天下制覇

Are we seriously explaining that the girl constantly on fire has fire powers?

Impressions:

I continue to expect more and get slightly above average. There are a ton of ways this sparring session could've gone, from an extended version of Spiderverse's "a hero always picks themselves up" to some kind of epiphany over what really drives her, to just plain beating him through ingenuity and cleverness over raw power. And then the second half was basically annoying filler with a screaming banshee demanding Shy once again Prove Her Worth. I'd rather dive straight into the Persona kid and dealing with some thornier issues, especially if they don't involve a dude with the power of… yet a'goddamned'gain, can stand still and avoid all attacks.

Instead, we got a particularly weird epiphany that the girl with fire powers has the power of… fire, and that she is just the most super specialist most innocent most perfect most flawless girl ever. The former is confusing because I thought that was completely obvious and something everybody understood from the get go, what with her spewing fire every time she did anything. The latter bores me. I'll take a flawed hero who struggles and grows any day. Stammering a bit is nowhere near enough, and she seemingly has enough trauma in her past to be tapping into that over some generic "wanna do my best" platitudes. Ground it with something genuine, not handwavey banalities. 

Next Episode:

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