Brynhildr in the Darkness Ep. 5: Boobs, boobs, boobs!

Oh, did you think this was serious science fiction show?

Episode Summary
Kotori, the new girl, joins the club, and everyone has a fun time stargazing. Kana suddenly gets visions in which either Kuroha or Ryota is killed. She thinks Kotori will be the murderer. As the characters discuss Kotori’s motives, Shino, another witch, calls Kazumi for help. Shino is being chased by yet another witch, and Kuroha is determined to save Shino at all costs. Unfortunately, Shino bites the dust, and that’s where the episode ends.

Notes
• Oh good, right off the bat, we learn that Kotori’s specialty is her large boobs. Kuroha has normal-sized breasts because she’s the heroine of the show. Kazumi’s flat-chested because she’s tsundere. So by process of elimination, Kotori has to have the largest breasts of the group! I mean, how else would I tell these girls apart? By giving them interesting personalities to match the sci-fi atmosphere? Puh-leeze.

• Ryota then makes a smartass comment about Kazumi’s lack of endowment, so she kicks him in the face. HI-larious!

• Kotori: “So, what kinds of stuff does this astronomy club do?” Oh y’know, trespassing on private property, stealing pills, getting high on said pills, stomping out weird-ass slugs while high, etc. Standard astronomy stuff, really.

• Ryota then thinks to himself, “Everything has been so tough lately. We can only really have fun now while there are pills to spare.” Oh man, I sure do hope we get a fun episode. Things have been so seriously lately with all the hot springs and the accidental boob groping… All I’m asking is when can we really let loose around here, y’know?

• Ryota: “Let’s bond over some astronomical observation.” You wild dog, you!

• This scene is actually kind of funny in an unintentional way. The only reason the other witches are even here is so that they can hide out from the big, bad organization. They’re not living in the observatory because they’re actually interested in stargazing. But nuh-uh, Ryota won’t take no for an answer: “That’s not gonna fly! Everyone participates. If you want to stay in the club, this is mandatory.” As long as you witches are under my care, my rules! Now get out there and look at some damn stars!

• Kazumi gets up and licks Ryota’s face. All of a sudden, Kuroha causes a nearby table to snap in half, but she just doesn’t understand how this could’ve happened! Not only that, the table snaps in half at the exact same time Kazumi is licking Ryota’s face! Man, what a coincidence! Wait, do you think Kuroha is actually jealous? Huh, girls get jealous and fight over bland anime leads, you say? Ah, as expected! After all, this is yet another deep, complex anime from Lynn Okamoto.

• Ryota blames the “accident” on a kamaitachi. For some reason, the subs decided not to translate this word or even explain it, so I’ll look it for you guys! A kamaitachi is a type of yokai, a.k.a. a supernatural being in Japanese folklore. It is often said that strange events are caused by a kamaitachi. The more you know…

• Since he hasn’t yet learned that Kotori’s a witch, Ryota goes to all this trouble to make the astronomy club seem legit to the new girl. Good thing she’s a witch, huh? In fact, good thing witches are the only people who seem to take an interest in this dinky club, huh? The fact that these magic-using children can only be girls is just icing on the cake.

That complex dialogue though…

• Ryota then calls Kazumi a virgin, which makes the tsunderekko get all flustered and shit. Yo, you’re both in high school. I’m not saying high school kids don’t have sex, but who the fuck cares if you’re a virgin in high school or not?

• Kazumi: “Neko was experimented on so much that she doesn’t have a single childhood memory left.” That really breaks my heart. After all, anime has taught me that childhood memories and promises are worth their weight in gold.

• The very next night, all five of them are headed up the mountain to stargaze. Ryota ends up having to carry Kana all the way there, but it’s alright! He tells her that he’ll get used to her weight. In fact, he compares her to his school bag, which nevertheless gets the girl to blush. Uguu, I get to be Bag-chan…

• Kuroha knows a lot about stars. Ryota reasons that Kuroha must therefore be Kuroneko. Yawn.

• So alright, Ryota spots the harnest on Kotori’s neck and is about to freak out about it when Kana tells him to come close to her. Y’see, Kana gets a premonition where Kuroha ends up dying at Kotori’s hands. Somehow, however, Kana can “whisper” this little vision of hers to Ryota. On a more serious note, it sure seems like Kana is jumping to conclusions. She sees Kotori standing over a dead Kuroha, but she doesn’t actually see what will cause Kuroha’s death. It seems highly irresponsible to just assume that Kotori will be the murderer.

