In a separate dimension, I'm actually 40 million years early in posting this

TAAN: I should be in class right now. Instead, I’m doing this, both because I don’t want to go outside and also because I’m dreadfully tired (I just woke up, you see). Also, the stuff I learn in class is about the same as the stuff I learn by my self, so it’s not exactly necessary. Oh, right. Something interesting I found. Apparently there’s an Element Hunter game that just came out in Japan, for the DS. It actually looks surprisingly good, though I have no idea if it’ll be localized or not. The interesting thing is from the official website and stuff, there only seems to be Ren in the game (that we know). According to the GameFAQs forums, it’s actually more like you can customize your character to look like him.  Still, it looks interesting enough that I’d want to get it if it ever comes stateside.

Episode 14:

Initially, I accidentally skipped this episode, making all this seem fairly random. After all, Ally is alive without much explanation. It’s a good thing I went back and watched it though, as it’s a fairly good episode. Anyways, It turns out the giant explosion was not deadly at all, and rather staying in the blast zone is, as you’ll die from heat or something. The colony takes this as a chance to pronounce Ally dead (since what she did was treasonous), even though Rodney was able to rescue her. No one outside the project knows that she’s not dead though, and she recovers in secret. It seems that they planned to just house her in some cell in secret for the rest of her life as to prevent their lie from being exposed. Dr. Carr has supporters inside the colony though (including one of Ally’s friends, or something) and manages to contact her with a plan to escape. She’s initially indecisive about it but after she remembers Ren and his catchphrase, she decides to go for it and escapes the colony.

Other Stuff:

• What impresses me the most of this episode is actually the first scene in which they recreate Ren’s memories, meaning they don’t reuse the same stuff they showed last ep but actually redraw it from Ren’s view.
• As is expected, the Dr. Carr hologram is actually a data entity, which the real Carr created by digitising her brain.
• Some stuff about Earth reentry is mentioned as part of the escape plans. As for how plausible they are, I can’t say. I’d just think that you’d need more than just knowledge of the tidal forces and reentry speed to actually reenter safely. I mean, stuff like the angle you approach earth (which also means you’ll need to control the angle you exit the colony. The capsule doesn’t have retrorockets so if it starts off the wrong way, using only the boosters in the back is going to be very hard to get a good angle), the timing so you land at a specified target area, and other stuff like that.
• The colony is surprisingly close to the moon. I wonder if it’s just that that’s the best place for it to orbit earth or if it’s actually orbiting the moon. I doubt it’s the latter.

Episode 15:

Ren is highly traumatized by witnessing her “death” and freezes up whenever anything involving QEXs happens. This is solved when they go and retrieve Ally from off shore nearby. After she wakes up, she’s able to help Ren out of his depression/trauma by talking to him about her own fears and anxiety (Ren then goes on to defeat the QEX after saving both Chihara and Homi from the blast at the same time). Aside from fixing Ren, she also writes a letter back to her parents and Rodney saying she’s on a secret secret mission, and then leaves for her old house on Earth (but I’ll bet she’ll appear again). At the same time, the new leader of the colony team is announced, and it’s Hannah Weber, the insanely popular idol who happens to be the one who stars in the Mirai Orange commercials, too.

Other Stuff:

• I’m not sure why, but that catchphrase “just smile with Mirai Orange” really bugs me. It makes no sense any time Ren uses it, and also he’s essentially ripping off the phrase from a commercial. Something about that just seems so stupid to me.
• I always knew there was some connection between Mirai Orange and the Mirai Project (which is for some reason the codename for the Colony’s Element Hunters project). Maybe it’s just the name of the colony.

Episode 16:

So this ep is Hannah’s full introduction episode. It also shows how manipulative and typical appearances-only idolish she is. She’s also incredibly spoiled. Strangely, I don’t find that annoying, though I should. It’s probably just cause I haven’t seen any of the more subtle kind of manipulative people in a while. In this ep’s QEX battle though, she proves to be highly capable, but ridiculously self-centered. After the Earth team successfully subdues the QEX, Hannah comes in from nowhere and retrieves the element from them. This obviously causes Ren’s team to be pissed, but she uses her charm to make Ren and Homi stop caring. Chihara’s the only one left pissed, and that fact makes it even worse.

Other Stuff:

• Now that Hannah’s in the team, Tom and his idol obsession is really starting to show. He’s becoming extremely eccentric, which is awesome. Tom is the  best character here.
• I bet this episode packs in a much higher amount of Hannah’s manipulativeness than should be normal. What I like is it’s not the overt kind, but rather the more subtle kind that has long reaching consequences. What I don’t like is how easily everyone else is falling for her traps.

Episode 17:

This episode actually has a QEX that’s important. That’s new. This ep technically focuses on Rodney, but it’s more of a Rodney/Chihara ep. First, the Colony team encounters a bat like creature, and are almost killed (through falling absurd heights). Rodney falls though, but somehow survives. At the same time, the Earth team finds a series of caves, but Ren and Homi are pulled in by some tentacles, and Chihara escapes. Eventually, Chihara finds Rodney and encounters a crab like creature. They get away and team up to find the rest of their teams. Initially, Chihara misunderstands Rodney and believes he’s a spoiled rich kid, but that’s partially cleared up later. Also, Rodney explains some interesting stuff about the whole business of element dematerialization. Anyways, not long after they find their captured friends, but can’t save them before the QEX returns. They eventually defeat it with a combined attack, and save everyone.

Other Stuff:

• I’m not exactly sure how to describe this time’s QEX. It’s some kind of slime thing, which Juno says is like a type of flatworm called a bipalium (they look nothing similar, I’ve checked). It’s a symbiotic creature that fuses with its host through a “universal membrane.” I’m guessing this essentially means it can trick your cells into believing it’s part of you and then absorb you like that. It also seems to have the ability to fuse different things it absorbs, which lead to the Bat-Crab thing. It’s weird that Chihara and Rodney attacked both the bat and crab to get the elements. Wait, I get it, the slime thing isn’t the QEX, but rather it’s binding 2 QEXs together. It’s still messed up. What does it do with all the internal organs it’s screwing around with?
• Rodney’s father is a lot like Hannah in that they’re both the kind of people who do stuff for appearances only. He really doesn’t seem to care much for Rodney actually, which is sad, because Rodney seems to care about him.
• for all you shippers out there, this ep is full of Chihara/Rodney moments, and metaphors too, like the Neutrino scan. Of course, I’m interested more in how they get their parings to develop instead of who they decide to pair up.
• About Earth and Nega-Earth, apparently Nega-Earth is the parallel to Earth in a separate time-space that’s 40-million years before the current Earth time. Separating the two is the “zero wall,” which seems to be just the barrier between dimensions, given a fancy name. Due to some unknown process, elements from Posi-Earth are flowing to Nega-Earth and affecting the creatures there, changing their evolutionary processes. It’s quite strange and makes no sense right now. I hope they give at least a pseudoscientific answer sometime in the future. Just leaving it with “it just happens, so deal” really sucks.

Comment-Ratings:

I have to say, even though they kind of stopped talking about the Colony and the Project’s secrets and stuff, it’s still more interesting than before. It’s probably because of characters who are more …controversial? And the fact that they’re going back to showing interesting QEXs and stuff.