Anime Thoughts... Wonder Egg Priority Episode 4: Colorful Girls

Hey there. This is the first post of a new series that you'll find on Metallman's Reverie... Anime Thoughts... You see, I watch a lot of anime. As a matter of fact, I named a few days of the week by the anime that is scheduled to come out that day. Like... Tuesday is Wonder Egg Priority day. Wednesday? Re: Zero day. Sunday? Attack on Titan day. And there are a lot more. But anyways, I figure that writing a post on what I just watched would be a good idea. Now... because I am writing about about the latest episode, there will be spoilers. If you haven't watched the episode that I am about to write about, go watch it and then come back here because I am going to write as if my audience has already watched the episode. I'll mention a topic and then I"ll give me thoughts. So first up, the anime series Wonder Egg Priority Episode 4. Let's dig right in.

Thoughts on Molestation...

Wow... right off the bat, the episode starts with the newly introduced character, Momo, hearing the trauma that her egg experienced of being molested by a business man on a daily basis. How this business man was her father's boss. How, one day, she gathered the courage and stood up the man, yelled for help, and was rescued. How that incident cost her dad his job... How her mother asked her why, "she couldn't just put with it." It's a devastating situation and Wonder Egg didn't pull any punches in letting us know just how much this damaged the girl, leading to her eventual suicide.

Wonder Egg Priority deals with some pretty heavy themes and our main characters dive head first into battling these trauma filled situations while they, themselves, are dealing with their own traumatic experiences and, even though, the series has already gone through episodes dealing with bullying, obsession, and abuse, episode 4, Colorful Girls, felt the heaviest. The trauma of molestation manifested itself as a gross/deranged business man, taunting and verbally abusing the egg, while Momo tries to defeat the trauma. This part was especially hard to watch. The trauma verbally abusing the egg with statements like, "You want me to touch you! Adults can tell!", and, "You're a perverted brat who loves being touched." It was sickening. And then, to have the egg seemingly cave in to the trauma takes it another level. The egg has been through enough crap and to see her walk towards the trauma, giving up, is unsettling. I don't want this. I don't want her to give up! Fortunately, it was a ruse put on by the egg in order to bring down the trauma and free the egg. 

You have to applaud the show for not making light of molestation. It's heavy, it's disgusting, it's revolting, and that's exactly how the trauma manifested itself to Momo. And even though the time was short with this egg, it leaves a lasting impression.

Thoughts on the, "Egg World"...

Now... these egg worlds are odd, right? What exactly are they? Is it a dream world? Purgatory? Another dimension? While Momo was dealing the trauma of molestation in her egg world, we got to see how Ai and Rika dealt with the idol obsessed, cult-like suicide trauma in Rika's egg world. There's a couple of interesting things that came to light regarding this Egg World. First, Rika was petrified in the last episode. Like, literally, turned to stone, and yet, after some time, she came back unharmed and ready to battle on, while letting Ai know that they are immortal in this world. This raises the question of how this immortality works since Neiru was hospitalized after battling for her egg and Ai had a stab wound, dealt in her egg world, manifest itself in the real world in episode one. What initiates the immortality and how can our main cast of girls use this in future battles?

Also, it seems that the egg worlds are sort of personal purgatory, unique to each of the girl's personal trauma. Ai's world is the school, I don't believe we've seen Neiru's yet, Rika's is out somewhere with a flower patch and with trees nearby, and if the pattern continues, Momo's is going to some sort of train station or train yard. The reason I believe this is because the statue of the person the girls are fighting for is stationed at those respective locations. It is weird calling it purgatory, though, since our main cast of girls are not dead... at least I don't think they are. Maybe the eggs are the determining factor as to where the battles take place? This might be more likely since both of Ai's eggs were students, dealing with trauma centered around the school. Hopefully we'll get more answers on this in the coming episodes.

Thoughts on the Idea of Purgatory...

Now, the idea of suicide and purgatory are heavy. Many beliefs across the world believe that if you commit suicide, you will be stuck in purgatory without a means to get into heaven or hell. What if the eggs that the girls are rescuing are the souls of those who committed suicide? What if Ai, Rika, Neiru, and Momo are their final chance in getting to overcome their trauma and be allowed to pass on? This has some credibility since the eggs seem to disappear shortly after they exercise their trauma. And if that is the case, what does that mean for the souls that our main cast is fighting for? At the moment, those souls are statues that seem to be slowly coming to life with each egg that is saved. Will they get to turn into an egg and have a chance to be saved? So many questions!!!

Thoughts on the Ideal of Men vs. Women...

Oof... now this one is a little touchy. Mid way through the episode, these 2 guys that I'll call, The Egg Keepers, mentioned that men are object driven and women are emotionally driven so that the worlds are not the same. I had a little bit of an issue with this. Men and women may be different on the outside, but wouldn't our souls be the same? Wouldn't our pain and trauma be the same? Molestation is molestation, bullying is bullying, etc., etc., and whether the victim is man or woman shouldn't have to matter. There has to be an angle that the show is playing here. I don't think that the show would make mention of gender making a difference unless they show plans on using it as some sort of plot device later in the story. Speaking of gender...

Thoughts on Momo...

I've watched enough anime to recognize that Momo is a girl when she popped up on the screen (hint: 90% of the time, female characters have some sort of feminine eyelashes while guys don't), but her egg thought she was a guy. As a matter of fact, you see in the brief flashback scenes, and during egg rescues, that many girls latched on to Momo thinking she was a guy. Momo even played the part, wearing more male type clothes and displaying more gallant type traits when interacting with girls. But there is internal struggle here that we still don't know the story behind. We know that Momo wants to be seen as a girl, not a boy. This is made even more clear with her reaction when Rika mistakes her for a boy and her completely different reaction when Ai identifies her as a girl. Gender is playing a part in the story and I just can't quite put my finger on it and I can't wait to see what is driving her to rescue eggs.

Oh man, another great episode of Wonder Egg Priority. I believe that with the introduction of Momo, the main cast of characters is now complete. Colorful Girls is a fitting title since we now have the group intact, each individual with a color scheme and attitude to match. 

So what do you think of Wonder Egg Priority so far? It's definitely one of the better original shows to debut this anime season. Let me know you think of the show and what you think of my thoughts on this episode. Until the next one, later!