English Dub Review: Gleipnir “We Two Are One”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Clair and Shuichi meet up with Yota and Chihiro and they ask for the coins since the group lacks the strength. On the walk home, they make plans and Clair goes over to his place. When Clair questions the last time he remembered his parents Shuichi’s head hurts as he remembers a memory of Elena. Then Koyanagi removes their pact and ends their relationship along with their decision to give the coins to Elena who Chihiro’s been in contact with since she became on with Shuichi. The next day they notice that Chihiro isn’t at school and after school they split up to lose their tails.

Clair confronts Aihara at the swimming pool while Shuichi gets stopped by Isao and Yota. Yota tells him that Chihiro is at the riverbank. Shuichi contacts Clair and heads to the riverside. Chihiro gives Elena the coins, but Shuichi shows up, and Clair soon after who asks if they recognize the mascot toy she got from the abandoned cram school. That triggers the reveal of Elena in Shuichi’s memories and they fight. However, the monster that looks like Honoka appears and nearly erases Shuichi, but Elena stops it by using her power to erase her existence from his memories. However, this doesn’t stop Shuichi and Clair from attempting to get a hundred coins to stop the game.

Our Take:

Gleipnir concludes in an anticlimatic way as Shuichi and Clair’s hunt for the hundred coins continues with no end in sight. Koyanagi’s group drops out of the race for the coins and gives the coins they have to Elena. Her group appears to the most likely to succeed in ending the game.

When Clair goes over to his house things take an interesting turn. Shuichi’s home is a complete mess from the dust on the floor to the rotten food on the table. I enjoyed how we don’t see the interior of his house until the final episode. It worked well to reveal that something isn’t right with Shuichi. We see how he appears to be oblivious to the mess which concerns Clair. Then she asks about his parents which triggers a memory for Shuichi. Parents being absent in this anime is certainly not a surprise. However, it was a surprise to learn that they were killed in the fragmented memory that Shuichi has of Elena.

The animation for Elena and the duo’s fight was nice. Their fight was a good scene with the emotional impact of Shuichi refusing Elena’s kindness and striving to end the game with Clair. There’s also Elena and Clair’s bond as they often have the same sad scent that Shuichi mentions. It worked in emphasizing the goal for Shuichi to bear the burden of Elena’s sins as well as ending the game. Shuichi and Clair appear to become one in the fight against Elena with the steam rising from the mascot. It completes the idea of them becoming one as the anime has often talked about.

Overall it’s the final episode that does answer the question on Shuichi’s memories. It leaves the show with an open ending though on the hunt for the coins and the spaceship.