10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 25 [OVA]

Kill la Kill - Episode 25 [OVA]

A couple of weeks after the last battle with Ragyou, her assistant Hououmaru comes back for revenge. Senketsu's spirit is still with Ryuuko, and the students have one last victory.

Heh.

What a nice epilogue. It reminded me very much of when the Hobbits returned to the Shire after the events of the Lord of the Rings, and had one last skirmish with a weakened Saruman to show how much their adventure had strengthened and matured them. Same thing here, with Satsuki giving up the sword for real, because she only picked it up to defeat her mother, and Hououmaru's return wasn't going to snatch victory from the jaws of utter defeat, plus her Council Members all became better versions than their black copies, naked or not.

We had our nostalgia with Senketsu, because even if a sailor uniform is something to be outgrown, it is also something to be remembered fondly and to be carried within a woman's heart.

Even Mako's first Moment reminded us of that. Senketsu is still alive within Ryuuko. She'll wear her Sunday Best on the inside!

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 24 [END]

Kill la Kill - Episode 24 [END]

"Don't cry, Ryuko. A sailor uniform is something to be outgrown." Senketsu, 2013 - 2014, RIP

I didn't want to say goodbye to this show, but the creators had a story to tell, with a beginning, middle, and end, and so it ends. And what an ending! Ragyo in her full glory was quite the monster. In turns she looked like a mashup between Cruella Deville and the Evil Queen from Disney's Snow White. And her suit combined everything she had at her disposal. From a life fiber suit feeding on her blood, plus using another human as her power source like a Cover, she was bad news.

The battle itself is outrageous, but handled in a much more serious manner than the previous one. The stakes are too high, and all the cards are on the table. However, how those cards are played offers us small victories and defeats. The main power of Shinra Kouketsu is Dominate, and it forces all the battle suits to revert and be paralyzed if the wearer has willful opposition toward Ragyo. Even Senketsu is paralyzed. Ryuko's solution: get naked! She's her own life fiber monster, so she doesn't need to wear Senketsu to fight. But on her own, she is outmatched by a fiber-clad Ragyo.

While she fights, things look grim for the regular people, but they still struggle. Harime has had enough of Mako's moments, and aims to strike her down, only to have Gamagoori take the blow. The Absolute Shield, indeed. Mako is safe, and to him it is worth his action.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 23

Kill la Kill - Episode 23

Final battle, part 1. Big Ball of Yarn versus Naked Sun. Ragyo suits up.

The plot threw me a curveball. I thought taking out the original life fiber would be the last thing our heroes have to do, because if even the plot to start up all the Covers failed, at least the Big Ball of Yarn can make more from a tactical retreat. But I guess that's the problem with relying on a crazy lady who can't stop touching herself in public.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 22

Kill la Kill - Episode 22

Ryuko and Senketsu reunited. Ryuko and Satsuki reconciled. Two deep breaths, and then sprint towards the finale!

So satisfying. This episode was so satisfying! All the relationship angst and worry gets resolved here before we make our final push to the end of the story. I call this episode the two deep breaths before this show blows past 11 and goes straight to a broken knob.

First inhale: Ryuko's back! She and Senketsu are reunited! And Senketsu is soooo happy!

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 21

Kill la Kill - Episode 21

This is the battle for Ryuko's heart and mind. There will be blood. Oh, yes. There will be blood.

Sex.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 20

Kill la Kill - Episode 20

Nudist Beach brings out its big guns. Ryuko gets overridden while Satsuki synchronizes.

With Satsuki and Ryuko on the same side, how were the writers going to get them to fight again? Oh. Oh! You know things are serious and Ryuko is broken down when even a Mako Moment doesn't work.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 19

Kill la Kill - Episode 19

The quick battle turns into the Resistance against Occupied Territories. Ragyo still has plans for Satsuki. Ryuko wakes up after a month and rejects Senketsu.

When the Covers assemble above the stadium, things quickly get out of hand. They start sucking people into themselves and turn into large formidable soldiers. Mako gets taken, much to the horror of Gamagoori. Ryuko, as usual, has trouble processing all the revelations about her family, and becomes ineffective. Satsuki hits the reset button by blowing up the entire stadium, allowing our heroes to escape.

