While many parts of this episode work on paper, the show is finally past the point where it can keep getting away with being vague about the details for the sake of a slow narrative progression. I thought the first couple of minutes of this episode were fantastic, showcasing Sheena getting a firsthand account of what a lot of the returning students look like or go through after combat. While I think it would’ve hit harder if the show was a bit more graphic with Mimi putting herself back together in front of Sheena, her reaction to it just being tears while apologizing for burdening Mimi with the prospect of coming back in one piece worked really well. The two didn’t understand what the other person was feeling, but sometimes when you’re confronted with overwhelming amounts of trauma, you just need to cry.

I have to push back on Sheena’s words that she was being overly naïve. I don’t think that she was, or at the very least, I don’t think that’s consistent with how Sheena had been acting up until this point. As early as the first episode, Sheena was clearly letting the weight of everything terrible happening rest on her shoulders. The show literally starts with her roommate dying and Sheena feeling like she is worthless in this pointless war. Granted, it doesn’t seem like Sheena had ever been directly exposed to any violence outside of the training exercises…except for the time she lost her arm. I’m not saying she should be used to any of this; rather, naïve is the wrong thing for Sheena to say. The only thing that Sheena was naïve about was the idea that Mimi is invincible. While she can technically keep coming back, she still has to put herself back together physically, and it’s implied that Mimi still feels the pain; she’s just desensitized to it. The last episode set up the idea of Sheena trying to find a solution to both Mimi’s situation and the war itself, but this episode’s character writing goes backward to give her something to think about.

Speaking of the war, apparently things are getting so bad that even Mimi’s unstoppable might might not be enough to keep the opposing forces at bay. It looks like the school staff needs to start considering sending more kids out on the front line, but considering a lot of the upperclassmen who would be used to test the younger students are injured or dead, desperate times call for desperate measures. A practice match between Mimi and Lizzy is about to be set up, with the emotional weight of that confrontation as one of the main dramatic beats of this episode. It works well enough, but there is a little bit of disconnect. The teachers weren’t thinking much about the bond between Lizzy and Mimi being used as something that needed to be tested. It really came off like the adults just figured Mimi was the best person to test their students, given how capable she is. So that whole scene with Lizzy and Ali talking about the resolve to take down enemies without emotion feels weird. It’s a good scene in a vacuum, but it doesn’t match with other information that’s being delivered in this episode or previous ones. I think it would have helped if Mimi and Lizzy had shared any screen time before this point. I genuinely can’t remember a single conversation shared between these two.

The episode is consistent with the cast’s characterization, but it’s presented like a different person wrote every scene. None of this is helped by the fact that I still don’t know anything about this war or how much of the information setup is supposed to tie into anyone’s character. Lizzy finally goes into a little bit of detail about why she wants to prove herself: she feels she owes the school for saving her as an orphan. It looks like all the students here are orphans who were saved either during the war or in the fallout from the last one. However, this school is not a good place; this is indoctrination.

There’s not much to talk about whether the kids have a choice in the matter or if everyone is just expected to go along with this because that’s the way war is. This episode was supposed to build on a lot of ideas, but it ended up a little disjointed. I am looking forward to the match between Mimi and Lizzy, but I don’t know what emotional weight it carries or what the ideal outcome between them is supposed to be. The suspense in this episode could work well if it were better written. But right now, all I feel is confusion.

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Bolts also streams regularly on Twitch as the indie VtuberBolts The Mechanic where they talk about and play retro media!

I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day is currently streaming on
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