Episode five of The Rolling Girls, titled “Disappointing Person,” is currently streaming on FUNimation for paid members. Free members can watch this same episode less than seven days from now on February 14th. The titular Rolling Girls have left Comina and continue their adventures to locate the many heart-shaped moonstones.
The episode begins on a comedic start as the heroines are forced to push their motorcycles on the road because Nozomi forgot to stop at the gas station to buy gas, but I was surprised that she didn’t make Ai help her push at all.
Ai is sitting in the sidecar and it adds extra weight to push. Rhetorically speaking, wouldn’t it be more efficient if Ai got off and helped Nozomi push? That would take off at least 100 pounds of weight and having two people push would make things more efficient.
The four of them get dragged in the middle of a conflict between Mie and Aichi because the latter’s shachihokos were destroyed.
What got my attention is Mie’s theme, which centers of professional motorcycle racing.
It contrasts to Comina, which is an otaku nation.
I was shocked at the rule that they have to eat at a certain restaurant if they are “attacked” by that establishment’s employees. This is an interesting concept to bringing customers into a place of dining, which I can understand because the food service industry can be cutthroat.
Nozomi’s brief past with Himeko surprised me let alone the latter revealing herself as one of the Best, too.
The episode becomes intellectual and political past the second episode when it is revealed that Mie and Aichi have the same origins. It does remind me of the political situation a few years back when Kosovo broke away from Serbia and became its own independent country because the ethnic Albanians living in the former wanted independence.
Sociopolitical tensions between the Albanians and Serbians mirror the tensions between the residents of Mie and Aichi.
I was shocked when Mr. Dandy revealed that he doesn’t possess one of those special moonstones, which makes think that a Best could be powerful without relying on such power. If that is the case, then Mr. Dandy is a total bad@$$.
The internal situation of Mie Motors reminds of the Freeside Kings from Fallout: New Vegas, where the King’s second-in-command was secretly trying to overthrow him.
“Disappointing Person” is a uniquely entertaining episode that combined bike gangs and social politics to tell one convincing story.
