天下制覇

Oh boy. It's episode 3 all over again.

Impressions:

I'll never understand Japan's never ending quest to romanticize mundane life. No doubt it's cultural for a more collectivist society. Forget art. Forget what's unique about you. Forget ambition. What's truly important is going to school. And having a boooooyfriend. Life can't be complete without a boyfriend. Or high school. But no. She made a mistake one time, and the pressure led to a panic attack, and on to a coma where she learns the valuable lesson that… she's supposed to be a figure skater, because that's what everybody wants from her. Wait, what? Except no, it's already too late. Uh, I'm not sure that I understand the lesson here, or that this is an affirming tale about finding your true calling, except that you can no longer do it and everyone you loved is dead.

But I think it was the surprise twist at the end that she's actually been in a coma for like 60 years that annoys me the most. The seeds were already there, because I actually know what Kleine-Levin (aka "Sleeping Beauty") syndrome is; basically narcolepsy, but longer and FAR fewer episodes, and spontaneously resolves. The explicit mention of that immediately made me do a double take, and then hurry over to Japanese wikipedia to verify that Japan's version of it is indeed the same as the west's. Calling a 60 year coma Sleeping Beauty syndrome is like finding someone frozen in a block of ice and saying that they have goosebumps. Yes, I know that it's just some nonsense they threw out to half-ass try to justify it. I don't care. What else do you want me to talk about? The rehashed montages from episode 3? Because this was basically a total rehash of that episode. Can't wait until they rehash it again for episode 7.