Angelic Layer Episode 19!
I’ve already watched this series plenty of times, so there will be no surprises for me, but this will be my first time reviewing the whole series episode by episode. And I’m sure there will be some fine details that I’ve forgotten or never noticed in the first place. It has been a few years since I’ve seen this anime, so maybe it will be a little different from what I remember.
A quick run down of the series. This is a slightly futuristic anime by Clamp, the creators of Card Captor Sakura, XXXHolic, and Magic Knight Ray Earth. The story begins with a country bumpkin moving to the big city to go to middle school. The main character sees a robot fight on TV and immediately becomes a fan and buys her own robot to join the battle competitions too. So, this is a fighting robot anime like Metabots or Gundam Build Fighters, only with a Clamp flare.
Last Time on Angelic Layer!
Last time on Angelic Layer, tall ships, tall girls, and Misaki accused of telling tale tales! Misaki accidentally gets in the way of a tall girl with a crush, getting on her opponent’s nerves for being so darn cute. And if the drama of angsty teens in love wasn’t hard enough to navigate, there’s a storm brewing outside the arena that is messing with the electricity for the tournament. As the storm rages on, the terrain projection for the games keeps breaking down. Ichon and his crew of developers has to work fast to keep the matches on track. Thankfully, in the end both Misaki and Ichon win their struggles and even the tall girl with a crush has a happy ending!
Episode 19!
This episode was actually pretty lighthearted and fun. The episode starts with Misaki being announced as the opponent for an exhibition match. In which a Angelic Layer competitor is supposed to fight against the developers of Angelic Layer and the latest addition of the Angelic Layer doll that would be release later that year. It’s like a product demo and a match in one.
Needless to say, Misaki is very surprised that she’s chosen to fight in that match. As Misaki is talking to her friends about the surprise match, they notice that Hatoko doesn’t seem to be her self. She seems distant, she can’t seem to keep up with the conversation, and is weirdly quiet. Hatoko’s older brother Kotaro is worried and asks if she’s okay, but Hatoko insists she’s fine.
In the next scene, Ichon is outside the arena in a park with Misaki’s mom Shuko. Ichon mentions that Misaki will be fighting the new prototype that they had been working on, and kind of awkward/casually asks Shuko, if it was Ichon versus Misaki, who would she root for? She doesn’t have time to answer because Ichon’s research assistant interrupts them, asking Ichon to return to the observation center for the next match.
Back at the tournament, the match between the developers and Misaki is about to begin, but Hatoko seems to be more and more sluggish. And then, just as Hatoko is insisting that she’s fine one more time, she collapses! Hatoko is running a bad fever and needs to be taken to the hospital stat! Someone needs to step in as Misaki’s second, and Ojiro volunteers. Kotaro doesn’t like leaving Misaki in the very handsome clutches of the princely Ojiro, but his little sister needs him, so Kotaro leaves to the hospital with Hatoko.
Mr. Ichon sees his little brother stepping in as Misaki’s second and he just can’t stand by, so he steps in as the new second for the development researcher that is presenting the new Angel doll for the demo match.
There were actually quite a few moments of the match that were pretty funny. Ichon, seeing Misaki’s impressive entrance into the layer, ordered his researcher subordinate to also have a flashy entrance. Not surprisingly for the developer, he just said the string of numbers that was the prototype model and “Go, go, go!”. In the start of the match, the new Angel seemed to be doing really well. Misaki couldn’t manage to land a good hit, and the new Angel could dodge very easily. Though his team was winning, Ichon looked to be weirdly angry and growling at his fellow researcher. And when Misaki turned it around and started fighting back, Ichon was strangely relieved. Hmm, gee, I wonder who he was really rooting for?
Of course, Misaki was really shocked to find out that not only was Mr. Ichon an Angelic Layer researcher, he was considered the “Father of Angelic Layer”. Though Misaki had so many distractions, with Hatoko sick in the hospital and the big Mr. Ichon reveal, she still managed to win. After the match, Misaki chased after Ichon, and had my favorite scene of the whole episode. Once again Ichon gave us a perfect Dad Moment. He patted Misaki on the head and said, “You squashed me! Good work!”. That just put a smile on my face.
It ends up that the reason Ichon had stepped in as the development team’s second was because he had actually wanted to be Misaki’s second, but his little brother Ojiro got there first. So Ichon decided he needed to give his little brother a hard time. Lol!
#angelicLayer #anime #clampAnime #Japan #JapaneseCulture #robotAnime #sciFiAnime #shojoAnime






















