“Your Thorn, My Badge”

Saturdays at 12:00 pm EST on Crunchyroll

Well, after a week of letting y’all decide on what show I’d watch, we ended up with a tie. Now, apparently in Japan tying is like kissing your sister, so considering the bad implications anime has given to that, we’ve decided to break the tie in favor of Darling in the FRANKXX.

Marlin’s Thoughts

For once we get no robot fights this week, and as a result it’s a pretty lackluster showing. I suppose they’re trying to get us more invested in these characters by giving them more screen time, but their personalities are so one-note it really just serves to reinforce how bad that part of this show is. I don’t care about teen napoleon and his ongoing efforts to make himself completely unlikable. I don’t need that scene in Hiro’s room to know that Hiro is really faking being okay and that milquetoast dude cares for him. Honestly, showing the wound in that scene takes a lot of weight out of the last one when 002 herself touches it. If they’re trying to make parallels to intimacy, it would have also made more sense since the wound is the only real physical manifestation of their intimacy.

It does raise a lot of questions as to what the FRANXX do. We saw last episode that connecting with 002 from all appearances looks no different than it does in any of the other FRANXX. And yet, people receive real injuries from piloting with her. How is that physically possible? Do we even want to know? On some level I feel these questions do need answers, as otherwise it just makes the show seem nonsensical. On the other hand, Eva did trade on a lot of mystery even when most of the truth was revealed about the robots and their connection to the pilots. Thankfully, next episode is shaping up to have a pretty big fight, and those haven’t let us down so far. It’s also the most practical way we can try to understand how the FRANXX work, so here’s hoping they remember that showing is better than telling.