Before we continue, I want to take a moment to explain what these names of Senketsu and Junketsu mean. 鮮血 (senketsu) means fresh blood, named by Ryuko herself. There are many homonyms in Japanese for this word, some mean "acting on one's own," "stink of blood or meat," "meat-eating barbarian," and "first priority." All of these apply in some way to Ryuko when she synchronizes with Senketsu. 純血 (junketsu) means pure blood, or pure-bred or thoroughbred. The primary meaning certainly applied to the implications of Satsuki's notions of class, nobless oblige, and hinted at an ethnocentric fascism with her uniforms and iconography. There are also homonyms for junketsu meaning purity or chastity, which also points toward Satsuki's inability to completely override Junketsu, because she has not explored her sexuality. Even when Satsuki is captured, Ragyo still insists on this training.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 18

Kill la Kill - Episode 18

The true fight against Ragyo Kiryuin begins. Satsuki has done much to prepare her battle against her mother, but she is found lacking. Ragyo discovers who Ryuko really is.

So much was revealed in this episode, but the main revelation is what a monster Ragyo Kiryuin really is. Satsuki thought she had made the proper preparations to free the captured crowd, fight Ragyo and her minions with her Inner Council's new suits, and even neutralize the original Life Fiber back at the mansion, but she did not have enough information, and she did not prepare for Ragyo being in charge of Life Fibers for much longer than she has been plotting. Satsuki accounted for regular life fibers and freed the crowd, using Nudist Beach type weaponry.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 17

Kill la Kill - Episode 17

The life fiber harvest test begins. The first strike against Ragyo Kiryuin is not by Ryuko, but by Satsuki. Rebellion on two fronts!

Well, well, well, the twist of the kanata was always expected, but we had to see how the betrayal would be shown. Let's start with that first, even though it was the last scene in the episode. As most viewers suspected, Satsuki turns on her mother, and will actively oppose her plan to activate all the life fibers in Revocs clothing in a grand harvest for these alien beings. We've been given hints along, but some of the exposition this week actually explains what Satsuki was doing with the 3-star uniforms. The more resistant you are to life fibers, the more threads you can wear and manipulate. Ragyo thought Satsuki was trying to gather these fiber resistant students to get them dependent on the power of their uniforms, and influence them to go along with harvest plan. This makes sense from Ragyo's perspective since there would be resistant individuals anyway, so this might be a way of countering them when the full harvest began. But Satsuki was gathering them to oppose her mother. The reason for her opposition is probably tied in with her absent father. This is one of the revelations I'm looking forward to. However, I don't think Ragyo is that surprised at the betrayal, as she seems to have prepared some contingencies in different colored life fiber thread. Very interesting!

Now, back to the cliffhanger of Kinigase and Ryuko. Of course a Mako Moment saves the day. Why? Because a maiden should only get naked for the one she loves the most!

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 16

Kill la Kill - Episode 16

All the backstory about life fibers is finally revealed, and Ryuko's and Senketsu's roles in the ultimate confrontation with Ragyo Kiryuin. But what if Ryuko refuses that role, and Satsuki too?

So much exposition, from the Kiryuin side and the Nudist Beach side. Here's what we now know: the life fibers are alien parasites who feed off the nervous system of animals. They chose humans to be their best hosts for their developed cerebra, and subtly improved their evolution so that one day, the life fibers could feed off them in a grand harvest. It was Ragyo Kiryuin who somehow came into possession of the big ball of life fiber, and hatched her plan to make Revocs clothing (a backwards writing of Cover, which is what the life fibers want to do) ubiquitous, and awaken the life fibers sewn into each one when humanity was ready. Dr. Matoi, Ryuko's father, found out about the extraterrestrial nature of the life fibers while researching them for Revocs, and formed Nudist Beach to oppose this harvest. He created an artificial life fiber suit to be worn by his daughter, who was extremely tolerant of the draining effect that life fibers have on their hosts. But before he could present the suit to Ryuko or Nudist Beach, he was attacked by Harime the Tailor, which brings us to the beginning of the show.

A Mako Moment captures the viewers' shock at all this news:

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 15

Kill la Kill - Episode 15

Nudist Beach rolls out. The Elite Four unveil their new uniforms. Cleavage vs. Underboob: Round Two.

Satsuki takes a little time to defeat the Osaka boss, arguing that fear rules people's hearts much better than money. Sanageyama delivers the finishing blow on the Osaka Crab mecha with the Thousand Years of Pain strike. Someone can't be a blushing bride anymore... With impeccable timing, Ryuko crashes the scene, ready to take Senketsu's glove back from Satsuki.

