Shinozuka accompanies Kana and Mina on a Seven Pillars Tour, using the opportunity to apologize to everyone he fought. Hime asks Akina if anything’s changed now that he knows she’s a youkai, but he doesn’t have a chance to answer. He and Hime are called before the elders; Akina is reluctant to go beause of their disregard for youkai. They warn him that Enjin has taken up with four half-youkai youkai hunters.
Hime’s position as mayor may be stable and the townspeople seem fine with her being a youkai, but she’s still uneasy, particularly where Akina is concerned. Now that he knows her secret—and she knows his, for that matter—she’s worried that something’s “changed” between them. And she doesn’t get any straight answers, so she can only judge for herself by how Akina acts around her. She may well be worried about nothing at all—Akina’s all about harmony with youkai—but even if you tell her that, she’s still likely to be worried. Every scene the two are in is a nice mixture of comfort in each other, tinged with tension from recent events. But all either of them can do for now is carry on and hope for the best.
We really dig the subtle, tender Akina-Hime dynamic, and while not a lot happens in this episode, watching them interact are the highlights. They’re united in the belief that Sakurashin remain a town of humans and youkai. Akina is not willing to sacrifice the youkai to save the humans, but he has yet to find a solution that will stop the pillars blooming without losing anyone. If there even is one, odds are Enjin’s one of the only people who knows about it Of course, Enjin wants them to bloom, so convincing him otherwise won’t be easy, especially now that he now has his own quartet of powerful new friends.
Rating: 6 (Good)
Stray Observations:
- Nanami is confident her brother’s soul is still intact and fighting Enjin. We wouldn’t be surprised if sometime near the end of all this, Nanami Gin regains his body and reunites with her.
- Hi, Kotoha’s panties!
- Offering Akina a bowl, then asking if she can eat it after all: a classic Hime move.
- The head elder’s quite the dick, isn’t he? Akina is having none of his nonsense.
- We like the many ways Hime’s ridiculously-long scarf is used, including as a way to pull her near you and to hide her tears.
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