Wonder Egg Priority 9 Early Access

One thing I noticed is that Acca and Ura-Acca are also watching the dreams (as seen in past epideso) but with better quality vs what Misaki/Neiru's company is using.

RJ Legarte

So here's something I think did a decent job analyzing this episode https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/review/wonder-egg-priority/episodes-8-9/.170474

I agree this episode kinda felt janky and weird (which is unfortunately the case with many short original anime) but I don't think the show strays as far off from its themes as people claim it does in the later episodes. I really don't think we should focus so much on the assisted suicide aspect of this episode, since as you mentioned Kotobuki's situation is so divorced from reality/the context in which AS occurs. And even as a supporter of assisted suicide myself I really fucking hate the arguments put forth, re: the severely disabled's ability to consent and taking inability to do so *as* consent, in favor of it (won't get into that), and despite all of Wonder Egg's previous displays of its ability to handle difficult subjects I don't think it would have been able to pull it off this episode. Rather, I think it would be better to focus on how this episode handles the theme of the "death drive". Normally whenever I hear "Thanatos," I default to thinking about it in the psychoanalytic context instead of the Greek god (though I'm sure that's not entirely off the table). Not sure what is meant by "stage 4", but (from the wiki of "Beyond the Pleasure Principle"): "Arguing that dreams in which one relives trauma serve a binding function in the mind, connected to repetition compulsion, Freud admits that such dreams are an exception to the rule that the dream is the fullfilment of a wish. Asserting that the first task of the mind is to bind excitations to prevent trauma (so that the pleasure principle does not begin to dominate mental activities until the excitations are bound), he reiterates the clinical fact that for "a person in analysis ... the compulsion to repeat the events of his childhood in the transference evidently disregards the pleasure principle in everyway". I think a connection could certainly be made to Kotobuki and the rest of the Egg girls, but I'm not sure how to articulate it yet. Perhaps Kotobuki's death experiments (and the Egg girls hatching in the dream world) was in some way a repetitive revisiting of trauma? Or if you wanna look at Greek mythology, the "smell of honey" maybe refers to honey (nectar) and honey wine (ambrosia). In Greek the word “nectar” means “victory over death” and Ambrosia stands for “immortality”. Perhaps some commentary on how facing death and trauma is what allows you to resist it, like Nietzsche's approach (accepting suicide as a possibility, the existence of a "parallel self" or possibility, so that you can reject it)? Although admittedly doesn't make sense in Kotobuki's case. Idk.

The thing about Neiru and Kotobuki. They are both extremely emotionally stunted as a result of how they were raised. I wonder if that was what you were picking up on? I think it's implied that both of them (and probably all the plati kids) were raised in fairly isolating conditions, so they never really learned to express themselves or even fully understand their own emotional needs. We've seen Neiru's awkwardness as she tries very hard to open up to Ai and the others. Kotobuki tries to fake expressiveness by putting on an extroverted, science-above-all act. That's why, although the other girl's relationships with their traumas were extremely raw and out there, Kotobuki actually didn't recognize her own trauma right away. In fact, except for a few off-handed remarks by Kotobuki you might have imagined she had nothing to do with this doctor (heck, even she didn't recognize him until he named himself). But you could see from her face that she was very scared and fighting to tamp down her fear. When I watched this, it felt just as deftly done as the other episodes in terms of its emotional story, but I don't know, maybe I'm reading into it too much.

AG

the world building is insane these episodes

Iggy

All these new information will have more meaning in the next episodes.

RJ Legarte

Ah gotchya. My bad.

Switch Official

8 is an unplanned recap episode but is still counted as an official episode so it was just skipped for episode 9 which would happen after episode 7

Nathan Brost

Are we missing one? Or is the title a typo? XD

Switch Official