Turkey! Episode 12 Discussion

Hirugiku said:
Guess I'm one of the few who hated the last 3 episodes. Total nonsense, willing jumping into the past again and going up against actual warriors from different time period, those that won't hesitate to kill. So much can go wrong in your planning and someone might die. Just a totally huge risk, and for what? to save someone from the past that you've been with for... around a week? Also appealing to the commander's honor, when he was fine killing 5 helpless sisters is just a really weird decision. I'd have never bet on that. Not even gonna comment on that insane 0.7% throw that took down both pins at the end by Mai... Also, the rule changes, it was supposed to be one shot, no second throws allowed, but then the rules just changed. Then the fact that all first 3 girls who aren't as good as Mai or Rina hit the first strike, under all that pressure didn't sit well with me...
Twist with Sumomo was fine

Hirugiku said:
Guess I'm one of the few who hated the last 3 episodes. Total nonsense, willing jumping into the past again and going up against actual warriors from different time period, those that won't hesitate to kill. So much can go wrong in your planning and someone might die. Just a totally huge risk, and for what? to save someone from the past that you've been with for... around a week? Also appealing to the commander's honor, when he was fine killing 5 helpless sisters is just a really weird decision. I'd have never bet on that. Not even gonna comment on that insane 0.7% throw that took down both pins at the end by Mai... Also, the rule changes, it was supposed to be one shot, no second throws allowed, but then the rules just changed. Then the fact that all first 3 girls who aren't as good as Mai or Rina hit the first strike, under all that pressure didn't sit well with me...
Twist with Sumomo was fine

0451 said:
I also thought the tonal shifts in this series were weird. Some episodes were comedic and others way too serious. Even if they kept the Sengoku period setting they still could've made it goofy and I think more people would've been okay with that. But by trying to do both goofy and serious story at the same time I think it might've alienated both fanbases. I still had fun with this show, the animation was great, but I wouldn't say it was anything special.

WatchTillTandava said:
Wait a minute...maybe I'm mixing up or neglecting and overlooking a detail somewhere along the way but I'm usually pretty good with time travel theories and the logic of paradoxes, etc., just from watching an abundance of time travel-related Sci-Fi and fiction as a whole and time travel being a general interest from a young age. But I feel as if there is one piece which doesn't fit or doesn't sit quite right with me here:

We seem to be going with the one of the three main theoretical variations of time travel in which everything that ever happened, is happening, and ever will happen is in a way preordained and happening all at once, so nothing they ever said or did had the physical ability to alter anything and it was one set closed loop. Even them doing anything which they themselves personally believed would change something would instead just make possible and put in place what was always going to happen.

Nanase gives voice to this theory or hypothesis in a very brief explanation in the scene in a later part of the last episode when they're back in the present and at the bowling alley, mentioning it as the potential answer, so this seems designed as a wink and nudge to the audience to suggest that this is indeed what happened - Although, now I'm questioning if that is truly the case or how can it be as well - Is the museum exhibit the same as it was last time with the placard detailing the story of the five local sisters and their deaths? If it's the same and they still died that doesn't make sense with the way we saw the story play out with them averting it in the past, nor would it make sense for it to be glossed over and not mentioned explicitly that they still died that way, and if it was instead changed with the exhibit now saying something completely different or absent entirely as their actions in the past and narrative seem to suggest would be the case, then wouldn't that instead be a notable visible representation of them changing something? It was different last time they were back so that would suggest they did change the future. It really can't be both.

Either they changed the future or they didn't. If they didn't, how could something so fundamental and dramatic (that the sisters still were executed, which we know at least of Sumomo can't be true and doesn't seem suggested to be the case in general) not be mentioned, or if they did and what's in the museum is changed from their last time here, how can it still be said to be a closed loop and predetermined? It wasn't. Something major changed (saving the girls' lives). Unless we're really thinking outside the box and going for blowing some minds and it's that everything that happened - including the museum display being a certain way (presumably the way we first saw it detailing the sisters' deaths was the way it always was for months or years as long as the exhibit existed up through that point when the girls visited it in that episode) and then later changing the next time they returned to the present was all part of the predetermined course of events.

But okay, putting all that aside for a second and going with that closed loop/past is set in stone model, what about Mai's pink bowling ball? She dropped it on her way out of the Sengoku era with her other four friends for the last time and Sumomo immediately picked it up. Sumomo herself then dropped it when she too was grabbed by whatever mystical power/God/gods/the will of the universe and hurled into the future, and the ball plonked back onto the ground. We later see that it remained there and after centuries of time and weathering from shifting dirt, rain, etc. became the artifact unearthed in the modern era and speculated to be an old historical bowling ball or bowling ball-esque object.

All right, but if that's the case, then how did it still simultaneously exist in the future/present as a new bowling ball which Mai had for however many years (she already is shown to have it in the orphanage when Haru/Sumomo meets and later adopts her)? How can it be in two places at once? Unless because of its physical condition and what it looks like plus some technology used to date it they label it as something buried for around 500 years since the Sengoku era, but in reality it wasn't actually physically there all that time and only appeared immediately just before ground was broken and dug up at that construction site, materializing out of thin air as an already weathered artifact to represent the span of time but without actually being there and its condition aging naturally.

But it was there in the first episode, right? When Mai and her friends passed by it on the way to the bowling alley before the rainstorm? And Mai had the present-day-condition ball in her hands at the time. So how could it be the same object in two places? How could she have ever acquired it in the present as a gift from her parents or however she got it if it was already buried underground for centuries? It was supposed to be buried underground for centuries because she and then Sumomo dropped it there. Which she wouldn't have had a ball to drop if she didn't already have it in the present-day and bring it back from the present to the past. Paradox.



Yeah, obviously it's subjective and highly variable and down to individual preference how well it's determined to be utilized, but that was something I had a problem with in this series. Normally I don't mind and actually even enthusiastically welcome tonal shifts, of a mostly lighthearted series having some very dark and serious episodes or scenes or a mostly dark and bleak series having some silly or uplifting episodes and scenes. Or something closer to a 50-50 ratio balance of both. But again it depends on how it's implemented. Here I felt like both sides (the more silly and the more dark/dramatic/serious) only served to weaken and water each other down rather than to complement the other. It's a weird tricky thing that I don't know exactly how to best explain how to get right. It's more a case of just knowing it (that it's done well or not) when I see it.

It felt as if it could have better excelled at being either an outright over the top and wacky silly parody and comedy where things are rarely if ever taken serious or a more gritty and realistic Sci-Fi thriller + historical drama. But it seemed like they tried to be both and excelled at neither.

For a contrast, a series with a totally different story but since it shares the time travel premise and also has comedy and Slice of Life elements combined with intense drama and thriller elements, see something like Steins;Gate. How serious it could be didn't seem to undercut or take away from the sillier and more fun times and moments, and vice versa - how silly and goofy it could be didn't seem to take away from the intensity and seriousness of the other side of it. But here that wasn't the case. It felt as if they were always holding something back.

0451 said:
I feel like the writing was poor in general. All of the characters were basic archetypes. We got the leader with almost no character, the edgy one who thinks they don't need friends, the clever scientist who dresses weird, the sexy popular girl, and the shy and wimpy one who's also somehow the strongest. They were boring. Ironically the Sengoku period girls were more unique but even they felt a bit tropey. It’s unfortunate cause the production value of this show was great but the writing was not up to par. They should've hired better writers.