Prior to this, Aikuro had entered the Nudist Beach's lair, and mobilizes them to attack Kiryuin's strike force, and to provide covering fire for Ryuko to battle Satsuki. Ryuko has her hands full just keeping her defense up against a fully transformed Junketsu. When things look grim, Nudist Beach attacks, providing Ryuko a chance to regroup.

Unfortunately, the rest of Satsuki's raiding forces have converged on Osaka after cleaning up Kyoto and Kobe. They also arrive with their new and improved battle suits.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 14

Kill la Kill - Episode 14

Of course. The heart of a sailor uniform is in its neckerchief. Senketsu lives! But Ryuko needs to put him back together, and the last piece is with Satsuki. This will be difficult.

Well, thank goodness the neckerchief on Senketsu wasn't cut up. Leave it to the author to make the point that the heart and soul of a sailor school uniform is in the neckerchief. Now Ryuko has a mission: collect all the cut up pieces of Senketsu. That's a bit difficult because 1) she doesn't have a full suit to augment her abilities, and 2) the pieces are being worn by students in the middle of three battlegrounds. At least Senketsu can sense where his pieces are.

As for Aikuro, it's time for him to leave behind is cover identity. The students who matter are no longer at the school, and Ryuko has left too, so it's time to rejoin Nudist Beach. Nice Trans Am. Ryuko's raiding outfit still fits her personality: she's a suspenders gal all the way.

Mako is her usual self too, but she's not enjoying her stay in Osaka. A Mako Moment will solve her problems:

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 13

Kill la Kill - Episode 13

Ryuko still reels from her loss of control. Satsuki starts her conquering raid through Kansai. A beloved character dies, maybe?

Let me give you two pieces of information. 1) Trigger, who made Gurren Lagann, likes to kill off important characters, and 2) a real girl takes time to recover from a traumatic event, and there are consequences to this mental healing. Like not being ready to face your father's killer again, so soon after you went berserk.

Kill la Kill from the beginning has turned the magical girl anime on its head by showing an imperfect heroine learning how to use her outfit. Ryuko got defeated, she ran away, and she made mistakes. This time, she couldn't learn from her mistakes fast enough, and Senketsu was cut apart, and apparently died. I say apparently because I just don't know where the show goes on from here. With his pieces being distributed around, there might be a chance for some kind of resurrection, but I don't know. I want to find out.

This episode was very much a transitional one, before we get to the meat of this upcoming season, even including a fake student in need like Episode 4. They still gave enough hints that the Tailor was playing a role with this student's insistence on Ryuko putting Senketsu back on, and how his left eye was always covered up. A good enough device to get to the part where Senketsu died, and also to show Satsuki, though disappointed in Ryuko, still has a place for her in her own plans.

There were a couple of things that grabbed me. First, Mako, even though she didn't want to go, but didn't want to be left behind from the conquering raid trip, still got to go anyway. Heh. Second, Satsuki's mom, Ragyou, turns her heels exactly the same way as her daughter. Also, Satsuki is telling her mother that the purpose of her conquering schools is to sell Revocs brand school uniforms. I don't think she needs all the life fiber research and resources to do that, but her mother is letting her do it her way, for now.

So, what happens next week? Does Ryuko join Nudist Beach, and learn to fight naked, or what? Senketsu had told her that it felt like he was made to be worn by her, and that feeling grew stronger every time he drank her blood. Something to remember when Ryuko meets these pieces of him on the battlefield. This is getting interesting.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 12

Kill la Kill - Episode 12

Only a Mako Moment could stop a rampaging Ryuko. Satsuki thinks she's ready for the next phase of her plan.

The flashbacks make it clear that Harime the Tailor was responsible for stabbing Ryuko's father, and taking the other half of the life fiber cutting scissors. At least the elder Matoi gave almost as good as he got by taking her eye. The flashback of Ryuko's memory of finding her father near death show a different form running from the house though. It still looks like someone with straight hair carrying a straight blade. I'm guessing that figure was Satsuki who witnessed what happened, which is why she held that prize of knowing more about Dr. Matoi's death to Ryuko earlier in the season, but it could still be red herring.

