Aku no Hana – 07

Kasuga pays a visit to Saeki’s house to deliver her handouts. Saeki asks him if he has any secrets. Cursing himself, Kasuga tells her he doesn’t, and she trusts him. Kasuga tells Nakamura about his new sin, and how he wants to come clean to Saeki about the uniform. He and Nakamura meet at midnight and break into the school. When Nakamura balks at the plan she has for him to confess to everyone, she washes her hands of him. But as she’s leaving, Kasuga writes a confession on the blackboard, and does more when pressed. The two then tear the entire classroom apart.

Holy shit. Back from the forest, we decided to start playing catch-up with the show we most look forward to watching week in week out, and that’s Aku no Hana. The show told us it was only going to get better, and it did. Kasuga adds to his sins and the relationship between him and Nakamura becomes even deeper, more intimate, and more fucked-up, culminating in one of the tensest, sexiest, most powerful sequences we’ve ever seen on television, period. This series’ gutsy style and fierce confidence in the story it’s telling (almost bordering on arrogance) shines through, and its impeccable dramatic timing and moving, unsettling score were firing on all cylinders.

In the end, all of the guilt and doubt Kasuga has bottled up finally finds a sudden and seemingly purifying release. What happens to Kasuga on that magical moonlit night definitely signifies another wall he has broken through. And it isn’t only because of the threat of being found out. Instead, it’s when Nakamura voices her disgust at the realization that he’s just like everyone else in the school and the world she hates. It’s when she releases him from the contract and tells him not to speak to her again.

Ironically, it’s when she gives him what he wanted: for her to just leave him be. In that moment of abandonment, earning Nakamura’s anti-respect and keeping her in his life is more important than Saeki or his own survival. He goes the extra mile to prove to the other girl in his life that he’s every bit the deviant he promises to Saeki he isn’t. And without simply coming out and saying it, his actions are an affirmation that Nakamura is right about Kasuga: he’s a horny, debauched deviant on the edge of frenzy, and perhaps most importantly, he’s not boring.

Rating: 10 (Masterpiece)

Stray Observations:

• We’ve grown to love the crazy dirge that accompanies the end credits, and this week brought us an even bolder, quirkier, darker, more beautiful arrangement, using tablas for the beat and turning Kasuga and Nakamura’s classroom rampage into a hauntingly gorgeous dance, almost as if the characters and even the show had gone into some kind of trance.
• Despite being rotoscoped from live action, the trope of the face turning pink when characters are aroused is carried through here, to good effect, as Nakamura has never looked happier or more turned on.
• Saeki seems to think that there’s something going on between Kasuga and Nakamura. And she’s right, there is.
• We reiterate, until something comes to light that suggest she may also have deviant side: Poor, poor Saeki.
• Another sign Kasuga’s path to Saeki is almost un-satisfyingly easy: she has a very liberal mom that leaves him alone in her bedroom.
• Those final five orgasmic minutes of the episode really were transcendent anime; one of the best sequences of cathartic release/letting the fuck go we’ve ever seen, animated or otherwise. Someone posted it to YouTube, but who knows how long that’ll last.
• For a brief moment we feared that was Nakamura’s blood spilling on Kasuga’s face rather than ink. Thank goodness things haven’t gotten that dark…yet.