Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am frankly hesitant to announce that we are returning to Yuki Yuna is a Hero, as calamitous events surely draw closer to our long-suffering heroines in its ongoing Hero Chapter. You often hear that it’s always darkest before the dawn, but Yuki Yuna would strongly disagree – in fact, I hear it’s been working on developing a new, even darker night it calls “Night 2,” which will be taking the place of the dawn moving forward.
Of course, it’s not like we’re in a great spot to start with. After a mere half-episode of idyllic hero club shenanigans, our girls soon realized that something was terribly wrong, with Yuna and Nogi leading the charge in recalling their missing friend Togo. Having suffered through two sequential processes of fighting for the Divine Tree and watching her friends fall beside her, Togo has now disappeared from their lives altogether, presumably offering herself as a perpetual sacrifice to ensure no one else need suffer.
As ever, the Divine Tree has exploited Togo’s genuine commitment to her community, and frankly unwarranted guilt regarding her actions in the prior cycle, in order to make a feast of her better nature. It is not to gods or kings that we should declare our loyalty; it is to each other, to the people with whom we share our lives, and the community we hope to build together. Let’s get to it!
Episode 2
We open on Yuna racing against the twilight, an easy visual metaphor for the sense of hopeless striving so fundamental to this franchise. Our girls are constantly attempting to turn back the tide with a couple of buckets
Fu notes that Togo is also gone from their group photos. Kinda funny how she’s disappeared but nothing else is altered, meaning all of their group photos have this big gap within them where a person should go
They pledge to “go look for Togo,” a seemingly hopeless quest. I wonder if the Divine Tree altered their memories beyond removing Togo, making them less cognizant of how their overseers are directly, intentionally exploiting them towards these specific ends. They act like they’ve earned their “destined rewards” as former heroes, but they basically escaped on a technicality – and if the Divine Tree can alter memories this easily, there’s no reason it wouldn’t sculpt their thoughts to make them think of it more favorably
The OP is economical yet purposeful, largely reusing footage from the first two seasons, but reframing it as memories passing through Yuna’s mind as she continues her search for Togo. I still have to wonder if this is a placeholder, though
“Togo-senpai wrote that everyone’s a pumpkin.” The show really is impoverished without her. She’s its most compelling character, both the one most inculcated into the Divine Tree’s propaganda, and also the first to realize their true enemy is the Divine Tree itself. While Yuki Yuna is certainly a hero, Togo is something messier and more complex, the obvious Homura parallel of the series
“Does this mean the amnesty is playing dumb again?” Fu implies they do indeed recall that their overseers have directly misled them in the past
It also appears Nogi still retains some of her saintly authority, as she was able to challenge the authorities directly on this issue
Nogi suggests they use the hero system to find Togo, transforming once again to seek her out. An interesting twist on our initial paradigm; after two seasons of running through the same hero’s trials, it’s nice to see them exploiting these tools for new ends, and exploring new aspects of their reality
“She might be beyond the wall?” “That’s possible, since Togo’s insane.” Yeep, that’s our girl
Nogi was apparently assured this new hero system won’t claim their bodily functions, but the other girls are understandably skeptical. Alright good, so their memories are intact, they know they can’t trust the Divine Tree
Ooh, I love this. Yuna swiftly hypes herself up to transform for the sake of Togo, but is stopped by Fu, who is unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the past. Yuna’s strength is that she is always defiantly herself, always willing to make the hard choice for the sake of others, but Fu has been shaped by the extreme guilt of initially tricking her clubmates, and is now determined to be a leader they can rely on, a leader who will prevent them from making decisions they might regret. Excellent, thoroughly earned character development
Interestingly, it is Nogi, the one who sacrificed the most, who is most willing to believe the Divine Tree’s mediators have truly changed. Given the far more all-encompassing indoctrination of the first generation’s upbringing, I suppose that’s not surprising
Yuna demonstrates her respect for Fu’s concern and leadership, declaring that she’s fully thought it through, and is consciously committed to this course of action. No more trickery, no more miscommunication
The others agree to help as well, though Fu of course has the most reservations about Itsuki. That sequence of Fu listening to Itsuki’s music audition was the heaviest blow of the series so far; they genuinely had me bawling with that one. A perfect summation of this show’s thoughtful cruelty, its emphasizing how much is lost when the young are sacrificed for the feuds of the old
Ahaha, the show uses its banked transformation sequences as a natural expository opportunity, explaining how this new mankai system operates as an initially-full gauge that empties when the user either takes damage or activates their mankai form. Never seen a bank sequence used this way, but it’s an efficient choice!
