…or are you just happy to see me?

You have two girls, one rich and one typical. Ruri, the rich girl, totally believes in Arma and urges him to fight the good fight. But despite going into hero mode just last week, Arma is reluctant to join forces with Ruri — he needs time to think!

Well, think no further ’cause imouto is here! No, it isn’t Arma’s imouto, but she may as well be. With a Darkstone threatening to attack, the butler Makoto needs Arma to join his mistress’s fight, but how does one motivate an anime protagonist to action? For humanity’s sake? Meh, whatever. But for an imouto? HELL YEAH!

On the other hand, you got Wakana, the unassuming girl-next-door type. She’s nice and pleasant for no particular reason. Similarly, she’s Arma’s friend for no particular reason. Wakana may as well be a blank slate because the only remotely unique thing about her is a peculiar obsession with rocks. She thinks rocks are lucky; she thinks they go on adventures.

Actually, it was probably just sitting there the entire time until she picked it up… But hey, Wakana and Arma are perfect for each other ’cause he pretty much has the personality of a rock. In fact, he even wants to be a rock.

The Rock says no.

I mean, seriously, the dude looks at some shitty pebble in a riverbed and goes “Yeah, that’s what I wanna be!”

Arma probably thinks he’s a loner and nobody gets him — it’s as if he has this hard, solid exterior no one can penetrate… Actually, Arma just sounds like an emo dork.

So there you go — a winning formula for a compelling love triangle: Ruri’s competition is a girl who likes rocks. Sunrise’s B-team were probably locked in a hot room with no air conditioning and told that they had to come up with a new anime for the summer season. Hopped up on heat and a lifetime’s supply of “PEPSI NEKS!” courtesy of Tiger & Bunny, the dehydrated lead writer stared at the sweat-drenched director and uttered a single word: GEOLOGY.

Canon-wise, Ruri’s gonna win but people are just gonna ship Arma and the butler anyway because it’s Sunrise.

Stray Observations

• The two girls at the start of the episode marvel over the changes at their new school, particularly the switch in cuisine. Yeah, the caviar is a bit over-the-top, but I’m rolling my eyes at the other changes:

Switching melon bread to macaroons and tiny pieces of candy, switching curry rolls to hamburgers and hot dogs — oh so classy!

So what’s for lunch, guys?

Welp, that sure does look like a balanced meal. Anime really needs to stop fetishizing the upper class lifestyle of the West; it’s not healthy.

• This episode was really anti-climactic. Arma just kinda destroyed the Darkstone in no time flat. Did it even speak? There was never really any tension in shows like Star Driver because the heroes never really had to break a sweat until the final episodes. By then, Star Driver had already lost me. If Sacred Seven’s going to go down this route, I’ll probably bow out soon as well.

• The animation might be solid in this anime so far, but the color palette is horrendous. Just over-saturated hues of red and purple — gah, no thanks.

• Meanwhile, Makoto claims that he’s a Harvard graduate. Man, he really put that education to good use, didn’t he?

It is nutty how Asians fawn over Harvard though. N’yoro~n once told me a story about how some Korean dude scammed his way into a cushy job because he had graduated from Hartford. To his ecstatic employers, it sounded close enough to Harvard that they hired him on the spot.

• Scenes like these are a problem:

The anime can be so monochromatic at times but not in a good way. It’s not being done with style or flair. The fact that red dominates the scene you see above doesn’t exactly accentuate anything in particular; it’s just red.

• The following exchange occurred:

Makoto: “Mistress, your parachute!”

Ruri: “I don’t have time.” (jumps out of a plane)

Aren’t anime characters just precious?

• I keep hearing comparisons to Deadman Wonderland, but I personally don’t see it. The two anime seem completely different. Anyone care to enlighten me as to the similarities?