The Rolling Girls

Episode 11

A whole lot happened in this week's action-packed episode of Rolling Girls. Like the last episode, this one bounced between a few plots at once, finishing the Momo story in the first half and then leaping straight over to the Hiroshima power struggle end of the story. Unlike last episode, the execution was something of a structural mess - this episode felt busy in a bad way, with more plot and characters than it seemed to know what to do with. But hey, at least we got a bunch of great fights!

The first half resolution to Momo's story was definitely the more structurally sound of the two major sequences here, though it still wasn't perfect. Momo's desire to fight Ura in order to help her mom pretty much instantly made her one of the more relatable Rolling Girls characters, but the visual execution of her part of the fight was not the show at its best. Ura's floaty movement didn't make for particularly weighted exchanges, and Momo charging at an opponent only to be knocked backwards wasn't the most exciting fighting style, either. Fortunately, the fight got a definite upgrade once Haru took her daughter's place, and though the character models seemed a little wonky throughout the fight (and not in a “distorted for the sake of motion and smears” expected way - even the relatively still characters looked awkwardly drawn), the animation, explosions, and general effects work were a treat. The explosions were on point in general this week - all the characters had unique visual powers reflective of their backgrounds and personalities, and seeing the clashes between fighters erupt into flowers, sharks, and crashing waves was its own reward.

The actual plot was much less strong. We quickly learned that Momo was actually Ura's daughter, but the reasons for Ura abandoning her were sort of handwaved in the general resolution of the arc. Ura essentially needed to be temporarily cast as a villain for this whole episode sequence's setup to work, but the explanation for her terrorizing her people in order to apparently save them were breezed over in a couple brief conversations, making the whole arc feel somewhat undercooked. The second half's plot wasn't much better - the pirate Shima's motivation didn't have much grounding, the political back-and-forth of Hiroshima was based in characters we've barely been introduced to, and the ultimate plan to use the moonstones resolved in Shima jumping in a giant robot. Meanwhile, Yukina bonded over Momi-Ham with her cellmates, Shigyo and Ma-chan got defeated pretty much instantly, Shima's second-in-command slowly realized he was actually one of the moon people, and the other three leads rediscovered the meaning of friendship. You certainly couldn't accuse this episode of being gracefully constructed.

Fortunately, concerns about the plot being a muddled mess that lacks any emotional grounding aren't nearly as big of a problem when Rolling Girls is able to distract you with shiny fights - and this episode's second half sure had plenty of those. With Kaguya now having secured the backing of Okayama in her attempt to reclaim leadership of Hiroshima, she quickly moved to challenge Shima, and their battle resulted in a bounty of nicely choreographed exchanges and gloriously animated explosions. Twin swords clashed with bamboo spear all across Shima's underground lair, with the two warriors flipping and parrying and keeping me perfectly entertained despite my total lack of emotional investment. This episode was entertaining in spite of itself, and at this point that's pretty much all I expect from Rolling Girls.

Rating: B

The Rolling Girls is currently streaming on Funimation.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.