Their familiars then return, a reunion made somewhat morbid by our understanding that their primary function is preventing magical girls from killing themselves
And the girls are off, leaping across the mundane world in their magical forms. Again, nice to see this show altering its form, embracing new modes of conflict and offering a new perception of the world
Karin offers to lead, to which Nogi says “make sure you don’t get too far ahead.” It’s clear she sees an echo of Gin in Karin’s affectation, and doesn’t want to lose another friend like that. This season is doing an excellent job of demonstrating how their trauma has left distinct scars in each of them
Togo appears to be within some kind of black hole beyond the barrier
“Togo-san turned into a black hole.” Goddamnit Togo
“I don’t know anyone else who’s turned into a black hole after not seeing them for a while.” Fu continues to emphasize that Togo is A Lot
Nogi immediately mankais in order to become a ship to carry them over, saying “there never used to be a barrier, so it’s okay.” Again, you can clearly see the difference in attitudes between the first and second generations; Nogi sees sacrifice as the natural way of the world, not a negative outcome to be avoided
In an echo of their meeting in the first season, Nogi makes Yuna promise to protect Togo. There was nothing they could do for each other back then, but they’ve grown stronger since
Man, some wild celestial imagery for this assault. It feels like Yuna is diving into a collapsing star
At this point, the blooming of Yuna’s insignia petal by petal is a powerful source of anxiety in its own right. It’s an excellent device, akin to a revolver that clearly has only so many shots before you’re out of luck
The pressure is so great it seems to actually split her soul from her body, while Togo appears to have been shattered into her memories. We’re getting into cosmic conflict so extreme it can barely be expressed through physical interactions, with the very foundations of body and spirit now crumbling in this violent crucible
Togo’s memories reveal that her partial destruction of the wall had led to the fires of creation now threatening the mortal world. Life is so very tenuous in this universe, an aberration that the natural forces of reality all seek to rub out
As expected, the arbiters of the tree state that appeasing this fire requires a maiden’s ritual sacrifice. They also say a similar thing happened “at the end of the Christian era,” implying the Divine Tree has basically used whatever religions exist throughout history to enact its own will. All forms of arbitrary faith are sacrifices to the one absent god
And of course, given the chance to pay back her “mistake” herself, Togo obviously agreed, and even suggested the memory erasure plan herself. Cunning yet extraordinarily kind
More lovely apocalyptic imagery as Yuna reaches the eye of the storm, a featureless, clouded plane where all color has been sapped from the world
God, Togo’s resting place is brutal. Her physical body is chained and lifeless in a stockade, while her spirit burns eternally behind her
The brand grows on Yuna’s own body as she attempts to pull Togo from the scaffold. Nothing for free, everything an exchange – except for sacrifices to the Divine Tree, of course, those are all tax-deductible
Togo awakes in a hospital bed, with the gang telling her that “you had a fatal amount of life force taken from you,” thus the contract is complete, but “you’re tough, so you’re still alive.” Presumably the cost actually did transfer to Yuna, but she’s not saying anything
Yeeep, there’s the brand right there on her collar
And Done
Goddamnit, Yuna! Goddamnit, Togo! Both of you are so friggin’ self-sacrificing, so willing to take the fall for the other, when it’s beyond obvious that neither of you would actually want your friend to suffer for your own sake. Still, this rescue mission went pretty much exactly how it was destined to, and offered us plenty of entrancing apocalyptic imagery in the process. These half-season releases are definitely benefitting the show’s pacing, and with so much history behind us, it’s rewarding to see the franchise embrace a new narrative structure even as it builds off the past experiences of its characters, demonstrating how they’ve each been molded by their various hero trials. Saddle up girls, it’s time to defy god again!
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