Schoolgirl Strikers: Animation Channel Episode 13 Review – “”Final Battle! Fifth Force Forever”

Lots of plot holes and last-minute flashbacks in this finale!

(Spoilers in this review) 

Everyone else in Fifth Force is saving muggles from the O’bli who popped up in real life. Blah blah you take real damage unlike in the Fifth Dimension so the stakes are higher blah blah.

Meanwhile Tsubame is trying to fight Morgana, but she’s hopelessly outclassed and keeps getting read like she’s an issue of Reader’s Digest. Apparently Morgana wants to exactly replicate what happened in the future for some reason so she summons the giant O’bli golem again. No one in this show makes an ounce of sense.

While Morgana is having her way with Tsubame, Odile notes that this fish print of the giant fish O’bli has the same scent as Morgana (possibly because she personally made this one) and leads the girls to Morgana as a result.

Upon arriving there, they see Tsubame being held hostage by the giant O’bli. As they attack it, the viewers get to see Tsubame and Morgana experience Morgana’s memories. Apparently she was a colleague of Odile’s dad and she decided to just merge with the Fifth Particle and become Morgana. Yes, Morgana is the name of someone who traverses space and time. I guess that’s what she meant when she said she believes Tsubama is Morgana. Nice of us to learn about this after 12 episodes. So…what happened to Odile’s pops afterwards?

I have to admit, though, part of the battle animation shown here was much better than what we’ve seen throughout the rest of the series. It’s like the animators were putting all their effort in these few scenes before it dropped down to questionable quality once again.

Then Morgana uses brainwashing powers and convinces the Origami sisters to fight Altair Torte. She then merges with the golem and ends up ensnaring Odile, who is the only one doing anything to said golem. Odile struggles until she realizes her true power will come once she reveals her true feelings (which was spurred with Akira snapping out of the brainwashing funk after seeing her “good friend” Odile get caught. I still ship it. The other sisters snap out of it, too) which leads to Odile tossing away her mask and becoming even more powerful.

I don’t know about this brainwashing bit. It seems so forced and was tacked on for drama. It was also overcome so easily and there was no explanation for why they were brainwashed or how they snapped out of it (I presume it was due to the power of friendship).

The girls all lauch an unified attack and manage to free Tsubame as she thinks to herself that she always wanted to fight with everyone and that means she can’t be Morgana, etc. Io, by the way, catches the girl and carries her in a princess carry. I knew this was the OTP.

As a callback to a previous episode, the girls due to their patented Altair Storm attack (team volleyball, if you remember). Ah, it’s just so intimate the way Tsubame told Io that they’re going to do their own combo attack and how Tsubame calls out to Io as she sets the magical ball of energy up for Io to spike.

Tsubame finished the job by slashing at the Odile, but then it turns into a vortex and sucks her in. Io is actually the most devastated, by the way.

Tsubame starts drifting aimelessly in this purple haze cloud area and apologizes to everyone for not being able to return.

 

Lately I’ve been considering myself to be like the professor who gives the students easy homework assignments and midterms (aka pleasant episode reviews) and overly difficult final exams (aka harsh series reviews). I am pretty sure you know how the series review for Schoolgirl Strikers is going to go. Expect that to come up this weekend. Thanks for sticking through this with me.