These characters have been here before. They thought they knew what to expect. This episode helps the characters and the viewers realise that this isn’t the WIXOSS we’ve seen before.
Wixoss has always been an anime that collected some crazy antagonists. The battle junkies who were getting off on the horror of the Selector matches. Yet in previous versions of this franchise I kind of always felt that sooner or later they would fall and the sweet girl protagonist would eventually triumph even if that victory was incredibly bitter sweet. And maybe Lostorage Conflated WIXOSS intends to follow that pattern but right now it really feels like being the crazy fighter type is about the only way to survive the current battles in tact.
The rules have changed and while they still haven’t addressed how a Selector is supposed to battle without a LRIG, it seems kind of like they are going to have to put themselves on the line. A number of statements this week made it feel like the LRIG was protecting the Selector from actual damage in the fights and that may very well be the cost that is coming. In which case, I’m feeling really bad for Hanna right now.
Okay, I’m going to stop speculating because I know I’m usually wrong with WIXOSS anyway. It takes some interesting twists and turns and somehow it all works itself out. This episode continues to dive deeper in the new matches and draws even more characters back into the fight. While you could accuse it of being set-up, this is what WIXOSS does. It focuses on the characters finding their way through the mine-field. We’re well and truly in the thick of it and things are only going to get worse before they get better and I’m really wondering how we can get to a positive ending on this one but I’m really looking forward to watching more.
Some solid ground work is going in to bringing the cast of this anime together and I think the end result might be quite interesting. Though, early days yet for the battles.
It seemed inevitable that characters I didn’t like so much would also return as well as ones that I had fond memories for. And one thing this episode did very well was remind us that while the girls playing a card game premise might be pretty ordinary, this anime knows how to deliver healthy doses of pain. One of the more interesting parts of this season so far has been seeing so many of the characters after they thought they were free of Wixoss and the selector battles and their various responses to realising they are all still caught up in it.
That said, the rules of Wixoss, outside of the few they choose to share, remain as ambiguous as ever with things like turn taking and when they can attack being confusing and at times contradictory. The matches always look good and the better battle is the one between the selector’s mental states rather than the cards they are playing. Still, another twist on the game, which makes me wonder how the game will be ongoing so I guess there’s potentially another twist still to come.
This series continues to be doing an excellent job of getting me back into Wixoss and I look forward to the next episode.
The rules of WIXOSS have never been overly clear in any version of this anime, but as seasons converge they seem to be trying to set a few things down in stone.
Again, this episode was heavily focused on prior events but it isn’t just walking us through prior seasons. It is genuinely giving us new information and changing how we see some of the events from prior WIXOSS battles and as a result by the end of this episode as Selectors are once again chosen by LRIG’s the audience is very much ready to see what might be the darkest iteration of WIXOSS yet.
What I think works really well about this new season is that characters who have made their peace or come to terms with the result of their encounter with the game are being forcibly dragged back into it. And unlike previous versions of the game, these characters are well aware of the high stakes that are being played for. These aren’t naive girls hoping for a magic wish at the end of a rainbow. These characters have already walked through hell and the fact that they came out the other side was a miracle the first time. The sheer fact that most of them flinch at the mention of the Selector battles starting again is testament to the scars that have been left on these characters.
With so many anime this season trying to get in on dark and edge, WIXOSS continues to show us that you don’t have to physically beat your characters to make them suffer and sometimes it is more affective to hold back on the torment and simply make the audience wait.
A decent enough return for those who like WIXOSS anime. Not a lot of point if you haven’t watched the previous season though. What did you think?
I’m just going to point out that this franchise continues to just kind of mash words together before adding WIXOSS on the end and expects us to somehow swallow these as series titles. Why Lostorage is now Conflated I do not know and if past experience with WIXOSS is anything to go by I will never find out.
Though that really isn’t reviewing the episode and more the title so we’ll move right along. This is a pretty good recap of what has happened integrated reasonably well into set-up for what is probably the main confrontation of this season. I’m glad we didn’t have to see Suzuko and Chi still trying to sort things out with their relationship being pretty stable, and yet they’ve found a reasonably interesting way to try to draw Suzuko back into the game.
With the promise of another mystery and maybe some explanations as to why the WIXOSS games keep happening and getting darker, I guess I’m up for another iteration of this franchise. While never my favourite thing to watch, it is always kind of interesting.
You know, there has been a lot of criticism of this anime but other than being ugly, having extremely long moments of exposition that explain nothing, a goal that makes no sense, and two characters that are about as interesting as watching paint dry, there hasn’t been anything too broken about this show. And yet, episode 6… Where do you even start?
I’m not even going to comment on the not one, or two, but three mesh comments this week. I promise. It isn’t even worth it amongst all the other things wrong with this episode.
Instead, let me focus on the battle itself and why this is a definite issue for a show that is built around pairs battling.
Firstly, there is no point. You might get a wish? This is even worse than WIXOSS where you get a wish, it just isn’t carried out the way you want it to be.
Secondly, our main characters can’t lose. Unlike other shows where you can get one or two losses and then come back, one loss puts you out of this game and in Koyori’s case might kill her (if we can believe anything we’ve been told) and so our protagonists are absolutely guaranteed at least a draw if not victory.
