Aria: Another fanservice episode, and another episode where the monster has pretty much no significance at all. Dice in Japanese is saikoro, so even the monster’s name pun was lazy…welp, enough from me. What did you think of it, Astral?
Astral: Yeah the monster was kind of pathetic this episode. His motivations didn’t really even make sense, he didn’t even seem very sad, and they didn’t even need to fight him as he resolved his issues all on his own. They only transformed in order to change the dude back… So yeah, the villain of the episode had basically no significance at all.
There was something I kinda picked up on, though… Think that Manza might have been a delinquent at some point? There was a line that made me think that, and it might explain his angry side.
Aria: They’ve pretty much all but had Manza confirm it himself (which, according to spoilers I’ve seen for the next episode, he will confirm it eventually, although it’s in vague terms). Exactly what caused him to change his image is unclear, though, and that’s something I want to know.
Astral: I really hope they do tell us what happened, because having that juicy tidbit dangled right in front of my nose then taken away without a resolution is sure to trigger me… Although, the show so far really hasn’t done much in the way of really building up the characters, so my hopes are not terribly high.
Aria: Well, if the past seasons and early-release spoilers for episode 11 are anything to go by, we’ll get some Ata/Ryouma/Kyoutarou development in due course, but…yeah, I don’t have my hopes up for Manza. Just like Ryuu and Io from the LOVE! Boys, Manza and Ichiro aren’t really getting the lion’s share of developments overall.
Speaking of Ata, I was thinking about why the Edelstein’s outfits are the way they are. It’s most obvious with Ata, but the outfit makes him look like a cockroach. The transformation phrase the Edelstein uses is Die Verwandlung, which is actually the German name of a Kafka book, The Metamorphosis. In that book, the protagonist Samsa is suddenly turned into a giant insect…or sometimes it’s said he’s a cockroach. Voila! Connection! (I will admit I Googled to get that conclusion though. I still have no skills in German.)
Astral: Interesting. I feel like something else I watched recently also referenced Die Verwandlung… but I can’t remember what. I did use Google Translate to discover that their little chant of Druck, Mich, Hart, means “Pressure, me, hard.” Not sure what the exact canonical connotations of that are, but it could be interpreted in a number of ways.
Aria: What about the last syllable? It’s “druck, mich, hart, an”, isn’t it? (Again, this is why I wish I knew German for once.)
Astral: But “an” just means “at”, which doesn’t make much sense…
Aria: …oh. I did get confirmation from someone who does know German that “druck” means pressure, which might relate to their phrases post-transformation – Ata’s is “That which is unbreakable is truly strong!” (referencing diamonds being made under lots of pressure). Taiju’s “Affection and comfort” and Maasa’s “Noble and virtuous”…I don’t know how they work, though.
Astral: They’re Diamond, Amethyst, and Rose Quartz right? Diamonds are extremely strong gems, so that one makes total sense. I did some research, and apparently historically, Amethysts have represented healing, comfort, and relief of stress. Rose Quartz is the one that doesn’t really fit, as it’s typically used to mean love and affection.
Aria: Diamond (Ata), rose quartz (Taiju) and amethyst. Maasa = Amethyst, so the one that we’re missing a proper explanation for is amethyst.
Astral: Yeah, remembering the order of things is not my strong suit… but the general idea is that one just doesn’t seem to fit quite right.
Aria: Y’think? I still feel like there should be something there, because that’s how it works in this show. Amethyst has spiritual properties…both amethyst and rose quartz are types of quartz, but they’re made from silicon and oxygen, rather than diamond’s carbon…aha! Purple is the colour of nobility, so royalty is known to wear amethysts.
Astral: Ohhhh there it is. I must have missed that.
Aria: Well, if we’re going to keep talking about the Edelstein, have you noticed that they, Furanui and Karurusu have swords, but they haven’t used them yet? I hope the finale gives them a chance to use them, or else they’d just be wasted props.
Astral: Yeah why does everyone get swords except the defense club? Why do they have to settle for magical lollipops?
Aria: Only Dougo/Spazio Kiss has an actual lollipop, haha. According to the merch I’ve seen around, plus bits of the script Takamatsu posts to Twitter to show typoes he left, the wands are called Happy Wands, and the large combined wand is a Super Happy Wand. The LOVE! Defence Club’s wands were called Love Sticks, and people really liked making dirty puns with that…
Astral: Yeah… I can see why they changed it. They all kind of look somewhat like lollipops to me, but Dougo’s is definitely the lollipopiest of them all. As we head into the final few episodes (final countdown immediately starts playing in my head…) what do you think we can expect?
Aria: (Is “lollipopiest” even a word?) Well, there is precedent for a sword fight (in season 1 of LOVE!) so I want one, but I’m not sure it’s entirely guaranteed. Season 1 of LOVE! also had the porcupinefish mecha and the kabuki rule, whereas season 2 had the abduction of Goura and the scene where aliens vote to give their favourite side attacking power, so anything’s possible. Happy Kiss isn’t meta in the fact it’s a galactic TV show though, so I wonder what sort of meta jokes they’ll pull this time…
Astral: It is a word, I made it a word just now. Gonna call Merriam-Webster’s in the morning. Think we’ll get a visit from King Duckdad who will drag Furanui back by the ear? Or maybe we’ll figure out why Furanui is so triggered in the first place. That said… My hopes are not very high considering how the show has basically ignored story and character development and worldbuilding in favor of subpar fanservice and excessive time-wasting. I might be wrong and we might actually get some nice content to round out the season, but…
Aria: The finale actually tends to be pretty solid in this series though, so when we get to episodes 11 and 12 you should get your hopes up. (I’m not really sure whether Duckdad will appear.) I’m just kind of worried about episode 10…but for spoilers’ sake, let’s stop here for now and launch our counterattack.
Astral: Yeah, let’s take them out!
Both: Rainbow Starfall – Comet Version!
Rainbow Starfall is an attack that gathers condensed magical energy into a sphere high above the target, before bringing it crashing down to earth. The comet version creates smaller spheres than the original attack at the cost of it being less risky for the users, but in exchange, there is a higher chance of missing the opponent.
Monster: *dazed* The boss won’t like this one bit…
Aria: …er, why is the monster only speaking now?
Astral: Maybe it’s finally activated a ‘story contrivance’ subroutine?
Before Astral and Aria could make any more snappy comments about their opponent, it used the last of its strength to summon a portal to the final boss and escape. However, our heroes also managed to get into the portal before it disappeared…
< To be continued in the final Mahou Shoujo Ore post… >
Well this was a fun week. We had some unexpected issues that we had to deal with, scheduling and such, but I think we got a good discussion out of it all the same. With Boueibu falling yet another episode behind, we’re gonna have to figure out how to keep pace with Mahou Shoujo Ore, but we’ll manage it somehow.
Make sure you guys check out our discussion of Episodes 10 and 11 of Mahou Shoujo Ore over on Aria’s blog, and let us know your thoughts on these shows! Thank you all so much for reading, and we’ll see you next week!
The Zodiac Room 
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