Xebek’s Blog

Skuld gets into an argument with Urd that she can learn to ride a bike and gets discouraged when it seems she won’t be able to do so.

Summary:

Skuld is sitting with Keiichi and Urd, Urd showing off her magic power. Skuld gets mad and jealous so tries to use magic herself but isn’t able to and when Urd laughs at her she pulls out some contraption she made to blow the flower petals with that instead of magic, even though it is way overpowered. They see Belldandy riding a bike home and she tells Skuld how she has some ice cream so she should come in. Skuld just looks admiringly at Belldandy seeing her on a bicycle and wonders if it is nice to ride one. As everyone is inside, Skuld is thoroughly examining the bicycle from a very technical point of view saying how she sees how it works how power is transmitted from the chain and stuff like that. Keiichi and Belldandy come up behind her and ask her if she wants to ride the bicycle, she gets embarrassed and says not really. Urd appears and smugly says that’s because she doesn’t know how to ride it. Skuld says Urd can’t ride it either but Urd shows her she can and wins the bet for all of Skuld’s ice cream. Skuld just says she could learn to ride one and so Urd makes another bet with her that if she can’t’ learn to do it in three days she has to ride a tricycle around town and Skuld says fine, but Urd has to ride a unicycle around if she can learn to ride a bike. Keiichi tells Skuld he will help her but Skuld just says its non e of his business and it concerns her life but when Belldandy offers to help Skuld gets extremely happy and thanks her for her offer. Keiichi and Belldandy try to help her learn but she says its no problem for a genius like her and she rides it and her shoulder and knee pads have some sensor in them so it sends out air to push her up if she is about to fall, but she notices it keeps pushing her back and forth and she falls always. Skuld tries other things like putting some weight balancer on it and ends up making it into basically a motorcycle and crashes it. Belldandy convinces her to try without any special equipment, that a bicycle is a fun vehicle and she wants to go riding with her some day. Belldandy and Keiichi help her along and Keiichi lets go and Skuld crashes. She wonders why Belldandy didn’t save her and tries it again and when she crashes, again she ends up getting hurt instead of having Belldandy save her. Eventually she asks why she doesn’t help her out. She says it’s because she wants her to learn how to ride herself and do it on her own. Skuld says she is going to give up, that there is no point to a bicycle even though Belldandy said it allows you to feel the wind and the spirit of nature. Skuld doesn’t buy it and just storms off.

Skuld lies down by the riverbed saying how she doesn’t need to learn to ride a bicycle. She then sees some boy riding one and he makes a really big jump near her. He ends up crashing and Skuld runs over there asking if he is ok. The boy says he is fine but Skuld says she was talking to the bike, since it’s a machine after all. She fixes it up for him, tightening the chain making the bike work better and the boy thanks her. He tries it out saying how much better it performs and how it should be helpful in a race he is going to be in. She says then she will help him make it better and does some more work on it. While she is working the boy introduces himself as Sentaro. He asks if she really like bikes and she says she hates them. Skuld gets kind of shy at that question and Urd appears behind her who came looking for her saying how she is fixing a bike even though she can’t ride it. Skuld gets extremely embarrassed and tells Urd to shut up and go home. Urd says fine and heads off, seeing the two of them saying that if she lets go of that coach, referring to Sentaro, she really will make her ride the tricycle. Skuld sits with Sentaro and tells him how she can’t ride, and how she kept getting hurt when she tried it. The boy says that it’s no fun if there’s not a chance to get hurt, that it’s just something that you have to live with. She says he doesn’t know what he is talking about and shows him a bruise but he shows her one back, and matches all her injuries proving he does know what she is talking about. Sentaro teachers how to ride, kind or riding with her and Skuld is amazed at how fun it is and that she is doing so much. Skuld tells Sentaro how much fun this is and he says it’s even more fun to ride by yourself and jumps off. Skuld continues to ride it and manages to ride it all by herself. She then realizes what Belldandy meant by feeling the wind and using your own feet to do so. She asks to borrow the bike and Sentaro says fine and Skuld rides through town amazed at this feeling. Meanwhile Urd told Belldandy that Skuld learned how to ride and tells her she wants to ride with her. Belldandy gets really happy and so take out with her bike to find her. Skuld gets to a big hill but pedals up it, using Belldandy as encouragement to show her that she can do it. She gets to the top of the hill and sees Belldandy at the bottom. Belldandy smiles, proud of Skuld for riding and Skuld heads down to her. She and Belldandy head back to Sentaro and Skuld returns the bike. Belldandy even heals Sentaro’s wounds for him. Sentaro says it was good meeting her and so they depart, Skuld waving him off smiling. She kind of twirls her finger behind her back and Belldandy notices how she is moving the flowers with her magic. She says how Skuld has started to learn that caring for others is what fuels a goddess’s power.

Impressions:

I will kill Sentaro. Seriously, Skuld is mine damnit. That little punk thinks he can take my Skuld away he’s got another thing coming to him. Well, besides from little punk ass bastard trying to steal my Skuld, this was a fairly good episode because if you hadn’t guessed I’m a Skuld fan. I know, shocking, isn’t it? They seem to be doing a lot of these side stories, last episode mostly focusing on Urd and next episode seeming to be another Skuld episode (yea!) Although Keiichi and Belldandy aren’t getting much focus, its not really a bad thing because there’s only so far they can go without having to jump to a next level with them which I’m not sure if they are going to do much in this series. So basically it comes down to either fillers with some crap or delving a bit more into the side characters which I think is nice. They still haven’t touched much on Urd’s half demon side so that can be a likely focus and also they brought Marler back but we haven’t seen her since she briefly appeared and ran away.

As for the actual character involvement with Skuld and the development, there was a good amount in this although it seemed to be just about Skuld learning to ride about it really was about how Skuld relied on other things throughout her life and it showed her character evolving as she learned to do things on her own and not to give up. Also, the punk ass bastard seems to have brought out some of Skuld’s magic and he seems like he will be in the next episode too so her feelings for him will defiantly have some impact on her magic and as we saw from the preview, her angel.