天下制覇

Oh god, please don’t.

Impressions:

Damn. We went a week without using the OP as an insert, but then they had to go and use it twice during this episode, keeping the average more or less in place. Oh well, it was overall a relatively fun episode, but missing pretty much all of the seriousness that made last week’s run-in with Grisham so good. He just shot some water at Mary and then blocked Kaoru’s psychic kick before mindcrushing Mary over her boobjob. Then Minamoto shifted into expositional mode and that was pretty much the end of that. At least the middle bits at the inn were mostly pretty funny, if a bit strange. Mary and Ken’s accents weren’t nearly as annoying this time around at any rate.

There was also quite a bit of creepy Freudian stuff this episode too. Towards the end, the Chief was taking pictures of the Children while his zoom lens was pulsing in and out. Freaky doll-user guy (can’t remember his name at the moment) was also all kinds of creepy during his 5 seconds of so of screentime. He was holding a doll of a maid which in turn was holding a sake cup, but he was caressing the damn thing the entire time. Dude needs to get out more. Or Grisham needs to take control of the dolls again and beat him senseless.

Brief Summary:

In a war (assumably WW2), Grisham was a fighter pilot that was attacked by a Japanese esper and fell to the ground. We later learn that he was cared for by a little girl who discovered him while he was injured.

BABEL and the Comericans lick their wounds and think about what to do next. Mary and Kaoru are about the only ones who can stay even with Grisham, so they’re going to have to work together, which neither is happy about. Ken tells us the story of Grisham’s past in Japan (see above), which makes Minamoto suspect something, so he excuses himself to make some calls to his American contacts. Back inside, Aoi busts out all the spare uniforms and it’s dressup time for Mary and the others. Kaoru’s the one to blame for the fetishism here, not Minamoto, but Mary bonds with her over the super cute uniforms anyway. Minamoto takes advantage of the distraction to psychically pass on instructions for tomorrow to Aoi and Shiho, but Ken watches it happen.

The next day at the dam, Shiho and Aoi teleport off while Kaoru and Mary go to confront Grisham. He counters their attacks easily and then uses his telepathy to reveal Mary’s dark dark secret… that the boobs she’s so proud of aren’t real. Mary goes berserk (as does Kaoru) and the water starts flying in a massive torrent. Minamoto sends Naomi up to keep the torrent going while Aoi and Shiho come back with an old woman in a wheelchair. Grisham realizes the jig is up as Minamoto explains that this is the girl that helped him, and this is the area where her village used to be. Ken more or less knew about it, but the rest were pretty ignorant.

Since they’re already there and partway through causing a minor disaster anyway, they decide to finish. All the telekinetics join forces and spiral the water out of the lake, revealing a house. An illusion takes over when the old woman is brought near it and she turns back into the little girl and thanks Grisham. It’s all Kyosuke’s doing.

In the aftermath, there’s some political hemming and hawing, and Kyosuke reveals to his mysterious companion that he was the esper that took out Grisham’s plane. Then all the BABEL and Comericans go to the karaoke bar for some horrible horrible singing followed by Grisham taking the stage to scar all of us.

Preview:

Survival games with a somewhat feral esper.