But the star of the episode is Mako. After Senketsu had warned Ryuko about keeping calm, and not getting her blood boiling, we see what happens when someone loses control of their emotions while wearing a life-fiber suit. This is presumably what happened to Aikuro and Kinigase's colleague: literally turning into a monster. But neither Nudist Beach, nor Satsuki joining the fray could pierce Ryuko's rampaging fugue state. But a Mako Moment saves the day:

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 11

Kill la Kill - Episode 11

Ryuko dispenses with Jakuzure, but before she can get to Sanageyama, an interloper interferes with her match, and the larger world of Kill la Kill introduces itself.

After flying around, and throwing Jakuzure's missiles back at her, destroying her tank form, Jakuzure finally reveals the final transformation of her uniform. Ryuko and Senketsu learn a new shielding technique which takes in an enemy's attack, translates it to her own energy and returns it with more force. Boom, Jakuzure's defeated, and has to sit next to the other no-stars in a track suit. Mako wants to hear Gamagoori scolding her, but he refuses, and says girls are different.

Sanageyama and Ryuko prepare for their match, and Kinigase has joined Aikuro. Two pieces of information there: 1) Ripped clothes need to be taken off, and 2) Aikuro needs to take that sad sack look off already. Aikuro says he's in disguise, and parading around in his nude glory would draw too much attention to himself. Uh huh. Ryuko and Sanageyama finally start their match, but before they can strike each other, a frilly young woman steps between them. Aikuro and Kinigase recognize her, as does Satsuki: it's her mother's personal tailor Harime. She wants to fight Ryuko because she's wearing a full life fiber suit, pushes Sanageyama out of the match with just her pinky, by pulling one life fiber and unraveling his suit.

Satsuki doesn't appear to like Harime very much, which seems to be a clue to this wider world of life fiber guerillas like Nudist Beach. Ryuko doesn't see a real reason to fight Harime, but Senketsu senses something very bad about her. Then Harime gives Ryuko a reason: she pulls out a blue scissor half and says it's the one she pulled out of her father. She admits to being the one who killed Ryuko's father. Ryuko loses it and we have to wait until next episode to see what happens.

Now whether Harime actually killed Ryuko's father, I'm not so sure. These things are never as clear-cut as they seem in these kinds of shows. At the very least, we can believe she's holding the same scissor half, and she knows a lot more about the elder Matoi's final moments than Ryuko does. I'm beginning to sense that perhaps Satsuki doesn't like how her mother's handling of the company is affecting this world, and her actions in creating her current school may be some operation in opposition to the Revocs conglomerate. We're approaching the end of the first half of the season, so this is when all we've seen so far gets turned on its head and is just one little part of some huge, complicated, epic tale with spiral galaxies and universes colliding... oh, that was the other show this animation crew did. Here, we'll have 3 blinking stars, like the scars on Satsuki's mother's back.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 10

Kill la Kill - Episode 10

One and a half battles for Ryuko this week. The hacker quits, and the majorette takes to the skies. Senketsu keeps up with the changes, worrying Aikuro.

Inumuta the hacker doesn't put up much of a fight, trying to rely on data collection and prediction to defeat Ryuko. He fails on the prediction part, since Ryuko is so crazy, er, reckless. So he goes for optical camouflage and stealth attacks. Ryuko and Senketsu figure, if they can't hit him, just hit everywhere, and the uniform morphs into a huge eye of Sauron Senketsu to strike the entire stage. But before they can sever his life fibers, Inumuta forfeits, so he can save the data he's collected on Ryuko so far. He still doesn't get to keep his suit, and sits with the other no-stars, Mako and Gamagoori.

Next up is Jakuzure, the marching band leader, and her suit turns into a huge tank-like sound system. Before Ryuko can land a hit, Jakuzure transforms the tank into a flying machine. Raining down missiles on her, Jakuzure claims the sky as her own, and tells her that this a king of the hill battle: you lose if you fall, not if you fly. Ryuko has enough of that, and using string from Senketsu, she harpoons the machine, and drags it back to the battle ground. Jakuzure tries to cut the strings anchoring Ryuko to the ground, but since they're all life fiber, that proves impossible. She figures to cut the ground instead. She blows up the top stage, and Ryuko falls with the rubble.

About this time in the match, Aikuro is getting worried, not about Ryuko losing, but trying too hard. He calls Kinigase to come back as a contingency, since he thinks the suit is evolving too quickly. This may have been what caused their previous versions of the suit to get out of control. As he says this, Ryuko flies out of the dust cloud in a rocket suit version of Senketsu. Jakuzure wants to get serious now, which we'll see in the next episode. Sanageyama has already started warming up. He's already "seen" where this fight will go.

