[Fish Sandwich]

There can be only one way to celebrate Nago's return to Ixa-dom, and that's with Don't lose yourself.

It goes unused in the show in favor of continuing his never-ending Fight for Justice, but like, that title was deliberately ironic, and Nago by this point can honestly be said to be fighting for more genuinely selfless reasons, and that's what this song was written for. Self-awareness doesn't exactly come easy to Nago, but it's what the lyrics to this one are all about, representing the huge shift his character takes over the course of the show. It's this clear duology where Fight for Justice is all about fixing the world, while Don't lose yourself is well, exactly what it sounds like. The whole sentiment of it is about self-improvement and not turning a blind eye to your flaws and things of that sort it'd be hard to imagine Nago singing about however many episodes back. Just like Fight for Justice though, it comes out of the gate a tone-setting lyric I really adore, pointing out that everyone's got their troubles by likening it to how even the sun has its black spots. 'Cause, like, Ixa's all about the sun, and Nago probably took that a bit too much to heart! Really good stuff.

Also quite good is Ishida's direction in this and 41. It's definitely most apparent in a lot of the scenes focusing on Wataru. For how much I said I wasn't into the way the show was basically torturing the poor guy, I do honestly appreciate having this huge backslide on his character development so late in the show for Wataru. With the kind of character he is, and what he's representing, I definitely think it's valuable to demonstrate that even with all his growth, he can still have some really bad days like this.

I'd be willing to make the argument that it's entirely character-driven and appropriate for the show to drag out the '86 love triangle the way it has, by the way? Like, you say the limbo prevents you from understanding what's going through Yuri and Otoya's heads, but it's all rooted in the most fundamental parts of their characters. Yuri lashing out at Maya, I feel like that's her avoiding her own difficult feelings by trying to act tough, which is very much a trend with her. She probably knows by now she wouldn't like how that conversation with Otoya would turn out, so she's running away from it. I kind of doubt she even actually believes fighting Maya will solve her problems, but I don't doubt that she'd believe it hurts less to think that way. Otoya is just... I mean, he's genuinely baffled by Maya's remark about stealing something from Yuri more important than her life, and that kind of says everything. He's trying his best, but he's not exactly equipped to even see what the problem here is to begin with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Androzani84

And we’ve reached the part of the show where not even the name of the monster can tell me what it is.

I have an explanation for this! The Japanese word for jellyfish, kurage (海月), is literally written with the kanji for "sea" and "moon", so rather than "Jellyfish Fangire", we got that instead. My assumption would be that somebody thought this sounded cooler.