(L) Wonder Egg Priority

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by alex_drian

Ai got to deal with the bullied, Rikka with the cultist(?) and Neiru with the...weirdos? but poor Momoe have to deal with Special Victims Unit shit. That seems the worst of the bunch.

As I described to my friend who isn't watching this anime:
Neiru -> Not really much drama
Rikka -> Bad mom
Ai -> Best friend who kills herself because teacher likes Ai more, teacher likes mom, Ai likes teacher
Momoe -> Best friend turned out to be a lesbian, some guy goes out with her thinking she's a guy, an episodic character who is transgender and got raped and pregnant, and Redditors thinking she's also weird in a sexual way

[scififan]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

As I described to my friend who isn't watching this anime:
Neiru -> Not really much drama
Rikka -> Bad mom
Ai -> Best friend who kills herself because teacher likes Ai more, teacher likes mom, Ai likes teacher
Momoe -> Best friend turned out to be a lesbian, some guy goes out with her thinking she's a guy, an episodic character who is transgender and got raped and pregnant, and Redditors thinking she's also weird in a sexual way

The different impression is:
Neiru -> Typical foreigner character in anime, perhaps an Indian or Pacific islander living in Japan. She is the least developed character of the four.

Rikka -> gyaru frowned on by Japanese media. She uses her outlandish fashion sense to express herself. Her mother is a bartender, and maybe a former hostess? Rikka is harsh to her mother, so she got into argument with Momoe.

Ai -> Another girl from the single parent household. She is a NEET, so her school counselor does house visit. People's impression about him is good looking. He displays some shady trait, but he ends but having relationship with Ai's mother. He is also Momoe's relative. Ai identifies with herself with Rikka the most.

Momoe -> The girl who has physical trait of a handsome boy. Nevertheless, she considers herself as a typical girl who dreams about prince charming. In real life, there are girls(biologically) who look like boys and boys(biologically) who look like girls, but most of them look average. Because Momoe's good look, she attracts the peers with different gender identity. She rescues the girl who identifies herself as a boy. Momoe seems to be frustrated that she attracts people outside of her dream.

[Ragashingo]

Episode 11: Well then.

Spoiler:

I did not think to guess spoiled manufactured AI child was using her AI minions to invade young teenage girls’ dreams!

I liked the story of the episode a lot. It was nicely disturbing. Especially that one otherwise perfectly normal moment! I do fear a quick wrap up if this is only twelve episodes long, but I think they’ll be able to pull it off...

[Sides]

'0'
After all these ups, downs and many turns, the core of this show is a horror fiction.

[HandofFate]

damn, what a reveal.
So all the girls that committed suicide, sure their circumstances might have warranted it, but they got pushed more into it.

Starting to wonder now if the distorted monsters the girls fought was a real representation of what happened, or if it was grossly exaggerated thru the influence of Frill. And the actual circumstances weren't that abusive.

Like one example that we kind of just accepted were the two fangirls, it was such a silly reason, but the former idol said it was normal so we took it as such. But now knowing that Frill could have influenced the otherwise higher than average fangirls into a sucidie pact seems more likely.

[Ragashingo]

We’ve seen two of the three AI flower girls now? Is the third one for Neiru?

What I’d like to see is a big sleepover so all four of our girls can join forces once again.

We’ll probably get a big final action scene, but I kinda doubt Ai will solve this by smashing a final boss. Maybe she’ll... forgive Frill? Or is Frill in a final Wonder Egg? That’d be an interesting twist!

Speaking of... is Frill still alive? That fire looked pretty severe, but the black butterfly AI girl mentioned her as if she was alive while confronting Momoe...

[BBOvenGuy]

Hmmm... In a way, Acca and Ura-Acca are the perfect villains for this story. Tech bros with overinflated egos, who know nothing about women yet fancy themselves able to create a girl, and deliberately lock that girl at one of the most difficult developmental points of her life. They got what was coming to them. Yet even now, they're still at it, manipulating our Egg Girl heroines with magic powers and cute familiars and sending them into battle without bothering to tell them what they're really getting into.

What happened to Frill is tragic, but the fact remains that she's a psychopath who needs to be stopped. Her and her bug-buddies alike. But the two tech bros need to go down, too.

