Episode three of Charlotte kicks off in a seemingly normal fashion. Which is light slice of life comedy, usually having to do with some running gag that’s been built into the show. The strange thing about these running gags is that I think there is some significance to why these people do these gags. Like how Yu’s little sister Ayumi always makes him food with pizza sauce and why she always is in charge of cooking all the meals. She certainly assumes a sort of care taking role for her big brother, but given her personality it seems strange and sort of forced on her end. Also the way Jojiro has grown to just accept the fact that he will be mortally wounded when he uses his ability. But still uses it all the time and for frivolous reasons, like getting a special food in the cafeteria that day. To me these jokes are still making me smile, but I’d like to maybe get more on them eventually.
After we get those nice comedic antics, its back to ability hunting. An interesting thing we find out about the guy able to detect people with special abilities is that he can only do it while being soaking wet with clothes on. Something to think about to be sure, but since all he says is a couple of words so far its not really that important. But this time its a twofer, they are presumably going after a person who can be possessed and is a pyromancer. Nao acts as if she’s never heard of two abilities, hinting that there must be something strange or special about this one, which there of course ends up being. After some classic sleuthing we find out that the person they’re searching for is the pop idol Yusa Nishimori of the band “Haro-Haro.” We also find out that Jojiro is a total Yusa fan-boy and he has no fear showing that. Jogger really is an open book at so I feel that he might be there to contrast Yu who usually has a hard time expressing how he really feels and just gives out socially acceptable answers.
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Eventually, through some rough interrogation they find out who was pursuing her. All this commotion sparks the interest of on of Yusa’s friend and agrees to let them see her once they reveal that they have abilities too. It was sort of weird that Nao knew that her friends would know that she had an ability but I guess Nao is just that good at reading people. Might be something to keep in the back of my mind. Anyway we get to an abandoned club where we meet Yusa, and boy is she ever spunky. I would almost equate her to Ayumi but that’s just me. Honestly we don’t get enough of her personality in this episode to really judge. The reason being, because during most of the episode she is being possessed by her dead sister Misa. And the two boys who are accompanying Yusa are revealed to be Misa’s old friends. Well I guess not that old seeing she only died about six months ago. Misa is quite the punk with a sort of filthy mouth. She also explains the double ability thing since it seems that it is her ability to control fire and not Yusa’s. This makes sense for the most part but I think we need to learn more about how and why you get these abilities. I mean if a ghost can have one then it has to be supernatural and can’t just be like an X-men thing.
Now the reason that Yusa is being chased is that she accidentally took a television studio executives phone and read a text revealing him to be doing some shady stuff. Somehow the exec. found out that Yusa had the phone and has been in pursuit of her making sure she doesn’t bring it to the cops. This makes a catch-22 situation for Yusa because if she returns it to the exec. it most likely won’t end well for her. And if she brings it to the cops her career could be ruined for putting such a high studio exec. in prison. But no worries here, Nao has a plan to get Yusa out of the situation thankfully.
They end up meeting with the exec and by having Misa possess Yusa’s body again she begins to try to intimidate him. And through the use of everyone’s ability they are able to scare him enough and send him packing with his tail in-between his legs. I don’t know how good of a solution this would be considering now he knows she has powers and could easily leak that out, but who knows, he might have been so scared to where he’ll never tell anyone.
With almost everything resolved Nao gives an invitation to let Yusa join her school, and by the opening credits we can assume that she will be in the student council as well. Also there is some nice closure to Misa’s arc believe it or not. Or better put the red-haired boy who was helping her this whole time. He confesses to loving her and apologizes about being responsible for her death. This scene really comes out of left field but I think it was my favorite part of the episode. Whenever someone is able to express their feeling to someone dead it can give tremendous closure just for the fact that so many questions can be resolved. It also helps when Misa assures him that it wasn’t his fault and it was her being reckless. Just think about how the thought of killing the one he loved could have meant for the rest of his life. It would be so hard for him to get close to anyone else because of a fear of hurting them. Having this can start to weave the abilities into being a sort of healing process. And maybe not for the user but someone close to the user. This opens the shows dynamic to more than just the main characters with powers and I think the show ultimately needs this if its going to stay fresh it’s whole 24 episode run.
But this also makes it hard for him because to fully get closure because Misa is there but not there at the same time. Misa will inevitably disappear when Yusa looses her powers, but she was never meant to come back in the first place. It’s definitely a hard situation to be in and I think he handles it very maturely. He ultimately decides to let her go even though she may be sticking around for a while. He concludes that this will make it easier on both of them and allow him to heal and grow past it. It’s really mature and might be hinting at a contrast between people who have powers and people who don’t have powers. Not everything is revealed yet but I think I’ve already talked about how I think abilities are brought on by trauma or something else psychological in someway. A sort of gift by the comet Charlotte to help them through that time in their lives and help them grow. Of course, still all just speculation.
This episode didn’t really feel as strong as the last episode. Probably because the stupid part with the studio executive that just didn’t really go with the tone that I felt the episode was trying to bring. If anything it should have been more about these boys being able to communicate with their friend who they thought was dead and not wanting to give her up again. But that’s just how I would have liked it to have been. Maybe having that studio exec will somehow tie into ZHIEND and I’ll feel stupid for bashing it later. It also could be a jumpstart into what Yusa’s going through with dealing with being a famous Idol at such a young age and having to deal with that and the death of her sister at the same time.
So okay maybe it wasn’t as disjointed and out-of-place as I thought. I just think that it didn’t belong in this episode, and it should have been more like the last few minutes. Plus I am so ready for Ayumi to do something that affects the show. She is too cute and too funny to be just in the beginning and endings of these episodes. Other than that though I really don’t have any other complaints than the ones I just mentioned. Charlotte is coming along nicely and while it may feel like a slow start to some people, I can surely find immense value in these three starting episodes. Of course only time will tell if they amount to anything.
