Episode Synopsis
In a town famous for its high quality dolls, Elaina gets involved in a mystery. A criminal known as “The Ripper” is “taking the lives of women” one by one. When Elaina falls victim, she’s determined to work with the United Magic Association witch named Sheila to find the culprit.
Review:
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you are staying safe and eating lots of good food.
Episode 8 is lot like episode 6. There’s a self contained story in a new town and it’s kinda fun. Show seriously…you got so close on this one…so close…
I’ve come to accept that this show is not going to present me with some big morals, a la Kino’s Journey. That’s fine. All I need is for the show to take me to magical places and let me have fun. What’s not good here is that I am having fun watching Elaina get some (kinda) comeuppance. What’s worse is that I wanted it to actually stick.
The plot about the ripper is a strangely defanged one. For the a show that’s shown us a girl sold into indentured (and eventual sexual) servitude, and a woman willing to burn her damn kingdom to the ground for revenge, I was expecting more out of this story. Dolls are creepy. They make for great horror movie fodder and I for one was scared outta my mind as a kid when I read Night of the Living Dummy. I just showed my age there didn’t I?
You could have really ramped the scare factor here and made Elaina realize that journeying around to strange new places isn’t all fun. Instead…this is what’s meant by “taking women’s lives”.
Yeah…of course…hair. Exactly what I was thinking when I heard the women’s lives were at stake….sure.
Despite the dumb premise and the fact that the culprit might as well have had a giant neon sign pointing to her going “ARREST ME!”, there is fun to be had here. Sheila for one is a great character. She gives me massive Akira vibes from Aria, in the way Fran reminds me of Alicia. She’s aggressive but knows how to have fun, and her sharp sarcasm/badass attitude made me wonder why we aren’t following the adventures of this lady.
When Elaina’s hair is stolen, she and Sheila go to an auction house in disguise and rough the bidders up. It’s all doofy fun until…this happens…
Show do you just…not know how to write people or something?! Do I blame the staff or the light novel author here? What is even going on? I was cool with just Scott being subjected to the fetish garbage because I could point and laugh. Now that it has happened to me…it isn’t funny anymore. I’m also disappointed that Elaina’s haircut wasn’t left as it was. She just solves all problems that directly affect her with magic. Girl shoulda had to wear that hair o’shame until it grew back, and be reminded that she needs to be more on guard in foreign places. A big part of growing up and traveling away from your comfort zone is challenging your biases and naïveté. Sometimes you get in trouble and you have to pick yourself up, take what you learned, and move forward with the consequences. Way to miss that opportunity show. I have watched Saturday morning cartoons that knew how to present that message to six year olds.
The show wraps full circle when we learn who Sheila mentors (I’ll give you one guess…). On the plus side, maybe this means Sheila will return in future episodes.
In the end nothing is really ventured, and nothing is really gained. Elaina is still perfect and continues on her journey to prove to herself how great she is. Can we please just go on adventures with smart talking Sheila?! Solving lame crimes and smacking people around. Pleeeeaaase?!
Summary:
This episode flew close to being fun all the way through. I was expecting the theme to be darker, given the “Jack the Ripper” reference, but alas, no. Still, some of this episode was fun, Sheila was great, and I enjoyed that the show smacked Elaina down, if only for a few glorious moments. You can tell I am lowering my standards hard and turning to cynicism to eek any enjoyment of this show. I feel unbelievably duped by Episode 1.
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