10 Second Anime - Kiznaiver - Episode 4

The full Kiznaiver team goes to Summer training camp during the school break. Noriko surprisingly joins them.

Episode 4 - "Now that we're all connected, let's get to know each other better, 'kay?"

Heh.

These long episode titles must be coming from one of the characters, so I always try to figure out which one of them said it. I posit that Nico said it as all the Kiznaivers were hanging out in Katsuhira's apartment meeting Hisomu.

The flashback showed a presumed Noriko with a kizna scar on the back of her neck telling a young Katsuhira that he would get his "pain" back. I wonder if there was something unique to Katsuhira that became the basis of this whole Kiznaiver system.

Speaking of Hisomu, he tries to make a clear distinction between a sexual masochist and the kind of masochist he is.

I don't think his fellow Kiznaivers buy his explanation that he just likes the first sudden onset of surprise pain. He doesn't get sexually aroused by it, though!

Putting that aside... Tenga proves again why he's becoming my favorite character of the bunch. He just outright says that a masochist as a Kiznaiver is a bad idea! He calls Hisomu a Joker, as in the card you're not supposed to have at the end of the Trump card game.

I like how the kids ask him questions that came to my mind during the ludicrous chase from last week. If he's a masochist, why wouldn't he want to make himself known to the other guys who share their pain. He explained it was because of his need for sudden surprise pain. If the other guys didn't know who or where he was, he could "enjoy" the shock of a pain he wasn't expecting. Sketchy guy.

Nico got worried because she was supposed to be the weird one of the bunch and now she has to compete with Hisomu.

I'm digging the Nico character. She had adopted this strange fairy hunting persona to stand apart from the rich girl stereotype, and though she attracted attention, she hadn't made any friends. She's illustrating another aspect of the connections/bonds/wounds concept of the Kiznaiver show.

Maki, being the aloof high-and-mighty personality, tried to tear down Nico's assumption that just because they have to spend time together, that didn't make them friends. That ties in with the arbitrary way we all make friends. By the luck of homeroom assignment, next-door-neighbor, club mate, none of these circumstances are entirely within a person's control.

Harsh! Maki said Yuuta had bigger boobs in grade school than she has now! 

Aw. Nico got her first set of email addresses ever. Poor lonely girl.

Nico wasn't the only one whose character we glimpsed. We saw the usual antics of the childhood friend with Chidori, even including a portion of dinner for Tenga when she came over to feed Katsuhira. Unfortunately, there's someone else in the show with higher childhood friend points than she has.

Where Chidori can't forget the nice boy Katsuhira was before his incident and still has feelings for that sweet kid, Noriko has it worse. She was actually there when it happened and remembers all the events leading up to it.

Seeing Tenga tell Chidori that he wants to help her get together with Katsuhira raised relationship flags for me. She's feeling jealous over Noriko because of Katsuhira's fascination with her and the subtle hints of reciprocation. Sometimes the childhood friend wins, but if that happens in this story, Noriko has precedent.

But we shouldn't forget that Noriko is deeply involved in the inner workings of this whole research city. It turns out those mascots running around are really people from the Kizna Committee volunteering their time not just for civic-mindedness but for espionage. This is how Noriko knew all the little secrets each of the kids had, plus all the other surveillance trappings of a controlled city.

Not only that, Noriko appeared to give a tailor-made speech to both Katsuhira and Hisomu to make them vulnerable for their abduction. That lends some suspicion to Noriko's motives in joining the Kiznaivers on their training camp, but we can also ascribe nuance to her feelings toward the project because of Katsuhira and her shared history.

The big cliffhanger and revelation is that our 7 toxic personalities aren't the only Kiznaivers! I wonder if the main theory that Noriko is researching is whether the Kizna system can be used to forge real, for lack of a better word, love between the connected victims, er subjects.

Obviously, it's just technology, so why couldn't random people get the implants too? The school counselor Urushibara may be running her own little research project with Katsuhira's bullies, but I think she just came up with this plan because she wanted to follow Noriko around.

Next time, Nico wants to step in deer poop and pillow fights. Go, go! I guess that answers my wonderment at who says these long titles. Just listen to the preview. Last week, it was Hisomu who said this week's title. So Nico is going to go, go!