Flip Flappers Episode 6 Review – “Pure Play”

So instead of getting answers, we get a (pretty) side character’s backstory instead. Studio 3Hz, you’re enjoying our misery, aren’t you?

(Spoilers in this review)

The episode opens with Cocona and Papika securing yet another fragment. That makes 3 for team FlipFlap so far; one from episode 1, one from episode 5, and now this one.

The boss man, Soruto aka SALT, tells Cocona and Papika to get all the fragments in Pure Illusion when Cocona asks a valid question. Sheesh, someone sure is a charismatic leader.

After the OP, Cocona once again has that dream. Who is that woman in the boat?? Please tell us, SALT! It’s been six weeks and we have basically nothing!

Anyways, Cocona and Papika visit Senpai because they wanted to share the cookies they baked in Home Ec. It seems like Papika is the better chef/cook/baker. Perhaps it’s because she has to catch things and cook for herself (as seen in episode 4)? An unexpected girly side for Papika has appeared!

At any rate, the topic of nail polish was brought up since Senpai has some bottles of the stuff in the club room and Papika can’t stand the smell. However, Senpai cryptically mentions that she doesn’t have the right to wear nail polish on her fingers. Will we find out why? Guess she’s not just a side character who takes good care of her meandering kouhai-tachi.

As per usual for Flip Flappers, they all go to Pure Illusion to snag a fragment. Cocona and Papika do a decent job teaming up against the boss mob of the Pure Illusion, but Yayaka and her comrades kill-steal and snatch the fragment.

While Yayaka and the twins chase down the pair, the boy tells Yayaka she should try transforming, too. That’s a scary thought. Papika and Cocona are only relevant when they transform, but if Yayaka can also transform, it’s going to be an even more uphill battle.

Anyways, Cocona and Papika then try to make their exit with the fragment, but they end up entering a mysterious gate instead. Suddenly both girls are calling each other Iro. One Iro stays at home and draws pictures while overhearing the parents argue. The other Iro basically hangs out with an older stranger who takes care of her as if Iro was her own child. The two switch off whenever the one stuck at home is overwhelmed.

Observant viewers would probably notice the signs, but this entire situation is actually implied to be Senpai’s childhood. “Iro” means color, which makes sense since she paints as a highschooler. The auntie repeatedly mentions that Iro could be a painter one day (no need to explain there). And the physical resemblance is uncanny!

I’ll bring up what this could mean in a bit. The two girls somehow manage to exit the flashback…portal…thing (?) only to lose the fragment once again.

Having lost the objective, Papika and Cocona deicde to go back inside the red portal once Yayaka and the others leave. These girls are brave – I would have just gone home and eat ice cream while weeping over my loss. I guess that’s what makes them the MAIN CHARACTERS. Despite how, you know, this episode was not really about them.

The situation has gone from shaky to bad. The signs are there, but Auntie basically has Alzheimer’s and ends up forgetting who Iro is. When Auntie asks who Cocona/Iro is, she runs away because she’s a damn kid who’s scared.

This is where I have to speculate. Since this is Iroha-senpai’s past, I imagine that this was how it actually happened in real life. She gets freaked out that the older woman who has been treating her so kindly involuntarily forgot who she was, so she ran away and that was the last conversation between Iro and Auntie.

But doing so meant that the promise she made to tell Auntie who she was if she forgot her name remained unfulfilled. That’s why she thinks she doesn’t have the right to wear nail polish.

In Pure Illusion, however, Papika/Iro and Cocona/Iro manage to tell Auntie that they’re Iro and Auntie remembers them and then they triumphantly exit Pure Illusion. As the girls are happily talking about how they got Auntie to remember, SALT is scowling that they didn’t retrieve the fragment. And when they finally track down Iro-senpai, they find that she’s wearing nail polish.

 

I personally think this episode served to demonstrate what exactly the fragments can do. Iro-senpai used to think she doesn’t have the right to wear nail polish. After Cocona and Papika live as Iro and makes Auntie remember, she’s suddenly wearing nail polish and being the “pretty woman with painted nails “that Auntie hoped Iro would be.

I’m just left wondering if this wish fulfillment situation required the use of a fragment. They left the fragment behindwhen they entered the red portal, however. Why were they able to enter Iro-senpai’s past? I say it last episode review and I’ll say it again: more episodes, more questions.

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Next episode is titled, “Pure Component.” Suddenly Papika is not quite herself?! See you next week!