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- FF Odyssey
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Cheap FFXI Gil |
By: Kenji Masaki
Warning: This writeup contains spoilers, view at your own risk!
Episode 3 - "Fruits: The Scent of Sweet
Aromas"
... The episode begins
within the Count's palace, him eating another royal dish of pudding, as the
joker Oscar tells him another Inner World has been taken into what the Count
calls chaos. Oscar continues onto the subject of the man with the Demon
Gun... and how he could possibly be the Unlimited- people blessed with power
to overthrow the gods. Of course, the Count is the only God of the Inner
Worlds, or so he belives, and decides to exterminate of him immediately.
First to volunteer is Helba, the flower girl who wants to see "Demon
Gun-chan" for herself...
Note: At this point we
also learn about Hungus, who in fact did not die- "Even if I'm torn to
pieces, or completely destroyed, no matter how many times, I will still be
resurrected- Except... it takes a while before I regain my original size.
*tweet*". Keep in mind he is one of the few comic reliefs in FF:U that are
actually kinda funny- unless you call Ai getting her hair pulled on by the
chocobo for the twentieth time funny...
As we are left to ponder
the plan being concocted by Helba, Ai, Yu, Lisa, and their hyperactive
chocobo narrowly make the train to the next inner world. While Ai and Yu
continue with their attempts to find out about Lisa's strange past, we
discover that Yu's chocobo feather he equipped in episode 2 gave him the
power to read the chocobo's thoughts and feelings, which will become
important in episodes to come...
They leave the train,
walk up what seems like miles of stairway, and finally reach the top to see
a huge world covered in fruit- edible fruit, so it seems. Despite what could
be countless hours of happiness eating fruit, the cloaked inhabitants of
this fruitful inner world continue talking about despair, hopelessness, and
how they will never escape the wrath of the Count. As Yu and Ai continue
exploring, Ai catches a glimpse of what looked like Kaze- but it couldn't
be, right? I mean, he didn't ride the train or anything... how could he be
there before our heroic trio?
Not suprisingly, however,
our heroes have the attention span of goldfish, and Ai decides to take a
seat, put her bag down, and eat some of the delicious fruits to cure her
appetite. Not too long after, though, one of the strange cloaked figures
steals her bag and runs off! Ai, Yu, and Lisa take off in hot persuit, but
only Ai keeps chase as Yu and Lisa are left behind, fighting a crowd of
hooded people to get through. As Ai chases the thief through the land of
Fruits, her journey leads her to a strange bar filled with hooded figures,
the thief nowhere to be seen. She interrupts the constant mumbling of
despair and hopelessness to see if anyone has seen the thief, only to
receive laughter in spite of her serious question. "There's no point in
looking for something that's lost!" they say, "Something that is lost once
can never be regained! It is the rule of the Inner World!!!" Ai runs out in
fear, giving up on both the thief and the bag, and to make matters worse,
someone just happens to leave a giant watermelon slice in the middle of the
street, and Ai, being her clutsy self, trips and falls on it. Nearly losing
all hope, she starts crying out for Ai, for Yu, for her parents, for Lisa...
and then she hears the sound of waves crashing against the beach...
As she rushes toward the
sound of the waves, she finds herself face to face with our dear guide to
the Inner World... Fabra.
Note: This totally caught
me off guard. Never has a narrator acted out as a real character in ANY
anime I've ever seen...
Ai then explains to Fabra
about the chaos that seems to be making up most of the Inner world, when she
comes across an odd white pooch (or rather the head of an odd white pooch)
with a set of chompers that could rival that of Jaws. Noting that it looks
"scarily cute", Fabra gives it to Ai to replace her bag, which is named
Pochepoke. As Ai leaves Fabra to investigate a strange balloon decending
upon the world of Fruits, Fabra advises Ai that Pochepoke will make any wish
she makes come true. When Ai finds out that the balloon is really the flying
base of the guardian Helba, Ai tries to return to Fabra, only to find a dead
end of watermelon-buildings in her spot...
While this is happening,
Kaze returns to the scene, where Helba drops a crystal "bomb" on the
center
of the town, surrounded by the cloaked figures. Kaze, seeing that destroying
the bomb is better than being squished any old day, blasts the bomb to
powder with his red gun... which sows the seeds for hundreds of
thorn-bearing flowers! Kaze, still not impressed, starts shooting them down,
one by one, each flower exploding with a burst of "happy" powder, filling
the town center of Fruits with laughter, including Yu, Lisa, and the
hyperactive chocobo. Ai arrives on the scene to find them on the ground
nearly dying of laughter, of which she thinks herself powerless to stop
Helba and her unlimited supply of flowers and happy pollen... or is she?
Then she remembers Pochepoke, who'll grant any wish from her... so she
wishes to help destroy the pollen and help her friends, and Pochepoke spits
out a mere watermelon seed... that explodes in Ai's face. The pollen
disappears, healing Yu, Lisa, and the hooded figures, freeing Kaze up to use
his Demon Gun...
"I have chosen Soil for the likes of you!
The cry of the dark spirit, Dark Green!
The one that does not forgive creation, Virgin White!
And finally, one that freezes everything, Ice Blue!
Shine! Summon Creature! Shiva!"
And with her incredibly
powerful Diamond dust attack, Shiva freezes the mountain of thorny flowers
over, and chills Helba enough to send her back in the ballon where she came
from. *Victory Fanfare* As usual, Ai thanks Kaze once again for his help,
and Ai explains to Yu and Lisa about Pochepoke. To them, the rules of the
Inner World don't apply to them, so they'll surely find their parents, right
Kaze? Kaze? Ah, he ran off again... you need that guy on a leash, I swear...
Unfortunately for our
trio, they have no time to relax, because our chocobo, still trying to
recover from confusion, tells Yu that the subway is leaving RIGHT NOW!!!
... To be continued...
Bad points:
Another incredibly slow episode going nowhere fast. We know how Kaze's Demon
Gun works now. We don't need an entire episode devoted to Pochepoke. What we
want is more PLOT... or at least a developing one... for god sakes, you
could've done Pochepoke in two minutes, the Count's slowly developing
character in three, and we could've moved onto *SPOILER* the resistance
movement against the Count and the appearance of Cid *SPOILER END* in this
episode. Square, I hope you know what you're doing with this... your
audience is not stupid! We get the point! Let's get on with the REAL story
*cough*Omega*cough*!
Good points: Okay,
so I have to give it to you, Pochepoke is what Ai says it is, "scarily
cute". And Hungus is kinda funny... so there was more comic relief in this
episode, which is good, but it doesn't help the story go anywhere. CG is
good as always, and I must say that Soldats does a very good subbing with
the actual episode (now the Op and Ed songs, that's something left to be
desired...). And I will say this until I die or the series does... the
ending song is the greatest thing to grace this earth. Next to sliced bread.
No foolin'.
So how many more episodes
must Square torture us with before they actually get a plot going? I guess
it's like getting to the center of a tootsie roll pop... the world may never
know...
Kenji's Score: 5/10
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