A buddy of mine back in high school once made a mix tape he called "Grinding Cuts" - basically a long series of excellent songs (from his very eclectic and non-mainstream collection) that by no means should ever be juxtaposed.

That happened in Brynhilder in the Darkness. At the end of the drug-stealing arc, they tried to bring the ship hard about into standard Harem territory, and damn near capsized the thing.

The harem of witches have relocated to the Observatory. Gothy Precog and Psychic Hacker are, for the moment, alone, while Not-Kuroneko and Our Hero are at school. Now, Psychic Hacker is one of those girls in anime who should be drawn with a permanent smirk, based on her attitude, and she's one of those hyper-capitalist types. The kind of girl who inflicts her own rules on you and steamrolls you into giving her what she wants. While these two are alone at the Observatory, Psychic Hacker basically wonders out loud in front of Gothy Precog what will happen if she tells Not-Kuroneko that she's not really paralyzed. Gothy Precog says she'll kill her, which gets a laugh. True or not? I dunno. If she's acting, she must be REALLY disciplined for not running out of the burning house.

Our Hero and Not-Kuroneko are coming back from school, and get caught in the rain, which has stopped by the time they get to the observatory. At which point, it is conveniently revealed that there IS a hot spring nearby, but, um, it's co-ed, so Our Hero modestly suggests they go one at a time.

Yes, it's Onsen Episode time already.

While Our Hero is taking his bath, Psychic Hacker lays her trap. Sitting on the edge of the spring, she gets him to turn around and get an eyeful. Or half eyeful, since her bounty is less than bounteous. Actually, with the way she's sitting, he gets the full show, but she "forgives" him that but insists that she's going to collect a "Boob Fee" for seeing her breasts. And like any anime hero in such a situation, he accepts this blackmail.

Shortly later he detects someone entering the spring, and thinking it's Psychic Hacker, he turns to give her a shove, or something, except it's actually Not-Kuroneko, and he ends up getting a double-handful of her double-handfuls. And again, like a typical anime hero, he gets all embarrassed and flustered and takes his time about letting go. And after excusing himself, he realizes that he failed to take advantage of this golden opportunity to see if she has those three distinctive moles.

Finally, it's bedtime. This surprisingly well-equipped love-nest observatory even has futons. And Psychic Hacker is setting up one for herself. Our Hero objects, and she says that letting her stay there is how he will pay back his "boob fee" (since her squat is being surveyed for the hyperspace bypass reservoir, she can't stay there).

She also improbably enrolls in the school as another transfer student.

Then even MORE improbably, a busty freshman transfers in, and immediately wants to join the astronomy club.

She's actually another witch, sent by the evil lab administrator to terminate the others. Which apparently she's going to take her own sweet time in doing.

We find this out during a meeting by the board of directors of the lab, who are not happy about all the escapees, and the drug theft, but he swears, this girl will help clean up the mess, because shes got an AA-PLUS rating (really, AAA is going to be saved for the final Boss, just you wait). We also get a count of the number of escapees, and the number killed, and number of ebola'd corpses found.

I suppose the onsen interlude was meant to give relief from the really heavy shit they've been laying down, but really, the Harem Hijinks do not suit the story. That is, unless they're going to stick with this course change, but I have my doubts. Frankly, I can't be sure WHAT they're trying to pull here.

Posted by: Mauser at 03:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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