Happy Friday, fellow anime enthusiasts! While there are other series I could talk about besides Wonder Egg Priority I’m gonna be honest, this is just gonna be about Wonder Egg Priority and its … conclusion?
All right I’ll spare you the suspense, it’s getting a special episode in June, so this is the finale … for now, assuming the special picks up where this leaves off.
(I hope the special is as long as the frickin’ Synder Cut at this point)
The other two series I watched (the early premiere of MARS RED and the Heaven’s Design Team special) will be talked about next week, for now, I gotta focus on that last episode of Wonder Egg because WTF now stands for Wonder The F*ck?!
CW: Suicide (Drowning). Hinted Drug Overdose.
Well.
This is NOT what I expected.
Before we get to the last egg that Ai breaks, we see a conversation between her and the other girls. We finally get to see how Momoe and Rika are doing after beating the game and, well, let’s just say they aren’t in the best of moods. Even the camera view is from a distance, giving us a feeling of the girls not being as united as they usually are.
Rika is high key PISSED because Mannen was killed, and even turns her anger toward Momoe for not warning them. Momoe was a bit traumatized about the whole thing, though, which is extremely understandable.
When asked why she didn’t contact them, Momoe actually refuses and instead admits to wishing that she never got mixed up in all of this. Again, this is a valid reaction to, um, being force-fed your guardian animal by a bizarre butterfly school girl. What really stings is Momoe asking Ai why she had to call out to her, as if all of the girls coming together is what triggered things to get this bad. I suppose you can kinda say it did since, initially, they were all fighting alone, and as they got stronger together two of them ended up reaching the end which was not at all what they’d hoped it would be.
It’s interesting how Momoe says it, though, going so far as to say that she didn’t have a choice in being involved THEN asking Ai why she called out to her. Does Ai have a stronger part in this than we think?
Momoe clearly has no intention of ever going back, but Rika’s out for blood and wants to avenge Mannen. Also, there’s still no word on if Haruka and Chiemi are back to life or not, or if that was even possible.
I like that the girls have very different reactions to what’s going on, and the reactions fit who they are as characters. Of course, Rika would want to avenge Mannen, especially when she came to the realization that she was Mannen’s mother-like figure. Momoe’s just emotionally done, which makes sense to me because when she finally got the validation she needed everything, frankly, turned to shit.
Neiru and Ai leave together, with Ai returning to the dream world. But Ai doesn’t want to fight, doesn’t want to call on Leon, and doesn’t want to break the egg. Acca, however, is as straight-forward as ever and reveals that he can call on Leon himself since Leon was created by the Accas. This might be the most egregious showing of the Accas dismissing the girls’ feelings and kinda hammers home the point I made last week about them constantly doing what they THINK is best without actually listening to what these girls want.
Ai eventually breaks the egg and discovers that she has to protect … herself.
Um.
What the fuc-
Okay, here’s a thread to breakdown what’s happening:
Wonder Egg Priority, Ep 12: An Unvanquished Warrior, a dissection into paralleling stories.
This ep was by far the most visually confusing at points for obvious reasons, but also by far the most telling to Ai’s character and what’s come of her story, and what Could’ve been. pic.twitter.com/RX6jaqHIiC
— Starisa: Neiru Nation (@CapnStarisa) March 31, 2021
And another one:
Wonder Egg Priority episode 12 was phenomenal and I absolutely adored it! This was everything I love about the show packed into a single episode!
Y’all know what time it is! Here’s a thread that contains some of the visual observations I made as well as my usual ramblings! pic.twitter.com/2kPJCS2xp3
— RecklessPeggy (@RecklessPeggy) March 31, 2021
First thing’s first, I’m gonna refer to the Ai that we’ve known throughout the series as Our Ai and parallel universe Ai as Other Ai. Cool? Cool. Here’s my messy attempt to make sense of things.
Our Ai meets another version of herself, one from a parallel universe, it seems, where Ai actually killed herself.
First question: Are the Accas doing this on purpose to push Ai into the direction they want her to go in since, in the end, she says she’ll become a Warrior of Eros?
