be any more people in this world like me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Niina heads out looking to gain some money through compensated dating, in which she is helped by a girl named Nozomi. We\u2019re really not pulling any punches in terms of how folks naturally slip through the cracks of society \u2013 given the \u201copportunities\u201d she has been, how could Niina have done anything else?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you being so nice to me?\u201d \u201cDo I need a reason?\u201d There are indeed decent people in the world, but growing up in an abusive home, particularly as the daughter of an unmedicated and extremely bipolar mother, will naturally teach you to distrust charity<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI want to believe that goodness is more than just a word and happiness is more than a dream.\u201d Thus she was introduced to the works of Byron<\/span><\/p>\n The persistent intrusion of television programs covering people like Niina at large aren\u2019t the most graceful device, but I do appreciate how they divert the message from merely being a condemnation of Niina\u2019s mother, instead rightfully pointing out situations like Niina\u2019s as reflective of a society that cannot care for either children or the mentally ill<\/span><\/p>\n With Nozomi\u2019s help, she begins to learn how to smile<\/span><\/p>\n But then Nozomi disappears, and a new girl appears at the apartment claiming she\u2019s Nozomi now. So the name was tied to the apartment, presumably chosen by the girl\u2019s pimp<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe other Nozomi probably did something to piss Saki off.\u201d Yep<\/span><\/p>\n With nothing left to cling to, Niina heads off to destroy herself and Saki together, but is held back by Byron\u2019s words \u2013 now offered by a new face, the girl who must have initially placed the book in Nozomi\u2019s apartment, who is also Hiori\u2019s big sister. Niina\u2019s guide into the world of Fragments<\/span><\/p>\n No wonder Niina finds Uta boring. Her own story is so much sharper than any of Uta\u2019s speeches, and Byron\u2019s prose is far superior to Uta\u2019s attempts at poetry<\/span><\/p>\n Back in the present, Niina completes her connection ritual with her recruiter, seemingly discovering some dark truth in the process. Given the rest of this episode\u2019s drama, it\u2019s easy to draw a line between their \u201cbig sister\u201d and Saki, both predators eager to manipulate those abandoned by society<\/span><\/p>\n And Done<\/b><\/p>\n Oh wow, what a mess! I figured the show might ease off the gas a little after that last episode, but Niina\u2019s story proved even more sharp and devastating than Yuki\u2019s, and more than clarified both why she\u2019d lost her hope in this world, and also why she\u2019s so dedicated to Hiori\u2019s sister. We\u2019re clearly moving far beyond the standard complications of adolescent identity-forming, digging into the painful realities of insufficient social services and exploitative alternatives that ultimately leave us abandoned and despairing. It is so easy to fall through the cracks of this world, and the injustice of Niina\u2019s past makes it all the more tragic how she clings to this system as an escape from pain. Get in there and save her, heroes!<\/span><\/p>\n This\u00a0article\u00a0was\u00a0mad<\/a><\/em>e possible by reader support<\/a>. Thank you all for\u00a0all that you do.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wrongeverytime.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/October03111040.jpg?resize=584%2C329&ssl=1\")
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<\/p>\nLike this:<\/h3>\n