Hello friends and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we return to the dorms to watch a new episode of Blue Reflection Ray, as our unlikely team of heroes prepares for their second attempt to prevent the apocalypse. Although they hoped to rescue their guide star Mio from the clutches of the Red Reflectors, their final confrontation revealed that Mio was actually fighting for them, determined to avoid a repeat of their original disastrous final battle. Thus our Blue Reflectors are left with an impossible task, seeking to rescue a girl who does not wish to be saved and prevent a disaster whose occurrence is already established history.
But all that is still a bit far away; Meanwhile, they’re just trying to get by, cohabiting, communicating, and doing the delicate character work that has always been this production’s great strength. Our last episode showed great progress for both Miyako and Niina, as Miyako managed to overcome her understandable fears regarding the girl who once almost stole her feelings, and cleverly brought Niina into her ramshackle dormitory family. That welcome development was contrasted with some brutal revelations about newcomers Amiru and Ryoka, who at this point appear to be doing some sort of farewell tour before disappearing from the earth. Can our heroes find a way to restore Shards, saving both their new friends and the unfortunate Momo? Let’s get to it!
Episode 16
We begin with a clearly loaded image, as we see the framed photo of Amiru and Ryoka from their trip now resting next to their bed, bathed in midnight blue. Like the last embers of a campfire, a reminder of your bright, carefree past that now succumbs to the darkness of the present.
“All of us, together forever…” Amiru’s reflections sound like praise
“Ryoka, remember when you said you didn’t want to date anyone?” A flashback to her best school days seems to draw a thematic line between Amiru’s fear of disappearing and the general societal fear that her love cannot escape the confines of her adolescence. Their conservative school uniforms, which make them look like they’re attending a private Catholic school, only heighten the resonance with the dramatic concerns of Class S, that limiting dictum of “now you can feel these feelings for your classmates, but eventually society will demand heteronormative behavior.”
“Once you put something together, it eventually falls apart.” A nameless love may perhaps be more eternal in its ephemerality, while a defined love is fragile and destined for an eventual conclusion.
“I just…want to stay with you forever.” It’s as if Ryoka believes she’s found a loophole; As long as his love is not declared, he is not subject to the laws of S-Class 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 in the dorm, Miyako devises a new plan: connect with Lime and Yuzuki at the Common and see if they know of any methods to restore feelings.
And Niina will join them for the meeting! Not actually sitting down, that’s too intimate, but staying distant and brooding in the corner is still a big step for her.
I tend to like characters who are just short-tempered cats, apparently.
Miyako points out that Mio was able to create a portal to the Common, a “Jump Range”, without taking on anyone’s feelings, simply by fully embracing her own feelings.
Miyako does a lot of work for this team! She was my favorite pretty much from the start, but she had to take on a lot more responsibility as the team’s effective leader in Momo’s absence. And all this while being both victim and savior of Niina.
Given the feelings Ryoka expressed earlier, it’s no surprise that Ruka requests that they try this bridge immediately, so she can tell Amiru the good news.
Oh, God. We then see Niina get into her pink rolling suitcase, which was apparently locked by her mother. Her mother previously stated that it is her “home” and that it contained “all her precious things,” statements that Niina clearly took to heart, prompting her to carry it with her as a final talisman of the home she had lost, the only thing connecting her to the world. But upon opening it, she discovers that it was always empty: another lie her mother told, an emblem of her mother’s own lack of maternal feelings. The security he clung to was ultimately another missing Fragment.
“When will this go down?” Thus, Niina finally abandons the past and fully commits to the mission of the Blue Reflectors. What a painful but satisfyingly challenging moment!
It feels like a huge victory to simply have Niina join the group on a mission, offering her thoughts without having to qualify or defend anything.
Crossing into the common, Ruka is devastated to find not only Momo, but also Ryoka and Amiru, whose fragments have apparently already been stolen.
Yuzu and Lime appear as the cursed Shining twins, informing our couple that this is a realm between reality and the Common.
Apparently, as long as a Shard remains, it can be returned to its owner.
Well, here’s another spirit breaker. Amiru apparently interpreted Ryoka’s statement that she didn’t want romantic love to mean that they couldn’t be together if Amiru had romantic feelings for her, and so she asked Niina to eliminate those feelings. There’s some real Gift of the Magi-style emotional surgery here, emphasizing how the defensive and obscuring tactics S-Class couples use to hide their bonds from society’s censure can ultimately result in miscommunication and heartbreak. No matter how strong a feeling is, if you only keep it in your heart, you will not be able to impress its truth on the person you love.
Unfortunately, Shino begins an attack before Ruka and Hiori can get a full response.
Meanwhile, Uta challenges Niina and of course immediately starts getting weirdly slick.
“Miyako!” “We’re not on a first name basis yet!” I’m very glad that my two favorite characters can now argue like this.
Nice, unusually fluid choreography for Uta’s swordplay 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 need to get that tsun-tsun credit back.
Ah shit, Ryoka and Amiru are now red spotlights. An unfortunate but natural development: it works on a practical, character and thematic level. On a practical level, this rebalances the teams after Niina’s redemption. On a character level, he fulfills his fatalistic determination to be together at all costs and at the same time sticks the knife in Niina, who technically pushed the first domino leading to 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 pleas is not a sign of “moral weakness” or anything like that, but simple desperation.
“If I don’t act on 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, saving a refreshing ember of emotions.
“Feelings that there is nowhere to go will make you suffer and distort those around you.” Therefore, Mio frames Ryoka’s original act of emotional denial as cruelty and joining her cause is the kindest thing she can do for Amiru.
And of course, it’s not like Mio was intentionally misleading her; In reality, this is the same path she chose, turning her unanswerable feelings into a weapon to protect others.
Ryoka further points out that even her plan to regain the feelings of others requires opening the door to the Common. Which in turn brings us back to the problem of needing to use Hiori’s Shard as a key.
“If there is any other way, please tell us.” I appreciate how reasonably Ryoka and Amiru are acting. This is not a conflict arising from an arbitrary lack of communication, and they would really appreciate an alternative solution. The strongest character conflicts are built from genuine disagreements and mutual understanding, not prolonged misunderstandings.
Ryoka’s sword is actually a giant tuning fork, as befits her musical connection to Amiru.
It’s a lot of fun to have these fully realized and dramatically earned heel turns alongside Uta, whose story is just “she’s that weird.” It takes all kinds, I guess.
Ryoka and Amiru’s much 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 ready
Wow, wasn’t that a great performance, team! Well, Niina and Miyako at least did well, and it’s an absolute pleasure to see them training like true friends. But our main couple really took a beating in this episode, as their conviction was tested and found wanting in relation to the desperate feelings of Ryoka, Amiru, and their older sister Mio. Their naive certainty that they could save everyone allowed Ryoka and Amiru to escape their grasp; Unable to sustain themselves with feel-good platitudes, our new couple pressed forward with the grim implications of last episode’s bedroom cleanup and surrendered to the only outcome that could preserve their bond. From the final reveal about Niina’s suitcase to Ryoka and Amiru’s tragic choice, this episode was a feast of the kind of thorny, compelling character work that Blue Reflection Ray does best. Now let’s delve into Mio’s story!
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