A couple things made me laugh in this episode. One, Aikuro's phone case was a bare chest with abs on it. Of course. Mako standing up to the losers sitting next to her was not only funny, but added something which might be bigger later on. Senketsu notice that Ryuko calmed down after her battle with Inumuta by connecting with Mako. And again, we see Mako sleeping anywhere.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 9

Kill la Kill - Episode 9

Gamagoori's gimp suit proves a tough nut to crack. Senketsu learns a new trick. Ryuko provides some added "service" to the spectators.

Gamagoori is such a stickler for the rules. That makes sense, since he is the Discipline Committee president. So, no fighting until the proper time. Aikuro tries to convince Ryuko not to fight all the inner council, but he won't say why, yet. He's still just watching over things. Ryuko, of course, refuses.

Then, it's time for the match. And, it starts off kind of slow:

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 8

Kill la Kill - Episode 8

Satsuki orders up another purge. Ryuko sees this as a vacation. Gamagoori drives like crazy.

After last week's purge of the 2-star suits, Satsuki decides to extend the purge all the way down to the 1-stars. If they can survive the week, plus a sudden death battle royale at the next assembly, they can reclaim their 1-star uniforms. Those who took suits off of other 1-star students will have a chance to keep them.

The Inner Council and Ryuko see this week as a chance for a vacation. Ryuko and Mako take a moped trip back to the old Matoi house to see if she can find anything else about her father's research. She reminisces about how they grew apart after her mother's death and how she found him stabbed with the scissor half she now carries. It wasn't the scissor that killed him, but the house blowing up after Ryuko caught a glimpse of someone with long black hair carrying a blade fleeing the scene. It certainly is suggestive of Satsuki, but the blade didn't necessarily have to be the other scissor half, and just her own. Ryuko finds the basement lab empty.

On her way back, the moped runs out of gas, and Mako and Ryuko get picked up by Gamagoori in a huge pink Cadillac. There's a truce of sorts since they don't have to attack each other during this purge week, but that doesn't stop other students from attacking Gamagoori. They get ambushed by the merger of the Automotive and Airsoft clubs. This means there's 2-star suits trying to take the 3-star suit away from Gamagoori. Bad idea.

Gamagoori flashes back to when he was student council president at another middle school, but couldn't stop the bullying of another student because he did not have external power, whereas the bullies were the children of an influential businessman and the Police Chief. Satsuki shows up wielding her own parents' power, buying out the car dealership and ousting the chief with bribery charges. Gamagoori has followed her ever since.

At the final battle royale at the end of the week, in addition to the scrum in the main field, 5 pillars rise up so that whoever is the king of that hill becomes a candidate for the Inner Council. The Elite Four are already atop their pillars, and Ryuko runs up the 5th one. Since it was probably going to end up that way anyway, they propose to each have a one-on-one fight with Ryuko while they're there. Gamagoori is the first to challenge.

One thing I hadn't noticed before is that all the 1-star students have particular hair styles made to look like old German Stahlhelms, the kind storm troopers wore. More of that fascist/nazi/communist iconography there. Another thing is about Ryuko's father's death. She didn't actually see him die, and since the wound from the stabbing wasn't that serious, he may have had a chance to get out of the house before it blew up. Still fits in with my fanciful theory that he's actually Senketsu. Maybe...

Also, Mako's other superpower, besides her Mako Moment, is the ability to sleep anywhere.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 7

Kill la Kill - Episode 7

First rule of Fight Club is make somebody else handle the paperwork... Mako's family moves on up, but loses it all when Mako values friendship over materialism.

When everybody starts making clubs just so they can get their own 1-star Life Fiber suits to defeat Ryuko, she decides she can play that game too, and creates the Fight Club. But when Ryuko faces the much more daunting task of club duties paperwork, she hands the presidency and the one-star suit off to Mako. Here we see how the Kiruin philosophy of meritocracy plays out within the city, as the families of the life-fiber wearing students are rewarded with better living conditions. All the club presidents Ryuko defeats lose their suits and their status.

