So, just like last season, the season ends with us returning to Akihabara and outside forces threatening it. "The Geniuses", eh? Well, and we still need to see what Roe 2's letter to Shiroe says, and we seem to have forgotten about Crusty, but e still have the social gap to deal with. Busy times, but I suspect half the time, as always, will be spent on cakes ;-)
Thoughts and Notes:
Roe 2 told us she came from the moon, the moon where the adventurers go after dying. A creature born from his own psyche? A creature? No, a person.
Also, she said she's his little sister, but carrying his memories, she's more like his child, I'd say. Are children not to a degree imperfect (by design) clones of their parents, carrying their genes and memes?
Between Isaac-sama and Isaac-kun, the distance between people is very fine, and fragile. I also thought he meant it's Shiroe's job to look after Lenessia, but he meant Crusty. Too many glasses-wearers around.
The fiat value of money. If everyone believes something is valuable, then it is, because they're willing to pay. Gold has uses in electronics today, but that's basically how gold was handled for thousands of years. So someone who can claim how much things are worth? That's basically the central banks' position with regards to representational currency, but if you say something is worth other than it is, you basically screw up the system.
Empathions, eh? Now it's all getting back to the Plant Hwyaden portable shrines and that train's experiments.
That "monster". That feeling when Log Horizon is now Samurai Flamenco. The weirdly constructed enemies, the stationery weapons, the weird poses. Poor Kunie.
Akatsuki is suitably impressed by the femininity of her rival for Shiroe's heart, but that's Akatsuki.
So, Maihama power-leveled people of the land, which forced monsters to migrate, or the whole ecosystem to level up? Hm.
"Maybe we'll have tea while we wait for the vegetables to cool down." - Log Horizon had always been K-On! in disguise :P
You know, Nyanta is someone we really know nothing of, in terms of his real world past and position.
"I think I need to get better at being who I am." - Which could involve finding out who you are, or choosing a new you. What Nyanta phrased as "being reborn of your own will," and what this season has been about.
"I want to be the grown up version of me." - Which isn't necessarily being a better you. She wants to skip the growth period, and be someone Nyanta can accept, someone who can speak to Nyanta :P
"What would Kanami do?" - Just as Minori looks up to Shiroe, asking herself what he'll do, he too has someone he looks up to, and admires.
This tax will help those who can't make it work in this world, but it won't fix the core issue, of wanting to go home.
Shiroe knows their arrival changed this world, its balance. Which is weird, in a way, as the adventurers had always been part of Elder Tale, just not as invested.
Ooooh! Alternate characters! They exist now as well, but without the owner's personality and psyche within. Of course, I didn't even think of that!
"In this world, the laws of physics and the game's laws are all jumbled up." - Or in other world, the game's laws are as real as the laws of physics, it's as if someone could rewrite the laws of reality. So, if it's not a different world, nor is it a game world made real, what could it be? Except, well, magic, or just a dream, of sorts?
"Someone who isn't a person of the land (an NPC) or a player (PC), who can explain it." He's looking for the programmer, for the GM.
Empathion harvesters, so the geniuses, and perhaps Mizufa as well, are part of it all. Sounds almost Madoka Magica-esque, they bring forth emotions, and despair, and those who can feel them, in order to harvest them.
Hm, so it seems it's like cattle - you need your species to be beyond a certain sentience level to be treated as a peer, rather than merely cattle to be harvested.
"But I recommend researching a method of communicating with the moon." - Literally asking for the moon ;-) But hey, they'd help us return to Earth. But how can they help the players return to Earth when they don't even know how they got here? At least this confirms it's "another world", unless this too is part of a quest from within this game.
Post-Episode Thoughts:
I like and dislike the content of this episode. On one hand, if people are losing hope and can't be moved to action because they're literally sick from missing their own world, getting them money will not solve the root cause, but it will help them make it through, or not spiral even downward. But it's not as if all those who can't make it are in this position simply because they are homesick, there are still those who can't make it because the big guilds and craftsmen corner the market, and the prime hunting spots, and the tax will still help with them. Brushing it all onto "depression" is a bit uncalled for, a bit too libertarian. But at least it doesn't brush away depression.
It was nice, in this sense, that as people walked through town we kept seeing those sitting by the sidelines. The world marches on, and tensions, and the discontent, pile up. You can't simply ignore them, though that's what most of us do. Eventually, tensions boil over.
And here's the other part, Shiroe realizes something is fishy with this world, with this entire set up. They've finally been given a goal to strive for beyond existing in this world, a goal beyond this world, a return to their own. But is there any place to return to? And how can they be returned by those who don't really know where they are, or how they got there to begin with? He's clutching at straws, rather than thinking the situation through. This doesn't add up, not yet.
But hey, things are looking bad, and may as well try to go forward, and hope it's not another quest, or an even more insidious attempt to harvest them.
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