Recap: The two Juns restore Shinku to her body and the worlds prepare to part ways.

Zigg’s Thoughts: ‘Confused’ would be the word for this one. It’s all over the shop in terms of mood, pacing and especially in the way it parcels out the story.

I think the biggest issue here is that there’s only one major dramatic conflict, and it’s handled within the first five minutes. Shinku’s ‘death’ could have been a pretty tense way to run out the story here, but since Kirakishou has already been defeated, Wound Jun just shows up out of nowhere with her real body and she’s restored, just like that. It’s a pretty lame way to end the persistent ‘Shinku has a set lifespan’ thread that they’ve tried to keep rolling throughout the show. It’s another example of poor pacing, which has been a major issue all along in this story.

On the other had, I do like the focus that’s placed on Hinaichigo at the beginning and mid sections of this episode. Though it’s shockingly animated, her brief interaction with Wound Jun at the beginning reminds me of how she was in many ways the heart and soul of the original Rozen Maiden series. Yes, she got super duper annoying in extended doses but little chunks like this added innocent sweetness to the premise and reinforced the fact the show was largely about character rather than magical shenanigans. Here she serves a similar purpose, grounding the slightly more outlandish body jumping in a nice, surprisingly effective friendship moral. It also provides a reason for Suigintou to give up Souseiseki’s Rosa Mystica that, if not completely coherent, makes some sense and allows a little touch of character development.

It’s the back half of this episode that’s sort of a mess though, and one which makes me uncertain about where the show or indeed the story will go from here. Shoehorning in another flashback to Megu is weird and almost completely pointless – it smacks of a direct transposition of a manga chapter. It seems unlikely that Suigintou will find Megu before this series ends, so why waste a good chunk of an episode on recapping what essentially is basic motivation? And while I appreciate the nicely disturbing vibe of the Megu scenes, they’re sort of all the same, and don’t serve much purpose.

Otherwise this felt very much like a final episode, so much so that I was surprised when we got a next episode preview at the end. The farewell scene was underplayed just right, and I did like that Unwound Jun’s return to reality was showcased entirely through the play, forgoing any dialogue. Shinku’s final words felt a very appropriate capstone also. Having said that, it’ll be interesting to see if we visit any of the dolls at all in the last episode, or if we’ll focus on the newly confident Jun.

Random Observations

• I’m increasingly less confident that we’ll get any sort of payoff for the bizarre storybook segments.
• Kirkishou is still alive because of course she is.
• I really liked Souseiseki’s kiss with Jun, which was excellently written to come off as heartwarming rather than creepy.
• There’s a lot of bad animation in this episode, but I have to single out Hinaichigo’s dress, which lacks detail and often looks alarmingly blancmange-like.