Saturday 14 July 2012

Kokoro Connect - Episode 2

Having quickly and predictably established its body-swapping premise in episode one, it's time for Kokoro Connect to ramp things up notably for its second instalment.

If the members of the Student Cultural Society thought that the previous day's "adventures" were a one-off, any such hopes are quickly dashed as a trio of these friends suffer a three-day body swap that ultimately causes them to miss some of their classes, leaving them needing to hastily make some excuses for their respective teachers.  The body-swapping continues seemingly at random, and with Iori in particular stressing about the results of her previous day's swap with Taichi.


In the midst of all this we finally get something approaching an answer as to what's going on, as someone (or something?) named Heartseed takes control of teach Mr. Goto's body to deliver a message to the club, effectively telling them that the body-swapping will continue to happen at random while he observes them, and that they should deal with it without telling anyone else what's going on.  It seems that our group of school kids have no choice but to accept this, but as we fast forward a week it seems that the situation is liable to start causing all sorts of rifts between these friends.

After rather a lacklustre opener, this week's Kokoro Connect at least brings rather more to the table - we now have some kind of unknown "bad guy" controlling the whole scenario, which in itself adds an extra element to proceedings, while the already shifting and fracturing relationships between our five "swapees" are starting to show rather more potential than just clichéd jokes and fan service elements.  Of course, starting is very much the operative word here - we're still in the territory of gags and slight fan service at the moment for the most part, but the buds of something a little deeper and more involved are shooting in this week's episode, and this can only be a good thing.

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