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by Luis Reyes |
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Episode 4: Precious Things Are...Precious
Yuusuke's illness baffles the nether world squatters that are Noelle's family, especially Noelle who would rather tend to his symptoms than go to school. When Yuusuke finally convinces her that angels go to school, Noelle jets off, leaving the boy in the hands of Granny, who is convinced that Yuusuke's ailment is an evil curse. Eventually, Noelle's invisible sister Sara attends to him, wishing him well an origami crane. However, as school breaks for the day, Miruru leads Noelle into another one of Dispel's traps.
Episode 5: Not There, But Still There
When the whole family decides to go on vacation to the beach, Mama gets overzealous about volleyball. Meanwhile, Sara makes designs for Yuusuke, despite her sister Noelle's overzealous pursuit of the sickly schoolboy. Dispel, though, carries his overzealous pursuit of Noelle even to the seaside where he sends a crew of pint sized robots in a UFO to kidnap the eponymous angel. Yuusuke, driven by either love or sincere optimism, runs after her, barely making it onto the spacecraft before it zooms off. It's up to the invisible Sara to warn the family, all of whom distract themselves with a pineapple fight.
Episode 6: Hearts Have Wings and Stuff
Natsumi, Yuusuke's school crush, dreams of a childhood episode in which her brother sprouts the wings of an angel and abandons her. And Noelle, in her determined pursuit to be an angel, tests out some mechanical wings developed by her little sister Lucca. Natsumi, now with a strange past and having been called an angel lovingly by Yuusuke, attracts the attention of Noelle who now pursues her relentlessly for the secret of how to become an angel. And eventually Noelle sees a warm and gentle person behind Natsumi's cold, ornery facade.
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As Tenshi's juvenile playfulness moves to the extremes, it's poignant edge counters - a three story restaurant mega-monster chases after a jasmine jelly-toting Noelle, only to be distracted by a giant cake being made arbitrarily in the middle of a park; and, at the other tonal extreme, Dispel and Silky's relationship grows dark, while Sara's love for Yuusuke reveals itself in small, self-conscious snippets, portending deep heartbreak for the precious, but grating, Noelle.
But for every two steps forward, this strangely compelling story always back steps into a monster-of-the-week sent by Dispel to capture Noelle that fails - a repetitive circumstance that begs for the darker elements of the show to take hold and carry it into the weightier terrain it deserves.
Perhaps the gummiest adhesive that keeps the series from flying is its insistence on plumbing the depths of bad jokes, the bastard child of humor, the punicious punishment of the lexicographers … puns - made even the more difficult by the language barrier. This insidious comedic device forces its way into the dialogue, diluting a lot of the very real mounting tension. And how much confidence in the quality of the humor must the creators' have if Noelle's little sister Lucca meta-cinematically points out individual lines as bad puns? The wacky animators over at Studio Pierrot are just amusing themselves to death.
Rushing to the rescue, Dispel and Silky's relationship grows ever more bizarre and remains by far the most intriguing element of the story. Though Dispel has some kind of physical control over Silky, as if she's enslaved, Silky has some kind of effective resistance against Dispel, being able to refuse him food when he begs for it, and comforting him with cold, stoic strokes across his scalp when he sobs after failing to capture Noelle for the umpteenth time. Wicked and textured, the core of the show rests with these two.
By contrast, the wit and color of Noelle's family grows paler with each episode, and Dispel and Silky developments don't slip in fast enough to compensate. By episode six there is certainly some kind of creative chasm at the center of the show. Of course, that's when the creators toss a monkey wrench into the system by focusing on Natsumi, who has a recurrent, scarring memory of her brother sprouting wings and flying into the horizon - which intimates that Natsumi isn't just a poetic angel as Yuusuke attests, but an actual angel repressed by life as a human. But speculation aside, this development, though narratively stalled, forces the series into more emotionally stirring arenas.
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