- Genre : Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life
- Studio: Pierrot
This morning, a post I had written some time ago about WordPress layouts and blog design published. Consequently I just spent the last couple of hours going through the available WP themes once again instead of writing this post. I’m liking Independent Publisher, Rosalie, Olsen and Gateway…. I really should take these Winter Games, a little more seriously if I don’t want to end up dead last. Didi is nice too.
Obviously last week was a mere reprieve, probably a fantasy sequence happening in poor Hase’s mind as he grapples with the impossibility of the situation. The show is getting bolder in its portrayal of the Prez’s malice and insidiousness and this week’s episode showed us just how heavily it’s wearing on all the boys as Yu’s grasp on reality dramatically unraveled throughout the episode.
Hase’s uncontrolled tailspin towards complete breakdown is continuing unimpeded and el Presidente is doing everything he can to speed the process along. After whisking everyone away to a private beach where no one can hear them scream, apparently so last minute that they didn’t even have time to cancel previous plans, Pres once again imposed his authority by alienating Hase from his friends and even making him hang up on them.
As any ruthless leader will tell you, they are only truly broken once they do it out of their own free will, a simple stern gaze from the prez is now enough for Has to shut out everyone previously in his life or even make Shu physically assault his oldest and dearest friend Yu. It seems the Pres has assembled all the pieces and he is now going to make them fall one by one.
Hase is the most obvious. He is becoming forgetful, he can longer seem to form coherent thought patters and is more and more reliant on other for even the simplest tasks, such as going to the bathroom. Shu is harder to read but seems wracked by erratic mood swings and Ryo has retreated into a fantasy world, completely divorced from reality as he spouts incomprehensible fiction such as: No one in England is scared of ghosts, seemingly convinced of its veracity.
But the episode concentrated mostly on Yu’s grim decent as he was no match for the President’s tricks. After quite literally alienating the boys, the Prez once again took to the cult leader’s textbook and put them all through grueling physical and mental indoctrination rituals. Using the pretense of a fun beach time interlude, he first made sure to keep the boys completely exhausted and weakened.
Putting the responsibility of feeding everyone completely on Yu’s shoulders he then sat back and waited to be served, cementing his perceived authority in the minds of everyone present. Between the decent amount of screen time devoted to food preparation and eating, the cutesy fear of the dark and the characters clingyness to each other, I almost thought I was watching another show for a second there.
The Prez is also obviously setting up some type of gas-lightning, as he made the boys recite nonsense phrases until their grasp of normalcy could no longer be relied on, imposed a ridiculous schedule to disrupt their internal clocks and affect their light and sleep cycles and mocked their physical appearances to grind down their self esteems.
How can you possibly blame Yu for finally cracking. He manage to get a hold of himself after his violent knife wielding episode but his mind is clearly gone. He’s regressed to early childhood exploration, trying to undress people around him, like some infants do when they first start to grasp the realities of a physical body. He also randomly retreats into himself, seemingly becoming completely emotionless all at once and scribbling down pages upon pages of inane observations in a notebook.
From the symptomatology, it would appear as though Yu has had a serious psychotic break. Possibly even a schizophrenic episode. Under normal circumstances, his friends would have naturally made sure that he received the treatment he needs, but as they are all under the President’s sway, they have deluded themselves into ignoring his condition for the moment.
If you really reach to the very tips of your fingers, you could almost see some type of dim commentary about the way we treat mental illness in modern societies but that’s probably just me projecting. Mostly this is a chilling deadpan illustration of a maniacal villain slowly corrupting a few weak willed and lonely boys.
I’m not sure my frayed nerves can take much more of this suspense.
Predictions:
So far all the kidnappings and murders have been offscreen. I have this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that Hase’s friends have been “missing” for days and that cellphone wasn’t even on…
Plot: Ryo’s will be told he needs to move away
Character: The Pres will offer sage advice (although WE know there is an insidious intent behind it)
I don’t know if Astral Gemini, Leap and TPAB, are fans of the horror genre. I hope they can still sleep at night. I’m a well documented coward, so I’m rather used to living in abject terror. It’s not that nothing scares me it’s that I was scared anyways. But this is heavy, guys!
Unless you guys actually dislike the galleries, I think I’ll keep adding them. It really doesn’t add any extra work for me at all but let me know if you would prefer I post them as full size pics or the gallery format is good? You can always click on a pic to get the full size anyways. The desperation in Yu’s eyes in that first pic is downright haunting….
