Impression:

I don’t even know where to begin with this one. This series has been known for killing a lot of people, but the deaths weren’t the most graphic events known to man. People would become ashes when the noise touched them. In this episode, something pretty graphic occurs and everyone should mentally prepare themselves before they press play.

Most people are.

This episode gave us a lot of what I do not like in this series. Instead of trying to force a fight like normal terrorists, Shirabe and Kirika challenged Chris in the singing contest. The duet performed a Zwei Wing song which was a pretty nice taunt if you ask me. They performed well and everyone was waiting on the results. The prize of having a wish granted for the winner was the driving force here because the girls thought that they could request the pendants that the divas were wearing. I honestly think that they couldn’t do that, but an attack on the terrorist hideout halted those plans. Maria refused to kill the American soldiers, so Dr. Ver took things into his own hands. He used the noise to kill them and some children that wandered into the area. The Finé set up shop at the site of the canon that Finé constructed in season one. Apparently, the goal of Finé is to destroy the moon before it falls out of orbit and destroys the planet. Losing mass will do that to an object. The Nephilim is supposed to stop it, but the thing needs food in order to awaken. What is a great snack for a mindless beast? A human arm of course. I am sorry for the way I worded it, but Hibiki did lose her left arm in the fight.

Yes, she does lose that arm.

Current Opinion of the Show:

I am mostly in shock right now to be honest. We got a lot of the bullshit that I expected from this series. The bad divas are never actually bad because they will eventually be convinced to stop fighting for bad people. I would like some of the divas to be actual villains for once. Caring about each other and singing instead of fighting is way too nice for my liking. Then we got something that is a little tougher. That image of a bleeding girl from the first episode was Maria’s sister. She used her swan song to stop the Nephilim many years ago, but the American government was mostly upset by the loss of their money because one of their experiments blew up. They made America the bad guys again. Dr. Ver might be the only evil member of Finé at this point and that disappoints me. Here is the crazy thing though. I am used to people dying by turning into ashes or using a swan song. Hibiki isn’t dead, but the Nephilim ate her arm. There was a bite and a rip. Hibiki got the Shanks treatment. If only Chris and Tsubasa weren’t incapacitated by the white mess that came out of the phallic noise. I don’t know how I feel about the dismemberment, but I am pretty excited about the dark turn that the series just took.

The fact that her face makes her look like a doll is what creeps me out the most in regards to this image.

I say that the series took a dark turn, but all of the death and whatnot did make this series somewhat dark to begin with. It just barely registered with me because of the fact that most of the enemies turned good in the end. Children have been subjected to experimentation, soldiers can’t stop the noise from murdering countless people, and Chris has been through unspeakable things that were implied in her exchanges with the commander in the first season. I can’t really say that this is a light-hearted series. On a different note, the moon thing confuses me. I do understand why it would have a deteriorating orbit, but I don’t understand how the commander didn’t know about it. They have a science division that should know more about the moon than anyone else. If scientists knew that it was falling, then they should have been the first to know. I guess the Nephilim is supposed to destroy the moon, but I don’t know where this series plans to take that because Dr. Ver will probably end up being the main villain and Finé has to make an appearance eventually. Oh well, Japan hates the moon. The last thing that is on my mind is the possible handling oh Hibiki’s missing arm. There are a few possibilities such as her relic piece healing her because it is synched with her body unlike the pendants. I might actually enjoy that one. Having a prosthetic or leaving her dismembered just seems unlikely. I guess we will find out what happens in next week’s episode.

Secret identities suck.