KILL la KILL- 08 (Time to hang out with one of the antagonists.)

キルラキル ep. 08
KILL la KILL SPOILER Review

Synopsis:

Satsuki announces that the natural elections for Student Council are on, as the students have seven days in which to fight by any means and prove themselves. At the end of seven days the survivors will return to the school for a sudden death runoff election. Satsuki seals herself off to spare her from attack while the battles rage below. The Elite Four decide they'll have a week of free time since they can easily defeat any attack. As the battles rage, Ryuuko borrows Mako's father's scooter, where she and Mako head to the ruins of Ryuuko's old mansion. Ryuuko explains how she'd been sent away, became a delinquent, then returned to find her dying father, whereupon she found purpose in trying to find her father's killer. Finding no other clues in the ruins, Ryuuko and Mako head back, but run out of gas and are picked up by Ira, who says his duty is to help students off campus.

During the ride home, Ira comes under attack by a newly formed auto club. Initially he tries to escape, but gets in a spin out and crashes. Ryuuko is going to help with the fight, but Ira stops her, taking on the challenge himself and defends her. Taking cover in Ira's shot up car, Ryuuko, Senketsu, and Mako witness Ira perform not only two transformations with his 3-star Goku uniform, whereupon he defeats everyone. He is reminded of when he was a junior high student council president trying to help the weak, and is helped by Satsuki, who reveals how she is different from the normal punks in charge of things. Ira delivers Ryuuko and Mako safely home, promising to fight Ryuuko on day seven. That day comes, so when Satsuki's runoff means the first five who get to the top of newly emerged towers are it, the Elite Four plus Ryuuko are top dogs. The Elite Four petition to have one-on-one battles with Ryuuko, which Satsuki agrees to. Ryuuko's first opponent is Ira.

Thoughts/Review:

The thing about KILL la KILL is that I never really know just what nuttiness is going to happen, something I mentioned in another way last week. This week was no exception to that.

It was rather amusing to me how the Elite Four considered Satsuki's seven days of fighting to be a week off. However, as witnessed by Uzu casually knocking a 1-star student back as the foursome took a stroll. No wonder their only real concern, as expressed by Nonon, was to not to forget to get back in time.

This week also gave us a good reason for Mako and her family to return to the slums last week. With the battles going on, as a no-star student, Mako wasn't in any danger, providing she didn't go attacking others.

The big surprise was how Ira honorably protected Ryuuko and Mako, even though his personal desire is to remove Ryuuko as a threat to his beloved Satsuki-sama. The fact that his Goku uniform transforms and shows him to be a masochistic was wrong, but funny. It also gives Ryuuko a means of seeing Ira in action prior to facing him.

As with Uzu, Ira got a flashback to when he first encountered Satsuki. He was an honorable guy back then, but powerless to save a boy from being forced to jump off a building because he did some tiny thing that the punks who's parents were people of influence in the town (including a police chief) were offended by. Their personally being offended by something trumps all else, and the offender MUST pay or else.

Satsuki comes off pretty cool here. When she saves the boy's life, but reveals how she now has power over the punks (taking over the one punk's father's business; making sure the police chief was accused of bribery), Ira wants to know how she's different from the punks. Her response was that she doesn't hide behind her parent's power, but she uses not only their power, but every other power she can get her hands on, then she controls that power.  She still remains the most fascinating character in the show.

Next week starts the Ryuuko vs Elite Four in one-on-one battles. We'll see how Trigger keeps things from just simply being Ryuuko defeats monster of the week.

In the end, a rather enjoyable episode.