Seven of Seven: Episode 17 Commentary
The Day Nana Disappeared...and Reappeared?
Grandpa’s theory of the Nana-split being related to Nana’s emotions over Kamichika may be rather spot on. First was Mary Lou’s ability to use the blue prism, and now the combined prism is reacting to the girls’ depression over their loss of potential with Kamichika.
The trio really are rallying behind Nana. It’s amazing how all it took was one Tsukie to change their position. And with that, we get Mo-chan’s episode.
I just can’t figure Kamichika out. After a few days of Nana’s not appearing at school, he actually goes out of his way to get her address to visit and check up on her? But he simply tells Hitomi about how she’s a classmate aiming for the same school. Okay, I guess I’ll buy that.
You have to feel for Hitomi and Grandpa. They’re able to do nothing but watch the prisms slowly shatter, the Nanas vanishing one by one. That’s some powerful depression for the Nanas to watch Nanakko vanish, but do and say nothing. It’s understandable that maybe no one noticed poor Nanacchi vanish, but the other five clearly saw Nanakko disappear, Billy falling to the floor.
I just can’t figure Mo-chan out. Wait, I already worded a sentence that way… She wears her school sweat pants rather than skirt. That’s understandable. But when the trio are all dressed in their school sweats for volunteer work, Mo-chan has her blue uniform top on. Maybe it’s her own Glenda-ism (Petite Princess Yucie), where she has to wear something slightly different from everyone else.
Ko-chan talks about when they were over at Nana’s house as kids. Does this mean the four of them (the trio and Nana), and perhaps Hitomi, were all childhood friends? This sounds somewhat familiar, so I don’t know if it was mentioned in a previous episode, or if I picked that up from the manga version of Seven of Seven. Further, did the trio dress Nana in her phys. ed. uniform, or did she at least pull up enough strength to do that herself? Too bad the trio can’t even see there’s something wrong with her. It’s not like they’ve know each other since they were kids, and would recognize something as being wrong, or anything…
Kamichika will never know that he single-handedly killed off Nanarin and Nanasama. Looks like Hitomi was right to not let him see Nana when he stopped at her house before.
The trio say that Nana’s doing work will be good for her. I’d say I may have misjudged them a moment ago, but this is the trio. At least they do know that when you’re feeling down, staying inside won’t help, and going out and doing something won’t hurt. That is, unless you encounter Kamichika, and your prism almost shatters because of it, of course. And while trying to determine whether the trio are genuinely helping Nana, a following scene shows Mo-chan is helping Nana for Nana’s grades. While that’s quite noble, it keeps me thinking they have no idea how Nana’s feeling right now. Maybe they think she’s just sick, or something simple like that.
As this is something of her own episode, Mo-chan took her spot as star of the show in helping out Nana. Too bad she’ll simply be another random character again after this, the same as the trio and the other Nanas after their own respective episodes. I shouldn’t complain, though, as it’s a strength of shorter series to not waste a lot of episodes on pointless things. The character episodes have all served their purposes. About the only things missing are episodes for Kamichika, Hitomi, Mr. Handa, Mr. Maruoka, and Tsukie.
