Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re heading back to the dorms for a fresh episode of Blue Reflection Ray, as our unlikely team of heroes prepare for their second stab at preventing the apocalypse. Though they had hoped to rescue their guiding star Mio from the Red Reflectors’ clutches, their ultimate confrontation revealed that Mio was actually fighting for their sake, determined to prevent a reprise of their original, disastrous final battle. Thus our Blue Reflectors are left with an impossible task, seeking to rescue a girl who doesn’t wish to be saved, and prevent a disaster whose occurrence is already settled history.
But all that stuff is still a little ways off; in the meantime, they’re simply trying to get by, cohabiting and communicating and pursuing the delicate character work that has always been this production’s great strength. Our last episode demonstrated some great strides for both Miyako and Niina, as Miyako managed to overcome her understandable fears regarding the girl who once nearly stole her feelings, and skillfully inducted Niina into their ramshackle dorm family. That welcome development was contrasted against some brutal revelations about new arrivals Amiru and Ryoka, who at this point appear to be making a kind of goodbye tour before disappearing from the earth. Can our heroes find a way to restore Fragments, saving both their new friends and the unfortunate Momo? Let’s get to it!
Episode 16
We begin with a clearly charged image, as we see the framed photo of Amiru and Ryoka from their trip now resting at their bedside, suffused in night blue. Like the last ember of a campfire, a reminder of their bright, carefree past now succumbing to the present darkness
“All of us, together forever…” Amiru’s reflections sound like a eulogy
“Ryoka, remember when you said that you didn’t want to date anyone?” A flashback to their brighter school days seems to draw a thematic line between Amiru’s fear of disappearing and the overarching societal fear that their love cannot escape the boundaries of their adolescence. Their conservative school uniforms, which make them look as if they’re attending a private Catholic school, only enhance the resonance with Class S dramatic concerns, that limiting dictate of “you can feel these feelings for your classmates now, but eventually society will demand heteronormative behavior”
“Once you tie something together, it will eventually unravel.” A love that is unnamed can perhaps be more eternal in its ephemerality, while a defined love is fragile, bound for an eventual conclusion
“I just… want to stay with you forever.” It’s like Ryoka believes she’s found a loophole; so long as her love is unstated, it is not subject to the laws of Class S storytelling
Of course, now that she knows how little time Amiru has left, she can only regret not being clear with her feelings for the time they had
Suddenly Mio appears at the window, demanding her sadness!
Back at the dorm, Miyako lays out a new plan: to connect with Lime and Yuzuki in the Common, and see if they know some method of restoring feelings
And Niina’s actually joining them for the meeting! Not actually sitting down, that’s much too intimate, but standoffishly brooding in the corner is still a big step for her
I do tend to like characters that are just sort of bad-tempered cats, apparently
Miyako notes that Mio was able to make a portal to the Common, a “Leap Range,” without actually taking anyone’s feelings, simply by fully embracing her own feelings
Miyako does so much work for this team! She was my favorite practically from the start, but she’s had to take on so much more responsibility as the effective team leader in Momo’s absence. And all that while being both the victim and savior of Niina
Given the feelings Ryoka expressed before, it’s little surprise that Ruka requests they attempt this bridge immediately, so they can tell Amiru the good news
Ah, jeez. We then watch Niina actually break into her pink roller suitcase, which was apparently locked by her mother. Her mother previously stated that it’s their “home” and contained “all their precious things” – statements that Niina clearly took to heart, resulting in her carrying it around as a final talisman of the home she’d lost, the one thing that connected her to the world. But upon breaking it open, she learns it was always empty – another lie her mother told, an emblem of her mother’s own lack of motherly feelings. The security she clung to was ultimately another absent Fragment
“When is this going down?” Thus Niina at last abandons the past, and commits fully to the Blue Reflectors’ mission. What a painful yet satisfyingly defiant moment!
