Mekakucity Actors - Episode 3

Momo Kisaragi's popularity continues to be a major problem for her, and even having avoided the crowds she inadvertently ran into at the end of last week's episode of Mekakucity Actors, it seems that there is yet another person who wants a piece of this young idol.

This person, however, is no ordinary girl, and after claiming that she's just like Momo she sets about proving it - although, to be more precise, this girl named Kido is in fact the exact opposite of Momo.  Thus, while Momo has a power which allows her to be noticed and to attract all and sundry, Kido's power effectively makes her invisible to everybody.  Seeing Kido flit around like a ghost to prove her point is all a little too much for Momo, and the next thing she knows she wakes up at the base of Kido and others like her, as they explain that the phenomenon she's known since birth is actually a power that she can learn to control.

Thanks to one of these other super-powered individuals, Marry, and an accident involving a lot of juice and a mobile phone, Momo needs to go to the shopping centre to get said phone replaced - a serendipitous event which leads to her first spotting her brother, before the entire building is hijacked and taken hostage.  Yes, we've now wrapped around to events from episode one, which we now see from the point of view of Momo and her new-found group of friends as they set about using their powers to help Shintaro and thwart the baddies taking innocent shoppers hostage.

Having left something of an unfavourable impression from its first episode, I must admit that it's a relief to see Mekakucity Actors improving by the week - although this latest instalment doesn't quite allow me to forgive that patchy opener, and although it still feels like the lowest budget SHAFT series we've seen in rather a while, I am at least now invested more in its characters and setup.  Of course, the show is still keeping its powder dry about its wider ambitions and plans, but now that the cast and their abilities have been introduced it seems like there's no shortage of interesting things that can be done with them, while Momo makes for an entertaining and grounded centrepiece for these goings-on assuming she continues to function as the protagonist of the series.  In short, the series still has plenty to prove, but it's well and truly heading in the right direction.