Alice to Zouroku: Season 1/ Episode 2 “Dreams of Alice” – Overview/ Review (with Spoilers)

This episode is dedicated to fully understanding how alone Sana was and how much she has to get acclimated to the normal world. Alongside that, we meet Zoroku’s granddaughter who takes care of Sana for the day.

Episode Focus: This Is So Different From the Facility (Sana and Sanae)

While the twins and the boy wait until they are told it is time to hunt down Sana again, she is enjoying the simple life. She meets Sanae, Zouroku’s granddaughter [note]Whose parents have been dead since she was around Sana’s age[/note], and she makes her pancakes. Something she has never had before and while she was a bit wary of Sanae at first, since Sanae is a little weird, she grows close to her quickly.

In fact, she becomes so comfortable with her that she talks about the facility. A place where, formerly, she was all alone, in some type of dungeon environment, in nothing but a hospital gown. She isn’t sure, at all, where she was before or what was her name. She just remembers the food being delivered and tests being done. But then the twins came and gave her a name and played with her in their dream world. However, once she saw what happened downstairs, something which included blood, she ran. She ran and found Zouroku. The rest is basically episode 1.

Commentary

With us building on Sana’s past, it helps craft a stronger, more heartbreaking, narrative. I mean, the girl has known nothing but captivity and until the twins came into her life, she was locked in a dungeon environment with no toys or anything. She basically was given food, tested on, and that was it. Leading to you understanding why she made such magical worlds for it was an escape for her. Then, with us learning how the twins not only gave her a name but were her first friends, and they introduced her to girly things and all, it makes the fact they were hunting her down in the first episode saddening. Her own friends, the two people she was closest with, were chasing her like she was a high-risk criminal.

Which makes it only natural she would be wary of Sanae, even if she seems harmless. For I’m sure all the scientist and researchers did before Sana, for some reason, saw what they really do in the facility. Perhaps something dealing with the adults who Sana’s power as they train them to be weapons. That aside, it was rather cute to just watch her and Sanae spend the day together and watching Sana be introduced to pancakes. If you have a younger sibling or cousin, maybe a niece or nephew, it may trigger a memory of when you introduced them to something new and they looked at you as if you knew magic.

But I do wonder how long it will be before the Facility decides to act and attempt to retrieve Sana again. They have surveillance on her, and seem to know where she is, but are they trying to do a more calculated grab? Also, with Zouroku seemingly involved detectives or cops, one being Naito and the other being Naito’s peer Ichijo, does that mean he may get seriously about looking into the facility? For it does seem like he doesn’t want trouble in his life but, at the same time, it seems clear that he knows he is going to grow close to Sana and she isn’t going to let this destroying the research facility thing go.