Tani’s birthday is coming up, so Suzuki’s fishing for ideas. She probably knows what she wants to do, but it never hurts to hear other people out. Yamada makes a pretty darn good suggestion: a photo album. It’s the sort of sentimental gift that rarely disappoints unless you’re with someone materialistic (in which case, you should probably dump them). But you need good photos for something like that, which Suzuki seems to realize. Taira, on the other hand, gives us the good ol’ “It’s the thought that counts!” Well, at least he isn’t being negative.
Another reason to split up: girl-on-girl action. No, not that kind. The shounen kind. No wait, maybe we do mean that kind, because at one point, the girls are punching each other so hard, their bras come flying off. Ladies, don’t you hate it when that happens?
Genau’s former partner apparently died, because he prioritized protecting a child in battle. Genau’s take is that although this made his former partner a good person, it also made him a fool. Sure, I suppose the utilitarian calculus shakes out if you assume that you would’ve defeated the demon.
Lideo opens the episode by saying, “Family willing to die for family. That’s how the world should be.” I get it. We all value our immediate family more than this vague idea of humanity. We all have a stronger emotional connection to our immediate family over anyone else. But isn’t that precisely the problem? Nepotism and corruption in general are all strangling society as we speak, because we worship at the altar of “family.” It’s not the sole reason; greed is certainly another major (if not the biggest) factor. But we’re in this mess, because a lot of people do think like Lideo. How many of these “Coexisters” believe that they’re simply protecting their family? The world’s going to hell anyway, so fuck it, lemme get my tiny slice of the pie! I’ll sell anyone out as long as I can protect my family! Well, when a bunch of people feel the same way, no wonder humanity is losing! You people can’t look past the trees to see the forest! Hell, why did I bother even writing all of this out? Later in the episode, Boojum pretty much spells it out for us: “Lideo Sodrick taught me something important. There’s nothing more important to humans than protecting themselves and their families, or securing proportionate benefits for themselves. To value other things more than protecting their race as a whole…” The demons have us completely figured out.
Utage’s new teacher Asuka is also a F/ACE superfan. In fact, she likes the yellow one. I didn’t think this would be something to shake on, but… here we are. I guess this is what it’s like when superfans meet in the wild. So to pile coincidences on top of coincidences, Utage immediately bumps into Natsuki at a store. Small world, blah blah blah. Anyway, on camera, Natsuki is… very over-the-top cheerful, so knowing how they tend to write characters on this show, he’s probably the opposite of that in reality.
