The Rolling Girls

Episode 9

Today's Rolling Girls was a performance that clearly could have used a few more rehearsals. The show can handle “giddy setpieces” - it's demonstrated that through the finales of each of its arcs. It can scramble together enough gags to be funny, and it can occasionally ride on the visual appeal of its backgrounds and animation. But this week's episode leaned entirely on the personalities and relationships of the main girls, and if you want to make a slow-paced, character-focused episode land, you have to do your characterization homework.

We started off this week by introducing the variables of the current city, Hiroshima. Hiroshima was once protected by the “chivalrous vigilante squad" Noyotake Moonlight, but their house disintegrated over time, and now the district is ruled by the pirate Shima Ishizukuri and her Ishukuzuri Stones. Shima isn't content just to rule Hiroshima, though - as the episode makes clear through scattered scenes throughout, she's planning to gather all the moonlight stones, and central to this plan is her scheme to steal all of Chiaya's mother's stones right out from under her.

That was all background noise to the real meat of this episode, though. Our actual focus here was the breakdown of The Rolling Girls group, as Nozomi finally decided she was sick of Ai's attitude, Ai decided she was sick of Nozomi's attitude, and the whole group shattered into messy splinters. I could definitely understand the reasons why both Ai and Nozomi would be fed up with the other - Ai is exactly that kind of selfish and abrasive that slowly scratches at your nerves over time, and Nozomi's pedantic desire to Do the Right Thing and resolve disputes without resorting to artificial power could easily come across as obnoxious to people being carried along for the ride. What I couldn't buy was the idea that this breakup really meant anything to either of them, or should have meant anything to me. These characters just haven't had really meaningful moments together - though the girls have spent a good six episodes in each others' proximity, that's virtually never required compromise, or teamwork, or personal reflection, or any of the stuff that might build relationships I'm invested in as a viewer. The fact that The Rolling Girls have largely been bystanders within their own show means that when the show decides it's time to focus on them, the drama doesn't really have any weight.

The Chiaya material here was fortunately somewhat better, though it still suffered from Chiaya largely being an incidental character up until now. Her and Nozomi are easily the most thoroughly explored, though, and this episode's revelations about her childhood and identity fell perfectly in line with her actions all throughout the series. Hearing she's an alien wasn't really that surprising - she's turned into some kind of octopus-creature a few times now, and her mother's behavior has made it clear she's somehow linked to the stones. And in the context of her lonely childhood, the idea that she'd run off to make sure Ai was okay made perfect sense. I'm still not really invested in her story, but all the pieces check out.

All in all, this was definitely a disappointing turn to personal drama for The Rolling Girls. The pacing was awkward and structure somewhat haphazard, there were no dramatic or visual setpieces to lighten the load, and the whole thing leaned on an emotional weight the show has heretofore refused to earn. I would have liked to be watching the show this episode assumed Rolling Girls is, but so far the show has been much too breezy to support material like this. Here's to hoping the excitement picks back up next week.

Rating: C+

The Rolling Girls is currently streaming on Funimation.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.