Twitter and reddit are saying next week is the last episode. Double-length, perhaps? Even if it's not, it's still possible to wrap things up. They can do it by not answering some of the questions that have been hanging over us the entire series.

Let's assume that at this point, Sensei has told Ai what happened to Koito. We may not know, but she does. Perhaps she even came to the Acca-house wanting to talk about it with someone. Whatever the case, it hasn't stopped her. She is still carrying on.

One of the things you have to learn as you grow up is that the adult world doesn't have nice, tidy solutions wrapped up with easily understandable bows. It's messy. It needs to be managed and muddled through, one day at a time. All four of our heroines have things in their lives that will not be resolved easily, that must be muddled through and managed, one day at a time. "Clearing the game" is the tech bro solution, and it doesn't work. Dumping Frill in a box in the basement is the tech bro solution too, and obviously that didn't work, either.

The "Unvanquished Warrior" is the one who keeps going even when there are no neat and tidy solutions. I think that even if Ai manages to rally her friends and win the day, the ongoing problems in each of their lives will remain. We don't need a second season or even an extra episode to deal with them, because the whole point is that they can't be dealt with so easily.

[Sides]

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

Hmmm... In a way, Acca and Ura-Acca are the perfect villains for this story. Tech bros with overinflated egos, who know nothing about women yet fancy themselves able to create a girl, and deliberately lock that girl at one of the most difficult developmental points of her life. They got what was coming to them. Yet even now, they're still at it, manipulating our Egg Girl heroines with magic powers and cute familiars and sending them into battle without bothering to tell them what they're really getting into.

What happened to Frill is tragic, but the fact remains that she's a psychopath who needs to be stopped. Her and her bug-buddies alike. But the two tech bros need to go down, too.

Hmm...
That is if you consider Frill to be human.
As far as I can tell, she is A.I. with (mimicking) human traits. Basically she isn't a psychopath, but an A.I. making its decision based on an algorithm acca and ura-acca gave her.

[BWTraveller]

One interesting thing I noticed is that Frill did not once say that she was in any way responsible for the girl's death or that she "tempted" her in any way. I'm pretty sure she is indeed responsible, especially given that she'd previously killed Acca's wife. That said, it might be kind of interesting if it turned out that she'd communicated with one or two of the girls perhaps, but never went further than that and all the girls really had been acting entirely of their own will.

[Ragashingo]

We have AI monstrosities that Frill made appearing in our main characters’ dreams. I think dreams are the mechanism Frill and/or the others used to drive people to suicide. I’m even wondering if Dot, who looks to me to be less butterfly and more flower, could have been responsible for the sweet smell of honey that Neiru’s genius friend Kotobuki experienced during her near death experiments.

Frill had also done a bunch of stuff with the computer equipment down in that basement. Over a ~14 year time period. And clearly Hyphen and Dot and possibly the third one are all on the loose.

[HandofFate]

what were the rules about injuries again?
Like in the first episode, Ai got injured and it carried over, but now it seems it doesn't after all now?
And what happened with how they got stat boost in real life as well, guess it got dropped and forgotten

[Ragashingo]

Originally Posted by HandofFate

what were the rules about injuries again?
Like in the first episode, Ai got injured and it carried over, but now it seems it doesn't after all now?
And what happened with how they got stat boost in real life as well, guess it got dropped and forgotten

I think all that is still there. The basic rules seem to be:
1. You are mostly immortal in the egg world and injuries heal very quickly while dreaming.
2. Any injury you have when you wake up transfers to the real world.
3. It’s not just injuries that transfer. Because the girls usually put forth a lot of physical effort in the egg world, they they get the real world benefits of all that dream world movement and exercise.

I think they downplayed the injury stuff as the show went on, but some of that could just be the girls learning to heal up before waking up. Doing so was directly said to be a thing in the recap episode.

[serenade_beta]

Spoiler for ep11:

...Hmm, I think the story should have did a bit more foreshadowing on all of this.
Because to be honest, I can't really care about a group of events that are brought upon by incredibly vague supertechnology. Like, oh yeah, I totally created this super AI and android. Oh yeah, I created these wonder eggs.
How? Umm... The story said I did!

Also, it is clear now that these pets were added to the story just to create a method to "traumatize" the girls. Dude. I've read Hoshin Engi. That's how you do "force-eating trauma".