Second question: Have the other girls ever run into parallel versions of themselves? Or has Ai run into parallel versions of them?
Third question: How many Warriors of Eros are there? Just thinking about how in the first episode (that I rewatched since it’s dubbed now) the first girl Ai saves (Kurumi) is very much aware of the situation. Initially, I thought “ah, this is the tutorial” but now that we’ve been presented with parallel universes, that stands to reason that there are other versions of the other girls, and potentially girls who just KNOW how this all works so they can educate newcomers.
Outside of the whole parallel universe thing, this is a chance for Our Ai to see what could’ve been, especially when we find out later that Our Ai tried to kill herself (more on this later). Our Ai gets to see how far she’s come as a person, because once upon a time this Other Ai was her. It’s more than just “in an alternate timeline, you died” it’s “here’s what would’ve happened had you gone through with it.” This Other Ai had no friends and felt she had no one to talk to, which is how we’ve seen Our Ai in flashbacks before she met Koito.
As the two talk, Our Ai reveals that she really is happy now because she has friends. This has been being built up throughout the series, as Ai’s been the one to want to build friendships with the other girls, even the ones trapped in eggs. Neiru’s commented on how Ai has been trusting to a fault for the sake of a friendship (early episodes with Rika), and we’ve seen how sad Ai was when the girl she rescued from an egg disappeared. That sadness started to peter out as she got closer to the other three in real life.
Other Ai’s Wonder Killer ends up being Mr. Sawaki, who is much more violent and hostile than the Sawaki we’ve seen in the series. Ironically, this is what I’ve assumed he’s secretly been like the entire time, and his Wonder Killer self even comments on how no one knows he’s sinister because he’s so handsome. Our Ai attests that this isn’t her version of Sawaki, and it must be a testament to the show because I STILL think her version of Sawaki is hiding something.
I dunno, him painting an adult version of her still doesn’t sit well with me, even if I get that it’s showing how she has to stop being afraid of the adult world and growing up, a realization she has in this episode.
One of the most distressing things in this episode is seeing how Other Ai killed herself (there’s a pack of pills on a bench by the pool, then we see her drown herself). This is extra upsetting because we find out how close Our Ai came to doing the exact same thing.
It’s not just the part about seeing Our Ai in the pool and being pulled out by Koito, but the follow-up, which shows both girls going to the school roof to, presumably, jump together.
This truly shows how bad of a place Our Ai was in. Throughout the series, I thought that Ai felt guilty about Koito dying because she wasn’t there for her, as demonstrated when she was supposed to get footage of her bullying and failed to do so. I wasn’t prepared to see that she was supposed to jump with her (at least, that’s my interpretation of the scene, especially as she realizes she has at least one person to live for – her mother – and lets go of Koito’s hand).
During this scene, Wonder Killer Sawaki (who is in his regular human form, not the floating head) talks about love. Ai reveals that she felt that adult love was dirty, with Sawaki talking about how her love for him was pure, unsullied, similar to Koito’s love. He brings up the idea of her killing herself so she would never become an adult and reach the point where love became dirty. Of course, this is a complete contrast of the real Sawaki telling her that she’ll be a beautiful adult, and interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard someone say that you should die now before reaching adulthood.
Neiru was also told this back in Episode 5 when she rescued Aoi, who she actually had to attack in order to defeat the Wonder Killer.
We see Our Ai come to terms with everything, having actually decided to support her mother’s relationship with Mr. Sawaki. Actually, Our Ai makes a lot of revelations about herself in this episode, a big one being how she actually didn’t know Koito at all and how Koito, honestly, could’ve been anyone. Koito was someone who saved her, but truth be told, she knew nothing about her. Looking back, Koito did, rather quickly, establish a friendship with Ai, going so far as to go to her house the same day they met, go to her room, lay in her bed, hug her, and say they should be friends.
Outside of that, the only way we really saw Koito was when she was nonchalant about her bullies and spending time with Mr. Sawaki. Initially, it looked like she may have been shrugging off her harassers, but after this episode, it’s clear it got to her more than she let on.
