Monday 30 June 2008

Telepathy Shoujo Ran - Episode 2

With the end of the opening episode of Telepathy Shoujo Ran seeing our protagonist discover her powers, the second episode almost inevitably delves into the down side of being telepathic. What's it like to hear your friends dismissing your intentions and branding you as cowardly, or near-strangers pre-judging you without any opportunity to respond? Needless to say, Ran doesn't take all of this very well, although she is at least buoyed somewhat by seeing the rather purer and friendlier thoughts of her family.

As the episode progresses, we also learn that Ran is unable to read the thoughts of Rui - One could argue that's because he doesn't have any cogent thoughts in his pretty little head, but that would probably be a little harsh, and it seems pretty clear that there's going to be more to this particular plot point as the series progresses. The closing segment of the episode leaves us with a cliffhanger and also ties Ran (and, we should probably assume, Midori) and Rui in with some of the strange goings-on mentioned in the first episode.


Two episodes in then, and it's a case of so far, so predictable for Telepathy Shoujo Ran - I'm pretty sure that had I run a sweepstake on what would happen next after the first episode, all of the points noted above would have gotten a prominent mention. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I do get the feeling that this series is going to travel something of a well-trodden road in terms of the way the story and characters are handled, but it's still too early to tell for certain, so I'll reserve judgement for now. As I mentioned last time around, Ran also seems like a pretty likeable character, which works in the show's favour, although conversely Rui's bland personality and stupid voice are already starting to grate with me, while Midori pulls off the usual 'evil schoolgirl' act that we all know so well. As of right now though, a dose of mediocrity seems to be the order of the day for this series.

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