Darling in the Franxx Episode 11 Review

By Sarah Campbell
8 years Ago

This episode of Darling in the Franxx continues the string of character episodes we have been enjoying&period; Like the last episode was a Zorome episode and the episode before that focused on Ichigo and Goro’s relationship, Partner Shuffle focuses on Mitsuru and Kokoro&period;&NewLine;As the title of the episode might imply, some of the pilot pairs have switched around&period; Kokoro has partnered up with Mitsuru, and Ikuno and Futoshi have been stuck together by default&period; This episode focuses mostly on the relationship between Mitsuru and Kokoro, while their partners will hopefully get a little more development in an upcoming episode&period; &NewLine;<h2>Mitsuru</h2>&NewLine;The episode opens with Mitsuru having a flashback dream about Hiro&period; While his younger self smiles and claps along with the other children, present-day Mitsuru rails against Hiro&period; It becomes evident later on in the episode why&period;&NewLine;Mitsuru had been one of the few children to survive an experimental injection&period; Before he was to undergo the treatment, Hiro had promised him that they could pilot a Franxx together&period; After he returned, Hiro either forgot or pretended to forget about the promise&period; Brokenhearted, Mitsuru swore off ever trusting anyone and became the surly loner we know today&period;&NewLine;In the episode, somebody comments on how Mitsuru is always butting heads with Hiro but has he been&quest; There was that time that Mitsuru partnered up with Zero-Two, and Mitsuru sometimes said mean things to Hiro&period; But for the most part, whenever Mitsuru is on screen, he’s mostly off by himself or talking to Kokoro&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;137114" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-137114" style="width&colon; 955px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-137114 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/29180706/bleeeeeeh&period;jpg" alt="" width="955" height="536" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-137114" class="wp-caption-text">Darling in the Franxx, Studio Trigger and A-1 Pictures</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;There isn’t very much to say about Mitsuru&&num;8217&semi;s arc this episode, despite him being the primary focus&period; This is a plot we’ve seen dozens of times already&period; While there’s nothing truly original under the sun, this particular episode doesn’t put an exciting spin on the old idea&period; Mitsuru begins his journey of learning to trust again with his new partner who is literally named &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;heart”&period; This show doesn’t do subtle&period;&NewLine;<h2>Kokoro</h2>&NewLine;Speaking of Kokoro, she has a much more interesting arc this episode&period; Kokoro has been in a seemingly happy relationship with Futoshi this entire series but abruptly chooses to abandon her partner in favor of Mitsuru who she often has clandestine meetings with in the greenhouse&period; While her decision does seem to deeply hurt Futoshi, the show doesn’t pass any moral judgment on her actions&period;&NewLine;Mitsuru fills a need for Kokoro that Futoshi can’t&period; Kokoro desperately needs to nurture another person, as evidenced by her desire to have a child of her own&period; Unlike Mitsuru, Futoshi seems to be relatively well adjusted&period; He’s open with his emotions and wants to protect and support Kokoro even after she breaks her promise to him&period; &NewLine;It’s honestly a little refreshing that nobody involved in this conflict is shown to be outright wrong or malicious&period; Sometimes no matter how much you love someone things don’t work out, and it isn’t anybody’s fault&period; It’s impossible to live with other people without hurting them and being hurt in one way or another&period; I think that’s an important message for young people to see in our current media climate where love and friendship is mostly shown as mostly painless and frictionless&period;&NewLine;On the other side of the coin, the onus of &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;fixing” Mitsuru seems to be entirely on Kokoro’s shoulders&period; She puts herself in great physical peril to try and force him out of the rut he’s been in&period; The moral of the story seems to be a troubling one&period; It is good and noble to sacrifice your own happiness and well-being in order to fix someone else’s emotional problems&period; I’ll be interested to see how this theme is dealt with in future episodes&period;&NewLine;<h2>Sex and Sexuality</h2>&NewLine;Mitsuru’s character arc in this episode is attempting to get over a childhood heartbreak at the hands of Hiro&period; Ikuno decides to try a Pistil to Pistil operation of a Franxx as well&period; Finally, we get the answer to the most obvious question&period; Can a same-sex pair operate a Franxx&quest;&NewLine;The answer is apparently no&period; I find this to be a troubling answer, but it is still early in the series&period; There is still a chance that the answer will change or develop as the series goes on&period; &NewLine;As Zero-Two, Ichigo, and Kokoro have all demonstrated now&semi; a Pistil can pilot a Franxx on her own&period; Ikuno’s line to Ichigo suggests that perhaps the problem might have been Ichigo’s hangups, and not that same-sex Franxx piloting is impossible&period;&NewLine;<figure id="attachment&lowbar;137115" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-137115" style="width&colon; 954px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img class="wp-image-137115 size-full" src="https&colon;//cdn&period;bagogames&period;com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/29180734/serious&period;jpg" alt="" width="954" height="537" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-137115" class="wp-caption-text">Darling in the Franxx, Studio Trigger and A-1 Pictures</figcaption></figure>&NewLine;The rigid system they live in has repeatedly been shown as the wrong way to go about things in the series&period; They call out the idea that the experimental Squad 13 is refuting all of their previous beliefs&period; I believe that the similarly rigid heteronormativity in the series will be similarly challenged in a later episode&period; Or perhaps, that’s wishful thinking on my part&period; &NewLine;Darling in the Franxx is available to stream on Crunchyroll and FUNimation&period;&NewLine;

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Tags: Anime and Manga Review Darling In the Franxx Episode 11 Studio Trigger Top Stories

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