It’s sad how calm she was about the idea of going to the roof with Ai and jumping, complete with whimsical music.
Back then, Ai didn’t really talk to Koito. Any chance that she could’ve, like when she saw her crying in Mr. Sawaki’s office, she ran away. It’s vastly different than the way Ai is now. Ai, as she is now, takes the time to ask her friends what’s going on, or even goes to check on them (ie: when she went after Rika, who was upset on her birthday, how she went to the hospital to check on Neiru, and how she expressed concern over Momoe after her failed date). Ironically, I’m realizing that whenever Ai would express concern in the dream world, one of the Accas would tell her to focus on herself and not stress so much about the others.
I’ve always been bothered by how the girls are constantly separated, only fighting in the world together once, by accident. They obviously enter the world together and even leave together, but they’re always fighting on their own.
Back to the fight against Sawaki. Our Ai manages to beat him in a similar fashion to the way she defeated the very first Wonder Kill – which actually didn’t have a giant monster form.
The two Ai’s celebrate, and at one point, embrace each other and exchange high fives, which I feel is a good showing of Our Ai coming to terms with who she is now and who she used to be. Our Ai even says that she’ll become a Warrior of Eros, the Other Ai saying how she wants to be as strong as Our Ai, which gets a cute moment of Our Ai reminding her that they are the same person.
As to be expected, since Our Ai has come to terms with herself, Koito is brought back to life (presumably). Also, another one of Frill’s creations shows up. This one is Kirara Rodriguez Matured XVIII Evening Star SS Plum. Um … interpret that name as you will. Instead of Our Ai losing Leon, the Other Ai protects her, losing her eye in the process. This means that Our Ai still has Leon, but it’s unclear what will happen next.
It’s also unclear what the Accas are going to do and WTF Neiru is up to. We see Neiru watching with the Accas as Rika tries to get back into the world. They won’t let her in, though, because her anger would be attractive to Frill.
What is the deal with Neiru?
Why is she hanging out with the Accas?
We’ve never seen the little sister she’s supposedly trying to save.
She knew that the Accas were the founders of the Japanese branch of Plati.
She was born from a laboratory through Plati, too, and we know that the Accas started this whole mess by making Frill.
I have, checks notes, FOUR theories: 1) the Accas made Neiru, 2) Frill made Neiru, similar to how she made Hyphen, Dot, and Kirara, just no bizarre head this time, 3) Neiru IS Frill, after all, her hair is quite frilly now that it’s no longer in that braid, or 4) Neiru is Himari, who the Accas suspect was killed by Frill, which would fit the narrative of Neiru being stabbed by her sister. It would also fit the fact that the first time we see Neiru saving a girl, that girl tells her that she should just die and stay young forever.
Frill’s life technically started at her being a young girl, and it stayed that way.
Also, throw in the fact that this episode showed us a parallel universe version of one of our girls (Ai), then maybe Neiru is a parallel universe of someone. Neiru also admitted that the pain she feels from the scar on her back fades away when she buys eggs, so she’s trying to “save her sister” more for herself than anything else, because the scar aches when she tries to forget about her sister.
I dunno, it’s just suspicious that at the end of the series we’ve yet to see Neiru’s sister, yet we’ve seen all of the people our other three girls were trying to save.
I could be wrong.
I probably am wrong.
There are so many ways to interpret what’s happening and there won’t be any concrete answers until the special episode comes out—I’m guessing?
For now, PHEW, that was one hard egg to attempt to crack. It’s still very perplexing to me but has been an enjoyable wild ride. Honestly, stepping away from the series to process it and come back to it in June isn’t a terrible idea, though I will say, I did watch both episodes of the dub and have caught things I didn’t catch during my first watch.
Thanks for sticking with me during my Wonder Egg ramblings! See everyone on Monday for the Weekend Anime Round-Up, which will have the finale of SK8 the Infinity and Horimiya, two series that probably won’t leave me feeling so … scrambled.
Get it? It’s an egg pun!
I’ll see myself out.
(Image: Funimation)
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