I thought this story was gonna focus on these girls coming to peace with the girl that they wanted to meet, with the magical eggs as a setting of sorts.
Kinda like how Iriya no Sora had aliens, but it never focused on the aliens and was a romantic story about Iriya?

But it looks like the story really wants to go the other route and focus the remaining episodes on an evil AI thing. Or maybe we could go watch Lain?

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by serenade_beta

I thought this story was gonna focus on these girls coming to peace with the girl that they wanted to meet, with the magical eggs as a setting of sorts.
Kinda like how Iriya no Sora had aliens, but it never focused on the aliens and was a romantic story about Iriya?

This, I'm really not caring for this possible development. Having the girls come to peace with the deaths of there friends/acquaintances would have been a much better story, then an "Opps, it was all the fault of an evil AI."

[Nachtwandler]

Originally Posted by Cloudedmind

This, I'm really not caring for this possible development. Having the girls come to peace with the deaths of there friends/acquaintances would have been a much better story, then an "Opps, it was all the fault of an evil AI."

One does not exclude the other.

And Serenade Bate seems to be complaining abiout every series watched.

[Dark Wing]

Well that took a turn and given what we know now. The fact that our main character is named literally Ai “A.I.(artificial intelligence)” scares me a little...

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by Nachtwandler

One does not exclude the other.

And Serenade Bate seems to be complaining abiout every series watched.

Sure, except it cheapens the story. The reasons people commit suicide are numerous and complicated. It can range anywhere from a quick impulsive decision to one that's been thoroughly thought out. By reducing all of these girls decisions to they were pushed to do it by Frill, if that is where the show is actually going, overlooks the real complexities of suicide. Having an honest look at those complexities while the girls come to terms with the deaths of their friends, would have been a much stronger story in my book.

[BWTraveller]

First off, I agree that one doesn't exclude the other. All things given, if Frill did indeed drive them to kill themselves then it still appears to have been based on the girls' individual weaknesses and not so random. Every girl has had a very different mix of psychological traumas weighing down on them; at most Frill might have enhanced the concern, like maybe found girls whose struggles were moving that way and haunted them with those struggles so they'd be less able to overcome them.

Even so, I still think it'd be more interesting if her interference was minimal and the girls, up to and including Acca's daughter, did what they did of their own volition. Like maybe at most Frill sort of sneaks in and observes, making a few insensitive comments with that creepy joy that shows how little she understands about things. Enough to cause some stress but not enough to drive them to their deaths.

[Sides]

Spoiler for ep.11:

Actually there is only the indication that Frill is involved with Himari's suicide. Even then, the assumption were made by ura-acca and acca. We can assume that Frill somehow communicated with Himari, but other than that we know nothing really.

Here is the thing, if Frill was a "human", she could have escaped easily, but it seems that she bound by orders from her makers.
But the is wonder egg priority, don't assume anything until is has been revealed.

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

First off, I agree that one doesn't exclude the other. All things given, if Frill did indeed drive them to kill themselves then it still appears to have been based on the girls' individual weaknesses and not so random. Every girl has had a very different mix of psychological traumas weighing down on them; at most Frill might have enhanced the concern, like maybe found girls whose struggles were moving that way and haunted them with those struggles so they'd be less able to overcome them.

Even so, I still think it'd be more interesting if her interference was minimal and the girls, up to and including Acca's daughter, did what they did of their own volition. Like maybe at most Frill sort of sneaks in and observes, making a few insensitive comments with that creepy joy that shows how little she understands about things. Enough to cause some stress but not enough to drive them to their deaths.

At the moment, it seems to be a case of "One bad emotion and I have the ability to magi... I mean, scientifically enhance that emotion" thing.
Kinda like in those fantasy stories, where to bring someone to the dark side, the true evil enhances a feeling of jealousy or something?
So this girl gets turned down and using poison electric mind waves, Frill makes her suicide.

Which is random enough, because anyone can have a bad emotion. And it's just that this AI out of nowhere has the ability to enlarge this emotion.

Originally Posted by Nachtwandler

And Serenade Bate seems to be complaining abiout every series watched.

Bruh, instead of "complaining about complaining", use actual words to defend the series. I'd love nothing more than having only perfect anime every season. Unfortunately, it is quite the opposite. And if you can't see that, then well... *shrug*
(And don't bother with the even-sillier "Don't say anything unless you are complementing!"-track of mind")