Has Release the Spyce Become Bland? (Conflicted Feelings After 11 Episodes)
Release the Spyce is a series that shows promise in the first episode. The girls made good first impressions. Momo had potential to be a decent lead. Plus we had multiple couples being well paired up. I actually had this as part of my "Early Top Three". It was up there with Tonari no Kyuuketsuki-san and Anima Yell. Or rather they were the only series above it. Yet as time went on the promise shown by the first episode of Spyce would not be met.
Episode 2 & 3 were standard fare episodes. They were mostly about showing how Momo would work with the group. They had enough issues to keep them from being great episodes, but not so many that I wanted to give up on the series. At the time I just considered them set up/example episodes. Speaking of set up, that's where the first real issue with the series comes in. How it would ultimately handle foreshadowing. We'll get to that problem later.
Episode 4 was at the time amazing, but sadly is now a very painful because it now feels like a lie beyond lies. In hindsight, I should have realized this episode was meant to be a hint as to what they were setting up. Ie they basically made these two the strongest couple (at least in my view) for a reason. To put it simply, they wanted what would come later to hurt quite a bit. Hence the emotional backstory, the romantic moments, and even the ending.
Episode 6 is where things started truly going downhill. Not that the show didn't have problems before with the bad foreshadowing and other things. However Spyce 6 introduced me to a character type I hate. She's awful beyond awful. Yes, it's a given that she was being set up for a redemption arc and might ultimately get redeemed, but even knowing that. Even suspecting that, it was hard not to hate her, That hatred of her shattered my rose colored glasses I was wearing while watching the series. Then again maybe she did me a favor. Ie she made me start second guess Release the Spyce.
Spyce 7 felt like a step back in the right direction. Mostly because it started to focus back on relationships. To be honest I'm less invested in Goe's romance than I am in either Fu or Momo, but it was still a good moment to be had. Just that despite Hatsume's role up to this point, both her and Goe sort of feel like they're to fill the last couple of slots. So we can have a full party of 6 instead of 4.
Now we get to the real fun part, the problem with episode 10. The issue of the traitor. Now who the traitor ended up being isn't the problem. If you read through the meta, she makes the most sense. To make a long story short she fills all the roles that the traitor would need to fill for the story to have the impact they were in theory trying to go for. And for the record this applies even if this whole betrayal turns out to be a ruse. As one of the roles the traitor would need to fill is the potential ruse role.
The problem is that while she works in meta, she doesn't work in series proper. Then again none of the girls work as the traitor. Simply because as the show had handled it, the traitor felt like they just relied on RNG. The traitor shouldn't only make sense because you narrowed it down to either "Cute Mascot" or "Mustache Twirler". There needs to be a reasond beyond that. One major issue with the whole traitor thing is that the foreshadoing of it was basically "By the way, there's a traitor" followed by "Just in case you forgot, there was a traitor". I almost felt like I was playing Lost Dimension again. Which funny thing is based on the traitor being randomized each floor as its premise.
Beyond that the other issue with episode 10 is it was trying too hard to be an episdoe 10 of 12. You know the episode where everything goes wrong for the heroes. The villains suddenly become more uber than before. Basically the plot decides to switch sides for an episode. Some series sell the "episode 10" very well. Other series end up making the episode 10 feel forced beyond forced. Guess which category Release the Spyce falls under. Guess!
I can't deny that Mei giving "hints" she might be putting on some act is making me feel conflicted. I want to get my hopes up that this is the case. However like Fu, the audience has already been betrayed once and Mei has indicated her lover for Fu is lower than her love for suffering and money. So we want to keep expectations low. Or perhaps we don't want to let go of this anger that we currently have. I mean sure I could just wait until episode 12 confirms the stuatus of Mei and Fu in general, but to do so would ruin part of the fun. Which is seeing how your reaction changes over time. How in a single episode you can go from cheering for a character to hating a character's guts.
While my opinion on the series has lowered ever since 6, I can't deny that 12 could save the series for me. This is true even if 12 turned out to be bad. Because the truth of the matter is I've become too invested in Mei and Fu. Both as individuals and as a couple. Even after the betrayals, I'm still filled with desires and hopes related to how their characters arcs will end up. This creates a strong bias in me. One where if enough desires gets fulfilled, I''ll end up moving the series up the ranks again. I feel conflicted.
Despite all my complaints, I can't bring myself to give up on the series or fully hate it. Perhaps I would have if not for episode 4 and the show really pushing Fu and Mei. That's another reason the episode is now cruel. It's infected me and effected my judgment. Which means I am fully admitting that it did what it was supposed to. If you want to claim that's proof of me being easily manipulated then go ahead. I'm not going to deny they succeded in doing so.
I'm not sure anymore if I'm attacking or defending the show. All I know for certain is I do badly want to see 12 as soon as possible. Both for the sake of train wreck moments and both because I still have hopes in regards to Mei and Fu. I'm not kidding about being way too invested in seeing how things turn out between them.
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