What is this obsession with sending illicitly filmed confession videos? I’m not as irritated here as I was with Toumei na Yoru ni Kakeru Kimi to, Me ni Mienai Koi wo Shita. for reasons that should be pretty obvious. It’s played for laughs here, in a context that’s not meant to be remotely realistic. And it was necessary to move the plot along of course (though I suppose that could be said of the other case, too). And Arata had said stuff to Kuroe already that came pretty close, anyway.
That said, I found this to be the weakest ep of Otome Kaijuu Caraméliser by a pretty good margin. Manatsu’s brand of crazy is fun in small doses, but a whole episode of it is too much. Also, even for a fantasy like this there were a few moments that stretched credulity pretty hard. We start off with last week’s cliffhanger, and Manatsu’s reasons for staking out Minami-kun’s apartment are twofold. She accuses him of two-timing Kuroe with Harugon, first of all. I don’t doubt Manatsu genuinely is concerned on Kuroe’s behalf, but the main issue is the other one. Harugon is the one she wants, and Arata seems to be stealing “him” from her.
This all confirms, of course, that neither Manatsu or Arata have figured out who Harugon is (sigh). Arata is closer at least – he thinks she’s a girl. Manatsu’s next loopy caper is to kidnap Kuroe – Rairi tags along – to a private island in the Ogasawara chain (which are 1000 km from Tokyo, just for the record). Her plan is to summon Harugon from this “Kaijuu Island” (which is basically Skull Island from the “King Kong” films, so Rairi should feel right at home) where Manatsu figures he’s sure to show up.
I suppose on some level Manatsu’s heart is in the right place but man, she’s really cracy-cray. Kuroe being a kind little potat feels bad for her. But she’s not gonna reveal herself, and it’s not like she can just summon Harugon on a whim anyway. Eventually Manatsu decides to go to the top of the “skull” cliff and summon Harugon from there, but that goes rather badly when one of the island’s local residents shows up (note: the only mammal on the actual Ogasawara is a small flying fox, and there are no apex predators). In fleeing it Kuroe manages to drag both girls off the cliff. Whoops.
How do they fall that distance and the worst that happens is a bruised leg for Manatsu (and Kuroe is totally unscathed)? Even for a series like this I’d like a better answer, but whatever. At the bottom of the cliff Kuroe finds a cave with some weird shiny stuff that looks like it’s from an egg, and a cave painting that looks strikingly familiar. When a horde of the Komodo Dragons shows up it looks like all is lost, but Manatsu shows Kuroe the confession video and Harugon finally makes its appearance, so Manatsu can go home happy.
If nothing else, at least this ep advanced the mythology considerably. Obviously these islands are where Kuroe came from – we even see what look like proto-Harugons. And when Rinko sees it on the news she immediately takes off (though this seems to be a different island than the one on which she found Kuroe). Also, a predatory producer has leeched onto Arata and lured him into an ill-advised TV appearance. This whole “Harugon’s Prince” thing isn’t going away anytime soon, which clearly doesn’t help anybody.