Which brings us to thirdly, how is Tazuna not very crispy-fried after being hit by repeated on point, very strong (to the point of overkill) attacks? He should not have been able to launch his final attack because he should have been killed in the first round of flames, at the very least from the giant flaming hand that crushed half a building, or any of the other attacks launched at him that he failed to avoid, including the last one that just of delayed him before he sailed through the smoke and won the day.
Oh, and a fourthly, just for a bonus, why do they only need to take out one part of the pair and how do you know which one? Explanations, please?
I’m not dropping this. I am watching it through to the end if for no other reason than to write a feature about appalling story telling. But wow. That was bad.
Well if you’ve watched the Selector Infected WIXOSS then you already know the basics here even as Lostorage puts a new spin on the game. WIXOSS is a popular card game only some people are chosen to become Selectors which means for them the game has some very real consequences.
And as always, if you’ve watched any of the WIXOSS brand anime then you more or less know you are in for some misery and pain with cute girls playing a deadly card game.
Firstly, I’m going to say that while this anime is technically a sequel it really doesn’t require you to have watched the previous seasons to know what is going on and that is because the game has changed anyway and we’re dealing with a whole new group of players who don’t have any experience with WIXOSS either so they’ll tell us what we need to know as we go
. There are a few throw backs to the previous seasons and characters so people with familiarity will probably get a bit more out of some scenes than others, but it is not inaccessible to new comers. I think that is a very good thing because I enjoyed this a lot more than the previous seasons.
That said, if you continue on with this franchise it becomes more and more necessary to really know every facet of the WIXOSS universe because they’ll be bringing back more and more characters from previous entires.
Given the basic premise is about people being chosen to become Selectors and forced to play a game with high stakes (in this case loss of memories) but a promise of a wish being granted if they succeed is all pretty standard the show doesn’t spend a lot of time trying to justify its essential death game.
Instead it focusses more on how the game disrupts the lives of those caught up in it and this makes it infinitely more interesting than if it spent episodes trying to explain the how and why of the game. Though, it would be nice if they gave the viewer a little bit more information about the game given there are times when it really feels like the players are pulling wins out of nowhere because we don’t understand the rules sufficiently to know if what they did was actually plausible.
As I said though, it is more how the wins and losses impact upon the lives of those playing so maybe WIXOSS made the right choice all along.
Lostorage Incited WIXOSS continues the tradition of having a name that looks like it should mean something but ends up really just being three words mashed together and also continues the tradition of inflicting maximum emotional pain upon its characters.
I could be wrong but I think this series actually had more happy endings than Selector Infected given there was only really one character I liked who did not ‘survive’ the games and I felt really, really bad for him.
The show follows Chinatsu and Suzuko who were friends once upon a time but now they’ve grown up and Suzuko has been away for awhile but has finally returned only to find that Chinatsu is very different these days. By ‘chance’ both of these girls become Selectors and essentially Chinatsu is working to erase Suzuko while Suzuko wants to try to save Chinatsu (even if Chinatsu is disinclined to being saved).
Others inevitably get caught up in this conflict and we see how Chinatsu and Suzuko interact with other Selectors. Essentially Chinatsu becomes poison and almost everyone who interacts with her ends up regretting it whereas Suzuko may at first bring conflict but ultimately encounters with her lead to a reasonably positive outcome (at least comparatively).
What the show does well is really look at how people deal with things when they are really desperate. The impossible situation the characters are in when they have to find someone to battle before an arbitrary time limit comes to an end, the devastation of losing a memory when they lose a battle, and the possibility of losing everything if they lose all of their coins push these characters to their limits.
Throw in the Bookmaker who first offers hope by promising to organise them a match so that they don’t hit the time limit, and then crushes that hope by deliberately pitting weaker players against strong in order to destroy them, and you have some really desperate characters who are clinging to anything to stay afloat.
This is not a perfect show. The game is poorly explained, some of the victories are really plot convenience (as are some of the losses), characters portray ideas rather than real characterisation at times, and the dialogue is hard to take seriously particularly mid-battle, but the show fundamentally works.
It is dark but not depressing, it makes you question what you would do in the various situations characters find themselves in, and it makes you feel a sense of loss or triumph at the appropriate moments.
Of course there is the inevitable follow-up season with the equally confusing name of Lostorage Conflated WIXOSS but ultimately you kind of get to a semi-resolution at the end of these episodes so you could choose to stop there if you wanted.
Anyway, if you didn’t watch Lostorage Incited WIXOSS during the Autumn 2016 Season I would recommend this one to check out. It isn’t going to blow you away but it is a pretty enjoyable watch.
Images from: Lostorage Incited WIXOSS. Dir. K Sakurabi. J.C.Staff. 2016
Same as last week for Kiss Him, Not Me, other than a general issue with a student teacher attempting to pick up a student and using generally questionable methods, the episode was kind of fun. I really enjoyed the interactions between the brothers and how they solved their conflict through a card match. This episode also ended with an actual confession which was kind of refreshing given we’ve been dancing around that this whole time. A final point from this episode, the eye-catches in the middle were kind of awesome.
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