Tide-Line Blue - episode 8

"Reunion - Reunite"



Crises of conscience make for great drama! Teen! Aoi! The ostrich! (no, seriously, the ostrich).
Tide-Line Blue really is working hard to regain my trust. The set up of this episode is highly conducive to rocking.

Directly taking off from the previous episode, Joze takes Aoi hostage. Keel wants to save Aoi, and the ostrich doesn't want Teen to be shot, and then some varieties of Hell break loose.

What this means is that the new team of Keel, Joze and Teen is formed. The difference is that, over eight episodes, Joze is still an "icy bitch", but Teen has developed into something more akin to a person.

I'm actually sensing something of a role-reversal here, with Teen uncertain of himself and Keel being more commanding. Teen is naturally uncertain because his time in the New UN has shown him that problems can be resolved using something other than violence.
Teen, of course, now knows things that Keel does not: the map, and news of their father. This sense of context gives him much more to live for than he ever had before. I have to wonder if the twins had not, before the events of the first episode, seen each other for seven years.

The scenes that Aoi spends lamenting that she has never been able to balance her roles as "mother" for Keel and the General Secretary of the New UN was effective indeed, as seeing a character lose her composure for good reason always works. For whatever reason, the ostrich has become an object of sympathy and this works well against all odds. This is probably just an excuse for Chen Reishi to come across and talk to Aoi.

The final scenes of the episode showed the supreme difference in the attitudes of Joze and Keel. Joze seems far too distrusting and fatalistic, and I desperately wanted Keel to be right. What this series has shown, and quite well, is that the moral option is not always the most effective - that which is repugnant might get the job done far better. This is depressing, but all too true.

I have been meaning to mention the ED for a long time now, and as it turns out this is the perfect episode do so. The song itself is an excellent piece that just smacks of "pretty boys". Like so many things I love, I love it for all of the wrong reasons.
The animation itself changes every couple of episodes and in this capacity acts as a preview. The lyrics for this episode accompany what looks like some very good Teen and Keel cooperation and drama. It also implies that they'll get out of this current mess, but I've no idea how they plan to do so.

The last point before the conclusion is this: despite the fact that Teen and Keel are twins, how could you confuse one for the other? Keel is dressed in purple Gravitation clothes, while Teen sees fit to get sorted out as a military man. It's easy to decide which one to shoot.

All in all, an episode of excellence. Emotion lends weight to proceedings and makes everything eminently more watchable. Yet Joze's still a bitch, and I don't think that will change anytime soon.