It looked like Satomi-leader had a steep hill to climb in order to defeat Aldebaran and end the Gastrea threat, but we were surprised to find that the final Gastrea battle only occupied the first half of the episode; the rest was for character stuff of a very specific and also surprising nature. That said, the first half battle didn’t feel rushed at all; it felt focused and efficient, yet epic and cinematic. The lanterns were a nice touch, too.
The battle could have been even quicker still, but for a little hiccup with the Miori-supplied bomb that fails to detonate, a nice little “uh-oh” moment that even had us questioning whether Miori meant for it to not go off. Rentaro decides to knock out Enju and detonate the bomb at point-blank range, which he knows will kill him but he goes anyway, because giving his life to protect others is the very thing he’s lived for.
Destiny wasn’t ready to let Rentaro bow out of the mortal coil just yet though, as Aldebaran hits him Varanium-corroding fog that destroys his leg. The necessary sacrifice falls to his mentor Shouma, whom he’d just reunited with, but who also wants to bury the dark powers he’s learned along with Aldebaran. As he sees it, his life is a small price to pay to eliminate both evils. So, who will be Asaka’s promoter now? Yeah…the show forgot about her.
That’s okay though, because for much of the balance of the episode casts a laser focus on Tendo Kisara, Rentaro’s boss would-be girlfriend. Specifically, she wastes no time taking her brother Kazumitsu to task for building Monolith 32 with substandard materials and pocketing the savings. By “taking to task” we mean “challenging him to a duel he has no business accepting. She takes one of his legs, and he gives her information about whom to target next.
Everyone thinks Kisara is sparing his life, but her second strike was on a delay, and he literally explodes in a gory, horrific mess. Kisara giddily embraces Rentaro afterwards, pleased with what she’s done. When he recoils at the crazy, she admits he’ll never be able to truly “touch evil”, and that his justice was never any match for the evil he’s up against. No, to her, only a greater evil can defeat evil, and if that means she has to cast away her soul and happiness—and that Rentaro becomes her enemy—so be it.
I’ll be honest; Kisara’s fall is quite extreme and a lot to take in, especially so close to the end of the show, but I liked the shocking suddenness of it, especially since we’ve seen how much suffering and death was caused by the people who Kisara wants to kill. This darkness was always growing in her, and she finally let it out. Still, since there’s no time to explore it further, it’s more like a preface to an arc that never was, ending in an ellipsis.
The final scene of the show has Rentaro and Enju alone on a train, headed to a ceremony where they’ll be patted on the back for their service. With the city safe from Gastrea—once more, thanks to Enju’s kind—things seem to be looking up, but Kisara’s new path is certainly unsettling. And even though Enju pledges they’ll be together forever, both Rentaro and we know she’s already on borrowed time. Neither entirely happy or sad, this ending was…cautiously optimistic.
Final Cumulative Score: 7.85
MAL Score: 7.77
Stray Observations:
- Kagetane’s role in this episode is limited to a couple one-liners. Shame.
- Yasuwaki does not reappear. GOOD. Fuck that guy.
- Building 300m (984 feet) of monolith in two days? Yeah, I’m no engineer, but even with slave labor, that’s just not happening.
- Kisara walking barefoot through her brother’s blood…yikes!
- Well, if there’s ever a Black Bullet 2, you can expect Kisara to be an enemy and for Enju to either turn into a Gastrea, die, or be saved but lose her powers, which is probably the most preferable choice for her well-being.
- This is the final RABUJOI review of Spring 2014. Thanks for watching and reading, everybody.
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