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Hey, Satoru took his awesome pills this morning, and is suddenly a swashbuckling hero, complete with swag. Okay, so maybe the last part has more to do with bonobo conditioning, but work with me, people.
Folks have already talked about the art direction. I loved the visual style, and it helped lend to the uncomfortable, claustrophobic feel of the episode, but there's no question that it was distracting and made the action difficult to follow. I consider that a net negative for the show, even if it was a treat for the eyes.
The near-sex scene was perfectly justified given last week's explanation, but it still left me really uncomfortable. That's not a bad thing, of course, in fact I assume that's the whole point. I wonder if it's going to become a plot-important part of this society's conditioning, or if it's only meant to illustrate how removed this culture is from what we'd consider normal today.
The flammable gas thing bothered me. I assume it was being pumped into the tunnels by those tubes (again the quick still cuts made it hard to follow the action) but this seems like a bad idea given that there are more torches down there than just the one Satoru borrowed. Maybe the queerats don't usually use them, and the guide only had it for the sake of Saki and Satoru? Putting that aside, I can see Satoru making an educated guess that breathing it was bad, but how could he know it would go up like that?
Aside from that I still liked the episode. Great tension, just enough squick to get the point across, and some good action, along with some development for Satoru. And the ED remains one of the best OP/ED sequences I've seen in all of 2012.
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