• Ryota thinks Kotori has been sent here to kill one of them. Hey, shouldn’t he have noticed that she doesn’t have a beacon on her harnest!

C’mon, anime lead! Everyone should notice a thing like that!

• Even when Kotori demonstrates her teleportation magic, her breasts has to bounce. I wouldn’t expect any less from a deep Lynn Okamoto work.

• But in the end, Kuroha doesn’t even care. She’s just all, “Let’s look at Altair and Vega some more because those two stars haven’t been mentioned to death in anime.” And just like that, Ryota goes along with Kuroha too, because “[t]hat’s just like Kuroha.” That silly girl!

• Yeah, all the previously disinterested witches simply have to look at the moon through the telescope to realize what an amazing experience they’ve been missing out on. Mm-hmm. Yo, I like astronomy too, but Brynhildr in the Darkness is trying too damn hard here to prove Ryota right. The kid then smugly thinks to himself, “Take a look at that. I knew this would be a nice change of pace.”

• Kotori: “Going to school, being in a club, making these memories — this is like a dream.” Barf. No, I get it. She’s a witch, and as a result, she’s had a hard life… probably in some laboratory somewhere. As a result, she never thought she’d get this chance to live like a normal kid. This is why she’s super appreciative of the fact that she can join a club and make friends! But this is such an oft-repeated message in anime that I can no longer appreciate it for its simplicity. I’ve been inundated with too much memory-making club funtime that I now reflexively roll my eyes whenever these overly-saccharine moments occur. This is the price you pay for being cliche.

• Kana’s forecast changes; this time, Kotori will kill the main character. I’m crossing my fingers.

• Elsewhere, some punk-wannabe witch are after harnests as if they are hunting trophies. She also seems to like setting random things on fire, which I’m sure will raise nobody’s suspicions the very next day.

Neato… We also see some poor witch befriend a cat. She seems to realize that the punk-wannabe witch is after her. Poor girl. She’s not a main character in this show, so you just know she’ll die. I mean, someone has to suffer a gory death, and it may as well be these disposable shoujos. Cheap thrills don’t come ch…nevermind.

• The next day, Ryota learns that the deaths will occur at a nearby lake, so he thinks all he and Kuroha will have to do is stay away from the lake for the day. But we know this won’t happen. The characters then attempt to grill Kotori. It’s pretty obvious from this scene that Kotori always smiles when she gets nervous, i.e. the fact that she’s smiling in Kana’s forecasts don’t really mean a damn thing.

• All of a sudden, Shino, the girl from earlier, calls Kazumi for help, which forces the characters to head to the nearby lake. Well, there you go.

• But man, this is already pretty damn predictable. Kotori has the power to swap places with anyone, right? So it’s easy. She’ll just have to let herself get tied up somehow — I don’t know why the punk-wannabe witch would tie her up — then she can just swap places with punk-wannabe witch. This then buys Ryota enough time to press one of those buttons on the punk-wannabe witche’s neck. We’ve already got all the clues that we need. Yeah, in Kana’s vision, it is Neko who we see being tied up. Maybe in the future that Kana sees, Kotori wants to swap places with Kuroha instead, but that sounds incredibly stupid to me. After all, it’s so goddamn obvious that she could just swap places with the punk-wannabe witch, thereby disabling the enemy. So maybe Kotori’s powers doesn’t depend on her swapping places with other people. Instead, she can just swap two other people’s locations. Of course, this still doesn’t explain why the punk-wannabe witch would tie anyone up in the first place. Oh well, I don’t know exactly how this will go down, but I think I’ve got the general idea.

• Ryota tries to bar Kuroha from leaving since he’d rather die in her place, but she just knocks him aside with another goddamn table. Uh, what happened to just walking around him? Or just shoving him aside? A flying table seems like it could’ve killed the guy.

• Apparently, this is how Kazumi hacks.

• Kikako is the punk-wannabe witch’s name, and her specialty is is shooting laser beams from her mouth:

You can’t be serious.

• Shino realizes that she’s at the end of her rope, so she sacrifices herself in order to save a kitten’s life. Welp, who didn’t see that coming? Kuroha had just finishing going on and on about how B-ranked witches needed to stick together too. Oh well, at least the kitten is still alive.