Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
I am of two minds about “Preparing for Battle -Orpheus-,” takt op.Destiny‘s penultimate episode. (Which, I am covering here way late, I realize. The finale airs tomorrow!)
On the one hand, it’s conceptually pretty straightforward. Sagan’s machinations have led to a massive crystal erupting inside, and taking over, the Symphonica building.
I have taken the liberty of not posting a screencap of the bit immediately after this where he graphically impales his hand on that crystal. You’re welcome.
This has spawned a huge swarm of aggressive, powerful D2s, right in the heart of New York. Naturally, Takt and Destiny–battered though they are from last episode’s events–set out to defeat him. Along the way they aim to rescue Anna and Lotte, who are trapped inside.
For the most part, this is setup for your traditional heroes-storm-the-villains’-lair sort of sequence. It largely works pretty well. Both Titan and Destiny get to show off their fighting chops a bit here, and we get some cameos from a handful of Musicarts who presumably will be more important in the gacha game that it’s easy to forget takt op.Destiny is meant to promote.
Walkure also makes her triumphant return, getting a brief moment of shine that, while it’s nothing compared to Titan’s star turn in episode 10, is still pretty good. And it’s nice to see that the show hasn’t completely forgotten about her.
But there are a few…just odd decisions here. Were I the type to be overly concerned about endings they might make me slightly worried for the finale. As is, I think they mostly just drag episode 11 down to somewhere in the middle as far as my personal rankings for the series go.
Let’s talk about Walkure first. While seeing her here again is lovely, she’s roundly dismissed by all of the other characters as an even marginally important player here. At one point, she mouths off to Takt and Titan promptly conks her on the head and knocks her out. It’s presumably supposed to be funny, given how it’s framed, but it just leaves a strange taste in the mouth.
Later there’s another sincere emotional moment for Takt–not unlike the one he had last episode–where he elucidates why he, even with his rapidly failing health and with the very real risk of death present, is determined to stop Sagan.
This is sincere and affecting stuff, but it’s abruptly, jarringly interrupted when Anna kisses him on the mouth. There are quite a few reasons this is just flat-out weird; it interrupts Anna’s own sincere emotional moment, blunting its impact, there’s the fact that Anna has always been implied to be a well bit older than Takt, and there’s the fact that just last episode Anna was trying to covertly pair up Takt with Destiny. Destiny, who mind you, has made it very clear that she considers Anna something of an older sister. Again, this seems like it’s supposed to be funny, because it’s referenced later and Takt can only stutter and fluster in response when it’s brought up. But it’s so wildly out of place here that it just interrupts the episode’s flow in a notably strange way.
On top of that; early on in the episode there’s a strange mention–not touched on again at any point here–of possibly cryo-freezing Takt and Destiny to find a cure for their condition. This is brought up before everything at the Symphonica goes to Hell, so who knows if it’ll come up again later. But that kind of sci-fi wizardry is a little outside the show’s aesthetic wheelhouse, so it feels a bit off.
And then we come to the episode’s closing scene, which contains easily the biggest humdinger of them all. I will describe this event to you in as plain language as possible, because while it is admittedly pretty cool, it’s also very weird.
Destiny and Takt come upon Hell, who is carrying Heaven. Both of them have a somewhat, how would I put this? Stoned, almost? Look on their face. Our heroes bravely attempt to confront them. At which point, they smirk at each other, and Heaven…releases/conjures/it’s not totally clear from the animation, a tuning fork. Which promptly impales both of them. They then dissolve into a puddle of black sludge, out of which rise a handful of small black prisms dotted with missile launchers, which promptly kill all of the D2s in the room. Then, the sludge coalesces into a new Musicart, presumably a fusion of the two, who introduces herself as Orpheus. Roll credits.
In a word: Huh?
In slightly more words: WTF cannons like this are a thing that single-cour anime love to whip out to throw a wrench into viewer expectations, but this is one of the odder forms I’ve seen the convention take. If nothing else; it’s certainly interesting. (And Orpheus has a pretty cool design, which helps.)
To be frank, I think further speculation on my part would be a bit pointless. What will takt op give us in its final performance tomorrow? I hope you’ll meet me back here when the time comes to find out.
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