I'm Standing on a Million Lives - Episode 11 Recap
The episode bizarrely begins not as I'm Standing on a Million Lives, but as We Are the Majiha Knights, a magical shoujo parody anime that exists in Yusuke’s real world, beloved by Yuka. After showing a scene where the heroines Majiha Pink and Majiha Purple fight against one of their villains, the episode doubles down on the gag with a full OP of the fake anime!
The reason the audience sees this is because the ep starts off with Yuka’s thoughts. She thinks back to how she clung to her bullies for protection in the real world and talked behind their backs to relieve her stress. She concludes that she’s nothing like the virtuous Majiha heroines she looks up to, meaning it’s pointless for her to try to be victorious in this quest to traverse the map in a blizzard.
Yusuke, at the same time, revives from death after having fallen into a hole. The hole had led to an underground dungeon that is warm enough for his body to resurrect in. He continues to traverse within the dungeon. Kusue is not as lucky. She dies from the cold in the snow and her body could not revive because it was too cold to go back to. Iu, on the other hand, hasn’t died. She’s simply momentarily discouraged by getting lost and walking in a circle in the snow. She presses on towards Kusue’s location to save her. But then misfortune strikes, and Iu falls through the ice into freezing water!
It seems Yusuke might be the hero who clears the challenge, but he keeps meeting dead ends in the dungeon. Then a giant earthworm appears! Yusuke is able to traverse through the tunnel that the earthworm creates as it moves, but it’s a very slow pace. Eventually, another worm comes behind Yusuke to eat him whole!
Yuka keeps moving forward, but she notices that the other three heroes have died. For a moment, she gives in, believing it’s okay for her to lose since everyone else did. Then she gets fired up again by a hallucination of Majiha Purple cheering her on. She trudges forward, especially with the encouragement of her otome Tsubasa-kyun that she hallucinates. Just as she reaches her physical limits, a mysterious warrior riding on a giant cat creature rescues her!
Although Yuka is able to traverse much faster on the cat with the warrior, time is just about to run out. Yuka cries thinking it’s no use and that she’ll fail. Thanks to the warrior’s magic, the cat flies at super speed, and in the last millisecond, they clear the quest!
With the quest cleared, the four heroes warp to the Game Master. Yuka can ask one question. She asks if the game world is a virtual world. He replies that it is actually a real parallel world from their own earth. Yusuke is shook by the realization that he’s killed real people!
(image source: Amazon)
