Kaiba Episode 9 - Attack Warp!
With the various Dadas under his control, Popo starts to put his final plan to take over the planet in motion - by getting Neiro to kill Kaiba and vice versa. Having brainwashed Neiro (and Cheki, after she tries to convince Neiro not to go through with it), the two ex-lovers confront each other as Popo eggs Neiro on - and not even a last minute intervention from Kichi can stop tragic events from unfolding…
Well, except for two things. One, it’s not very tragic - we already know that the Kaiba!Warp body is invincible, so “blowing him up” isn’t going to be very effective (although I can’t remember if Popo knows that - I don’t think he does, especially as he tries to poison Kaiba). Two, Kichi’s big impassioned speech to Neiro to get her to remember the truth is rather contrived - I’ve watched this episode a couple of times and it really doesn’t hold up as a dramatic device (as we have debated in the glorious AnimeSuki thread). Why Popo sits there and lets Kichi spout off is something of a mystery - he doesn’t have a weapon, but surely he could get Neiro to shoot him? Kaiba does help to jog Neiro’s memory when he draws funny pictures in the air - something which makes a lot more sense after you’ve seen episode 10, as does a lot of the stranger imagery from this episode - but I don’t think that’s enough.
Despite this, getting to this point of the show is probably the dramatic high point thus far, and episode 10 looks to do a great job of filling in the blanks for what happened to Kaiba and Neiro before the first episode. On rewatching, there’s one rather ominous line that Fake!Warp utters, though - something about “the Fan” (which is part of episode 11’s title). And what’s with the strange machine that seems to be having problems that occasionally pops up in between scenes? It would be nice to know exactly what’s going on, after all…
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