#17.2.20

Feb 17, 2020: Create a piece where Sana makes a friend! It can be someone she’s previously met (the cat and previous friend from her MSS), her new family at Mikazuki Villa, or even someone she hasn’t met before.

Anyway, plot stuff. So Felicia does go with the Wings for a bit where she meets the Amane Sisters, and the pair, plus later Mifuyu who I didn’t actually know was Magius, make it very clear that, yeah, their goal really, genuinely is the salvation of magical girls through the elimination of all Witches. Except apparently to do that, they’re also needing to protect the Uwasas. So that’s some big mystery sauce, frankly I’ve not even got any guesses as to what exactly the deal with this is. And also again however it relates to Doppels, like maybe Doppels as a whole are the result of a rumour - the rumour is that if you come to Kamihama you’ll be saved and that in and of itself could refer to getting your Doppel, but then where’s the actual physical Uwasa that you gotta fight? Fuck I like this, I really do, I feel like the mystery’s told in a compelling way and even though ultimately the only way to know for sure is to rewatch the show when I know the answers, I still just feel like these elements will hold up on a rewatch as well, just the way the dialogue is written and how the show’s been handling itself and its exposition makes me feel like I’ve got nothing to worry about. 

Now obviously Felicia ends up not joining the Wings, in fact once they use Witches as an attack Felicia goes off the shit and fucks them up really badly, further helped by Iroha’s Connect appearing once again. It seems a lot better in this than in the game lol. Speaking of things relating to Iroha reappearing, she also drops her Doppel once more, specifically to destroy the Lucky Owl Water rumour, and I know I’ve praised this episode’s visuals loads already but thank you Inu Curry for making this look so fucking good, the pair of arms coming out of Iroha’s back before that fucky Doppel face pokes her head out and then Giovanna unleashes hell, horrifying crown of thorns and everything, it’s just so fucking good.

But yeah Felicia’s with us for real now, and once we leave everyone’s all “come live with us for a bit, also restrain yourself” and it’s here where actually my biggest problem lies. Because the restrain yourself shit is great because on one hand it makes sense to have everyone tell her to stop going sicko mode whenever she sees a witch, I didn’t even think much of it because like, of course you don’t want someone that goes on a total rampage in any fight, that’d be uh, hard to work with. But Felicia reminds us that actually, witches are fucked up monsters that killed her parents and she has every right to detest their mere existence, why should she tone down? Fuckin great scene, enhanced a lot by the seiyuu’s delivery too, I loved it. But what kinda bugged me is that, Yachiyo’s distrusted Felicia this entire time, but then the second they get out of Magius’ HQ she’s all “you should come stay with me”. And it just felt like too sudden a heel turn. Now if perhaps Iroha had convinced Yachiyo to let Felicia stay, and then in the maybe few days between the end of the episode and the scene after the credits we learned that Yachiyo had become endeared to Felicia, sure I’d take that, it’s specifically that she changes her mind in basically 0 time in universe that annoyed me. Oh well.

About that post credits scene, it seems Iroha’s finally moving out of Takarazaki (was that its name? I don’t remember) and into Kamihama - more specifically, into Mikazuki Villa! The whole gang’s here, almost, Sana’s not ready yet. But we’re in the house, Iroha’s probs about to get her new uniform, all that sauce. Also Sana might be ready because Iroha gets a text from an unknown sender that just says “you’re a magical girl, please help me” and maybe that’s her setup, hey I’ll take it. The Minazuki Quintet are maybe nearly here!

Also, so Kyouko’s really badass in this episode, because she seems like she’ll join Magius, free food, place to stay, get Grief Seeds, all that nice stuff, but as a result of both being weirded out by the Amane Sisters and their vague theatrics, but also kinda that good old magical girl senpai attitude she has, she bails. And that attitude is basically telling Felicia to chill and be a magical girl for her own sake rather than anyone else’s and stuff. Same philosophy she has in the original anime obviously, she is the same character after all, but I think it’s fun seeing that philosophy of hers be put to good use in other settings, with other girls that aren’t so contrasted with her. I can’t see this anime getting deep into the character stories for the game and I can’t see someone like Yuma getting to appear, so whatever Kyouko’s sisterly instinct there is I won’t be able to see, but this is still pretty good. For the record yeah I’ve not read the stories in the game still obviously I’ve just heard and seen the shit about Kyouko being basically adopting Yuma anyway.

Also since I don’t know where else to say this, Reika apparently had a boyfriend for a bit in highschool, which is interesting, because idol shows don’t usually do that uh, ever. It means nothing for her character or anything, it’s a very passing comment, but I wonder how like, specifically the Japanese fans reacted to that, since a notable amount of Japanese idol fans can be uh, yeah. Idk just wanted to bring that up. Personally I don’t really care it’s just one of the smaller ways in which 22/7′s breaking conventions.

And it wouldn’t be me talking about 22/7 without 10 billion screenshots so let’s goooo

We are obviously a beach episodes so here’s our money shots - I didn’t really process that Miyako was flat before this episode but hey that’s cool with me.

What a beautiful saga.

When does this show’s yuri sex scene even happen

Here’s more miscellaneous beach shit.

I didn’t really take any Reika captures but I think she’s cute with short hair so hey I got these two in.

Anyway here’s the usual Miu storm.

Honestly feel like cropping that Miu and making her my pfp because I really do love her.

Now these next two captures are like actually important so pay attention.

Oh fuck Miu’s sick!!! Yeah she just fuckin passes out. So here I thought we were taking a break from regularly scheduled not-main-character episodes to remind us who the main character actually is, but no, after Miu falls down, ill, so too does everyone except from Jun. Okay? That’s one way to give us a Jun episode I suppose. So are we about to learn that our god The Wall can actually be a force for evil too? I mean that thing last episode about it shitting out commands turned out to just be some individual jobs, radio personalities, TV ads, stuff like that for each idol, so nothing sinister there. But I feel like where that could have been interpreted as the Wall malfunctioning last episode, here it just seems like, something’s happened to actually harm the girls, so like, I mean where will that go, who knows.

Also one last thing I want to mention is that there was some bgm playing that was actually pretty good, from like 16 minutes in to 18 minutes in or something I wasn’t keeping track. But it sounded nice and I was actually impressed.

Because it turns out it was just a Shampoo instrumental cover. Oh well.