Darling in the Franxx Episode 20 Review: A New World

This is already the 20th episode’s review of anime Darling in the Franxx. Which genre of this anime are you enjoying the most, romance or mecha action?

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Japanese title: 新しい世界

Episode 20 – A New World

A second Nana introduces herself as Squad 13’s new caretaker and informs the kids about their last but dangerous mission. Futoshi notices that Kokoro and Mitsuru are not wearing their wedding rings and Kokoro is lately throwing up. The day of the final battle has come and parasites gather at Grand Crevasse and get attacked by a horde of Klaxosaurs. Mitsuru boards Genista with Kokoro and when Mitsuru tries to call her by her name, he feels pain in his head and so does Kokoro. Zero Two and Hiro are out on a special mission to enter the core of Grand Crevasse in order to implant Strelizia into Star Entity. Before reaching the core, the Klaxosaurs’ Princess finds her way to Strelizia and throws Zero Two out of the cockpit. She is able to control Strelizia by forcefully kissing Hiro, opens the door to the core and changes Stralizia’s entire body into blue color and different form. Klaxosaurs stop fighting the pilots and turn against objects beyond earth, which turn out to be VIRM fleets. The kids confused by the Princess’ speech and Dr. Franxx revealings, can’t believe that they have been using Klaxosaurs to fight Klaxosaurs. Star Entity’s final form Strelizia Apath awakens but not for long as papa made a little change in its programming…

Terms and Lingo

Klaxosaurs
Biological weapons built by Klaxo sapiens, compromised of one male and one female Klaxo sapiens. The female’s soul connected to the weapon while the male soul took root inside the core (cockpit). Once in the life of a Klaxosaur, it splits into two forms. One form was to return to earth and become a source of energy (= magma). The second form was to consume this energy and to evolve physically, by losing intelligence in the process.

VIRM
VIRM are an alien race that came to earth but got defeated by Klaxosaurs. Then they came again and have been using humans to fight against them.

My Thoughts

There is so much happening in this episode, but as we have to start somewhere… Let’s start with Futoshi’s great observation skills. He was the only one that noticed Kokoro and Mitsuru not wearing their wedding rings. He really does care about Kokoro and so he notices small changes. I wonder if he noticed any other change, for example, her being pregnant. I know that he couldn’t have known what it means to be pregnant, but still… I thought we would see him being all worried about her.

The final clash between the pilots and Klaxosaur race has begun and Mitsuru boarded Genista with Kokoro instead of pairing up with Ikuno. When Mitsuru, for the first time in a while, tries to call Kokoro by her name but feels a pain inside his head. Kokoro too, after saying Mitsuru’s name. By calling the partner’s name they are getting punished with pain. It seems that papa thought it was a good idea to let them suffer, teach them a lesson and prevent them from getting together again. However, was this really necessary? Why would you train them to feel pain for calling a person’s name? They shouldn’t have done this, because with this reaction the two must think that there is something strange, that there is something going on. I don’t remember Hiro and Zero Two going through something similar. Maybe they thought that it wasn’t enough to just delete their memories, that they could gain them back just like Hiro and Zero Two did.

Let’s move to the next topic, the papa.
So the papa-tachi, or only two of them, have been members of an alien race called VIRM because they wanted Earth’s energy. But the first time they arrived on earth, Klaxosarus noticed and drove the aliens away. These came back with a new plan to use human beings as weapons to fight the strong enemy. Then there was Dr. Frank, a great man who invented the Franxx. The Franxx are modified to be similar to Klaxosaurs to defeat them easier. The base of Franxx has been produced inside S-Planning, where Klaxosaurs are being excavated. Therefore, Franxx equal to Klaxosaurs. We also got to know that Klaxosaurs are weapons created by Klaxo sapiens and that, as the Franxx are built similarly to Klaxosaurs, both weapons need a female and male couple of pilots. The mystery about the ‘little’ golden body, we saw in Episode 15, was lifted! It appears that the body belonged to one of the pilots of a Klaxosaur. I had to watch this scene more than once to get what they meant in that sene, because they didn’t really say anything. I had no clue and thought it was a Klaxosaurs baby or something else.

The Klaxosaurs’ Princess has been in the way of the VIRM species. She just wanted to save her ‘child’, which is lying beneath Grand Crevasse, from being used. What exactly does she mean by ‘child’? Is it a Klaxosaur that was born in a ‘normal’ way instead of evolving and how can it be so big? Dr. Franxx told everyone through their speakers that Klaxosaurs die and become a source of energy for other Klaxosaurs. These consume the energy and evolve but during the past, they have become dumb after keeping evolving.

Now I have a slight idea of why the giant hand spared the lives of our heroes… It must have thought that the Franxx were part of its family/ species. But I still don’t understand what the giant hand is. Is this the ‘child’ that the Princess meant?

My What-Is-Going-On? Moments

Papa
Two (?) of them were from a different species, the VIRM! This is so shocking, for them to be aliens… I thought of them being just very old men with already dying bodies because they once mentioned something about getting new bodies after retrieving Grand Crevasse. However, them not even having a real body, was indeed shocking.

Kokoro pregnant
Wow, congratulations! Kokoro and Mitsuru did it once (?) and created a new life as Kokoro wanted to. I wonder how much she learned from her little book. For example, the correct way of doing it, or the best position to get pregnant and so on… I love that they only had to do it once and puff she’s pregnant. I just wonder how nobody of the caretakers noticed anything. I thought that they have been monitoring the kids to take care of their health all this time. Didn’t they check her and Mitsuru after or before deleting their memories? If they did, how much time has passed between them having a great night and the final fight?

Dr. Franxx
He is a completely strange old guy. Did he really plan to ride a Strelizia Apath with her although she ripped off his arm the last time they met? He must be so M to enjoy this.

Klaxo sapiens
So we have three species on Earth now: humans, VIRMs, and Klaxo sapiens. If this means that the Klaxosaurs Princess is a Klaxo sapiens, it would mean that there were more of them. As we have only seen the Princess herself and the dead golden body, I wonder where they are and how the rest of them looks like. It must also mean that Zero Two is a clone of a Klaxo sapiens that grew two horns. Is it possible for the Nines to be clones of Zero Two which have slightly been improved and to become the opposite gender? They also grow flashing horns when riding the Franxx. It might be not a completely wrong assumption.

In the End

After this episode, we don’t have to worry about papa ordering the kids around, because they already conducted the destruction of the world. So we have to worry about them finding a way to stay alive. But hey, we still have Zero Two who is about to save her darling from her DNA’s owner.

We have got only four episodes left until each of our questions will be answered, hopefully.