Episode 5 – Gorilla God’s Go-To Girl

I can see how Sophia’s decision to sit tight in the box while she’s carried off to parts unknown might not have made sense to a lot of people. From an objective standpoint, it’s a dumb choice: she has no idea who’s got her, where they’re taking her, or if they’re going to drop her out of a window or something. She’s uniquely vulnerable in her position. But from Sophia’s point of view, not bursting out like the Incredible Hulk is very much in line with her personality. This is a girl who decides that staying kidnapped is a better plan than going back to the ball because not only does she not want to get noticed, she also doesn’t want to get Araignée in trouble with Carissa and her cronies. Sophia’s entire M.O. is staying as far from the spotlight as possible, so Hulking out is, well, out.

The proof that she’s thought this through is that the minute she’s left alone in the attic, she busts out of the box. She barely waits to make sure her movers are gone before doing it, which shows that she knows she could have done it at any time. Was it the smartest choice? In the moment, no, but it did put her in a position to take care of that pesky bomb threat, which, as it turns out, was real. If she’d burst from her box before, she might have been caught in the explosion.

That Sophia doesn’t dally in taking care of the bomb and the bombers lets us know that when the chips are down, she’s absolutely ready to take action. Her timidity could have misled us into thinking that she’d run and find Louis and the others when she discovered the bomb was real, but instead, she takes care of it herself. There’s a necessary sense of time moving far too slowly to pad out the runtime, but the important thing is that Sophia disarms the bombers, ties them up, and uses her gorilla powers to get the bomb out of the school and into the air. Are the students so extraordinarily stupid that they can’t tell the difference between fireworks and a bomb exploding? Probably. But Sophia only has to be prompted once by the squirrel when she’s getting lost in her own anxiety, and ultimately, she saves the day all on her own.

Of course, she also finds time to confess to the squirrel that she’s developed feelings for Louis, and dollars to doughnuts, he’s listening in through her furry friend. Between his last name and his fondness for nut-based pastry, it’s all but certain that he’s been blessed by the Squirrel God, so there’s a non-zero chance that he can use squirrels as familiars – or that he’s close enough with his god that they have a symbiotic relationship. Either way, the fact that he won’t look at Sophia after the bomb issue indicates that he’s probably very embarrassed or uncomfortable having heard her pour out her heart, not because he’s unhappy about it, but because she has no idea that she told him via proxy. Sophia’s so self-effacing that she thinks not being at the party is good for Louis because he can talk to other girls; she’s incredibly unlikely to just blurt out her feelings to the boy’s face, and he knows that. So what’s an awkward teen to do but pretend he doesn’t know while trying desperately to hide it?

With the reveal that the bomb plot was real, Sophia and Louis are going to have bigger things to worry about. Whoever was behind it believed in their cause enough to send in suicide bombers, so this isn’t some trifling matter. That may give our would-be couple something else to focus on, although for my part, I’ll be busy grumbling about Sophia forgiving Carissa and her cronies far too easily.

Rating:

The Gorilla God’s Go-To Girl is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.