Total Eclipse - Episode 3 Discussion / Poll

[Kairin]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Total Eclipse, Episode 3.

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[kari-no-sugata]

This thread is rather quiet... let's do a little in-depth analysis of the end of the episode...

Overall, the episode is very much focused on Yuuya - almost everything is from his point of view. We briefly see Yui getting a bit lost - clearly she's new to the place.

The episode shows a number of things about Yuuya - he was smart enough to avoid a collision in the plane, he has high-end experience as a test pilot, is quite capable in dealing with his new fellow pilots, has a sense of humour (giving out nicknames), isn't so used to close combat, doesn't really want to be here and has a trauma over Japan and having a Japanese father (some of this being fleshed out in ep 4).

In the second last scene, we have a nice "buddies" scene bathed in a golden sunset - all warm and happy colours. Then in the last scene, the background mood changes to cold, metal blue... and Yuuya's first conversation with Yui.

It starts innocently enough: Yui simply states she observed his recent combat exercise. There's no hidden meanings or implications here that I can tell from that line by itself - just delivered in a quite flat tone. There's no indication that Yuuya should have any sort of personal grudge against her so it's quite surprising to see his reaction - sort of "ugh, tsk, humph" before putting on a smug expression and starting to extol the virtues of American TSFs and is half-way through disparaging Japanese TSFs before Yui talks over him.

On a side note, he puts a certain amount of emphasis when saying Yui's rank and doesn't show any respect - he hasn't saluted Yui specifically once so far (ep 4). Does he not think Yui deserves the rank or does it just annoy him to have a Japanese superior officer?

Anyway, going by what is presented in the anime at this point in ep 3, Yuuya's reaction thus far seems to be entirely because Yui is Japanese - not because he's racist but because he has a "trauma" over Japan. When it comes to Japan, his behaviour seems to become quite erratic, and rather different to his usual self.

Of course, for his specific relationship with Yui, since she sharply cuts him off while indirectly disparaging him she ends up being the last person in the episode to get a nickname from him - "Japanese Doll". As of ep 4, Yui still hasn't explained that statement of hers at the end of the episode though considering she starts the conversation by mentioning his recent combat exercise the natural implication is that she is referring to that. It also seems likely that she was intending to deliver that line before Yuuya said anything - she doesn't seem the type to just come over and say hi.

Given Yui's attitude and Yuuya's "trauma" over Japan, it's not surprising he reacts badly. Still, his explanation for "Japanese doll" seems a bit extreme - he mentions in ep 4 that there was an old style Japanese doll in his house as a child and while it seemed realistic it also seemed like a corpse, and it scared him. So he's implying that Yui has an expression like a corpse!

All in all, it certainly makes things interesting. Eps 1-2 were pretty much entirely from Yui's point of view, but ep 3 is almost entirely from Yuuya's point of view so on the one hand it's natural to take Yuuya's side and be offended but there's also the sense of giving Yui the benefit of the doubt too.