English Dub Review: Wonder Egg Priority “An Unvanquished Warrior”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

After Momoe and Rika were visited by Frill’s minions, they finally meet back up with Ai and Neiru in order to tell them what’s been going on. Rika is furious at Momoe for not warning herself and the others about the death of their sidekick pets, and the two of them go off in separate ways.

Ai heads back to the egg world, determined not to let the same thing happen to Leon. She encounters a version of herself from a parallel world and helps her in her fight against a monstrous version of Mr. Sawaki. Along the way, she tells her about Koito and realizes what the relationship meant to her at the time. In the end, the alternative Ai saves her from facing Frill and sends her home safely.

Our Take:

After starting off as one of the most surprising shows of the Winter 2021 season, Wonder Egg Priority’s 12th episode is a case study in how the show has gone a bit off the rails over the latter half of its stretch. It’s filled with so many head scratching moments and does basically nothing to answer or wrap up any of the questions posed at the beginning of its premiere episode. That’s more acceptable now that the ‘true’ 45 minute finale is out in subs, but I can only imagine how fans must have felt watching this back in April. WEP has always been a special egg, so to speak, but at this point I’m not convinced it was fully cooked.

One of the show’s best parts, for me, was the dynamic between the four main cast members. Ai, Neiru, Rika, and Momoe are all very different, but the bonds of friendship that brought them together were forged in some really dark times. That’s why it felt so disappointing to see them leaving things as they did in the opening scene. Hopefully it’s just the storm before the calm that the 13th episode will bring, but after everything that’s happened the past few episodes, I could also see them never speaking to each other again.

With everyone else out of the way, An Unvanquished Warrior turns its full attention on Ai herself. That’s cool, because we started out with her and she still hasn’t completed her character arc at the beginning of this episode. Ai has always been the glue that held everyone else together, but what happens when she needs fixing? The idea of parallel worlds is quickly introduced, like a lot of big concepts in this back half of episodes, and while I wish it had more room to breath, it’s not hard to buy into after everything else we’ve seen. And the fact that it allows Ai to help a scared, withdrawn version of herself is pretty much the perfect way to wrap up her arc, as she sees how far she’s come.

It also puts a bit of an end to one subject at least: Ai’s curiosity towards Koito’s death. After spending so long questioning why she killed herself and who was responsible if not Mr. Sawaki, Ai comes to the conclusion that she can’t let those questions consume her life. Instead, seeing her alternative self helps her remember just how much Koito’s presence and friendship meant to her at the time.

It’s a sweet and emotionally realistic way to tie this storyline up, but I can’t help but feel a bit cheated out of a black and white explanation after the show teased it for so long. Mr. Sawaki shows up as the villain in Ai’s egg quest, but even his status as a villain in the real world remains a bit unclear. The version of him shown here is two-faced and treacherous, but Ai fights against him by saying she believes in the real Mr. Sawaki who deserves happiness with her mother.

Viewed as a single episode, An Unvanquished Warrior isn’t a bad episode of Wonder Egg Priority. It isn’t as gorgeously animated or cinematically staged as previous entries, but it presents us with Ai’s character arc in a nutshell as she overcomes her past trauma in order to move forward and make her world a bit better place to live in — for the sake of herself and those she loves. When examined as the penultimate/final episode of the season, however, it does feel a bit underwhelming. There’s just so many battles left to happen, so many subtle moments left to expand, and so much left to explain. I doubt that the show could wrap up completely even with the extra 45 minute special episode. Maybe it’s a good thing that this 12th episode doesn’t really try to do that for anyone other than Ai.