Feels like such a victory just to have Niina joining the group on a mission, offering her thoughts without having to qualify or defend anything
Crossing into the Common, Ruka is crushed to find not just Momo, but also Ryoka and Amiru, their Fragments apparently already stolen
Yuzu and Lime appear like the goddamn Shining twins, informing our pair that this a realm in between reality and the Common
Apparently so long as a Fragment remains, it can indeed be returned to its owner
Welp, here’s another spirit breaker. Apparently Amiru interpreted Ryoka’s declaration that she didn’t want a romantic love to mean they couldn’t be together if Amiru had romantic feelings for her, and thus asked Niina to remove those feelings. Some real Gift of the Magi-style emotional surgery here, emphasizing how the defensive, obscuring tactics Class S couples use to hide their bonds from society’s censure can ultimately result in miscommunication and heartbreak. No matter how strong a feeling, if you only hold it in your heart, you will fail to impress its truth upon the person you love
Shino unfortunately begins an attack before Ruka and Hiori can get a full answer
Meanwhile, Uta challenges Niina, and of course immediately starts getting weirdly handsy
“Miyako!” “We’re not on a first-name basis yet!” So glad my two favorite characters can now bicker like this
Nice, some unusually fluid choreography for Uta’s swordsmanship here
Miyako is saved by the last-second arrival of Ruka and Hiori, to which she of course offers a “took you long enough.” Good call Miyako – you’ve been nice too often lately, you gotta reup that tsun-tsun credit
Ah shit, Ryoka and Amiru are red reflectors now. An unfortunate but natural development – this works on a practical, character, and thematic level. On a practical level, this rebalances the teams in the wake of Niina’s redemption. On a character level, it fulfills their fatalistic determination to be together at all costs while also driving the knife in for Niina, who technically pushed the first domino leading towards this conclusion. And on a thematic level, it emphasizes both the enduring appeal of emotional tranquility and the fact that personal morality or kindness has no real correlation to our ability to tolerate the intolerable – that succumbing to Mio’s entreaties is not a sign of “moral weakness” or anything, but simple desperation
“If I don’t act with the feelings I have left, I’m going to regret it.” From Amiru’s perspective, this is the only way to avoid languishing in inaction, guarding a cooling ember of emotions
“Feelings with nowhere left to go will make you suffer, and distort those around you.” Thus Mio frames Ryoka’s original act of emotional denial as cruelty, and joining her cause as the kindest thing she can do for Amiru
And of course, it’s not like Mio is intentionally deceiving her – this is actually the same path she chose, turning her unanswerable feelings into a weapon to protect others
Ryoka further points out that even their plan to recover the feelings of others requires opening the door to the Common. Which in turn just brings us back to the problem of needing to use Hiori’s Fragment as the key
“If there’s any other way, tell us.” I appreciate how reasonably Ryoka and Amiru are acting. This isn’t a conflict built out of arbitrary miscommunication, and they would genuinely welcome an alternative solution. The strongest character conflicts are built out of genuine, mutually sympathetic disagreements, not prolonged misunderstandings
Ryoka’s sword is actually a giant tuning fork, as befitting her musical connection with Amiru
Very funny to have these fully realized, dramatically earned heel turns taking place alongside Uta, whose story is just “she’s freaky like that.” It takes all kinds, I suppose
Ryoka and Amiru’s far stronger conviction ends up shattering Ruka’s sword
With the battle lost, Niina decides it’s time to stop coddling Hiori, and reveal Mio’s true story
And Done
Woof, not a great performance, team! Well, Niina and Miyako did well at least, and it’s an absolute delight to see them sparring like genuine friends. But our main pair really took a beating this episode, as their conviction was tested and found wanting relative to the desperate feelings of Ryoka, Amiru, and big sister Mio. Their naive certainty that they could save everyone allowed Ryoka and Amiru to slip out of their grasp; unable to sustain themselves with feel-good platitudes, our new pair followed through on the bleak implications of last episode’s dorm cleaning, and surrendered to the only outcome that might preserve their bond. From the final revelation regarding Niina’s suitcase to the tragic choice of Ryoka and Amiru, this episode was a feast of the kind of thorny, convincing character work that Blue Reflection Ray does best. Now let’s dig into Mio’s tale!
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