Shades of communism/fascism/nazism are the obvious references here, as the State rewards loyal party members. The Student Council questions Satsuki's intentions in allowing Ryuko and Mako to move up the ranks, and Satsuki tells them it is to see whether Ryuko will assimilate and buy into the system. But since the State is source of Mako's largesse, we see the close-knit family splinter as they wallow in materialism. The flipside of this kind of materialism is capitalism based on individual rights, where the source of success is the individual's merits, not recognition from a central command structure. Mako's family was happier when they were poor, not because they were poor, but because they made their own happiness.

Ryuko sees this happening and decides to quit the Fight Club. Without a fighter, Mako's family will lose all their received benefits, but Satsuki presents Mako with a 3-star suit, which also makes her available to join the inner circle, if she can defeat Ryuko. Banchou (gang-leader) power-up! During their battle, Ryuko turns off her power-up, but refuses to give up even while taking all of Mako's punishment. Finally, Mako can't take anymore of hurting her friend, Ryuko reveals to Senketsu that she knew Mako was pulling her punches. With that, Mako disbands the Fight Club, and Ryuko declares to Satsuki that a normal person can renounce her desires through willpower alone. This is the middle-class virtue of delaying gratification while saving for future purchases, be it children's well-being, or a new house. The Mankanshoku family moves back into their back-alley clinic from their front-alley clinic, and they're all happily eating together again.

However, while Ryuko was playing checkers in joining the club president game, Satsuki was playing chess. Ryuko did not assimilate, but her other goal was accomplished. She explains to her inner circle that she used Ryuko to purge their ranks of undesirables and the unworthy. Still an evil mastermind. Also one thing to note was the lack of fatigue Ryuko had in all of her transformations. We do not know if Satsuki is still being drained in her training with her own suit, but that is probably still the case, and should be a plot point later on in the series.

10 Second Anime - Kill la Kill - Episode 6

Kill la Kill - Episode 6

Ryuko meets one of the school elites for the first time, and we see experience and talent can overcome brute force. Funny how it was the bad guy doing the overcoming.

Ryuko confronts Mr. Aikuro about his association with Kinigase, whom she calls Mohawk Man, but quickly loses interest as Aikuro starts stripping while talking about Nudist Beach. Well, it stopped her from asking all those back story questions about her father's work.

The story of this episode concerns Sanageyama, one of the elites under Satsuki, who asks permission to duel Ryuko. Satsuki collected these powerful members of the student council by conquering their schools by defeating the Big Bad Boss of each one, and transferring them over to her school. Beating a kendo enthusiast with one strike convinced Sanageyama to follow her. His suit only has three life fibers, but his innate strength, talent, and experience prove him to be more than a match for Ryuko. Unfortunately, he relied too much on his eyes to track and react to Ryuko's movements, and that pride led to his utter defeat. Satsuki knew this was his weakness and pronounced the duel "not worth watching." She was correct.

However, Sanageyama does something next that we usually see good guys do. He sacrificed his eyes and his pride to become better at his art, and the affinity with his suit's sensing abilities allowed him to track and predict Ryuko's moves in round 2. If not for the suit overheating because it could not keep up with the wearer's abilities, Ryuko would not have had a chance to escape.

There were some little things thrown in to add some foreshadowing, such as Satsuki showing fatigue by practicing wearing her own suit. Ryuko doesn't seem to have this problem, as she has become a true partner with Senketsu, as Aikuro tried to explain would not have happened if Kinigase hadn't tried to kill her. Yeah, I didn't buy that either, but the partnership and friendship becoming stronger did happen regardless. Just as Ryuko could only last a few minutes wearing the suit earlier in the season because of her embarrassment, perhaps Satsuki is facing a similar drain because she isn't forming a bond with her suit.

One other thing is how Aikuro is keeping some things about her father's past secret from Ryuko because he doesn't trust her yet. I wonder what these conditions of trust are. Obviously getting better at wielding the suit is one, because she can't even defeat a 3 fiber suit while she has many hundreds. But does she need to have her beliefs align with the goals of Nudist Beach? Even Kinigase had trouble with the concept of bonding with the sentient suits after seeing one devour their colleague.

And again, this magical girl outfit anime throws convention on its head by having the bad guy do the noble sacrifice while the hero runs away because her reliance on brute force was not enough for victory. The heroes are supposed to have these noble transformations, with their hard work and talent being rewarded, not the bad guy. The defeat was so quick, we didn't even have a chance for a Mako Moment.