Kuromukuro – 16

This week, there’s almost equal time spent between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”, as Muetta and Mirasa fall from the sky to infiltrate the Kurobe Lab in search of the “Pivot Stone.” It’s a daring and professional operation led by Muetta, with Mirasa never quite matching her precise moves. For instance, Mirasa hits the water too hard on their landing, but Muetta saves her. By the end of their op she’ll wish she hadn’t.

Another healthy chunk of “good guy” time is taken up by more Ken and Sophie, with which I have no problem. Its fun to watch the moment Ken realizes Sophie is trying to become a samurai, which she sees as swapping one form of bondage (doing as her parents say and going home) for another (being bonded by loyalty to her fellow warriors in Kurobe).

What of Yukina? She’s plays only a bit role here, tagging along for Mika’s cosplay film with Akagi, Kaya, Carlos, and the nurse Marina. In a nice bit of narrative symmetry, Muetta and Mirasa also “cosplay” by dressing up in UN maintenance unis that will help them move further into the enemy base. But while Mika & Co. are just trying to have some fun, these two are grinding like their lives depended on it…because they kinda do.

By sheer coincidence the Efidolg pair end up taking the same lift as Ken, and the smell of blood on the orange jumpsuits (another blunder by Mirasa) gives them away. Thus we’re offered another confrontation between Ken and “Yukihime” far earlier than I expected, and it goes pretty much how I imagined: Ken prostrates himself before the princess, hoping against hope he can jog her memory.

Alas, Muetta claims to have never heard of him, though interestingly she calls him a “peasant” later on. It’s very much up in the air whether she’s playing another role like Mika and Marina, fully brainwashed, or a true and loyal daughter of Efidolg.

Speaking of loyalty, when, in a hostage situation, Muetta seems prepared to kill Ken, it’s Sophie who fires the bullet that knocks the knife from her hand. When Ken shields a retreating Muetta and Mirasa, Sophie makes up her mind: she can’t trust Ken’s brand of loyalty with keeping him alive. She’ll stay in Kurobe and make sure he stays safe.

In this regard, Sophie takes on a role similar to Yukina, another person intent on saving Ken from his own reckless impluses. It’s also a huge victory for the show, because getting rid of Sophie, or declawing her by giving her scenes in France, would not have been something I particularly wanted to see.

As for Yukina, the cosplay story, beyond being a parallel to the costumes Muetta and Mirasa don, doesn’t come to much other than “Yukina is special now and her normal high school life continues to suffer from that specialness.”

IMO a bit too much time was spent on this plot, though I commend Mika wanting to cheer everyone, including Yukina and Marina, up a bit (plus the costumes and locales were cool).

Then there’s Mirasa. She started this thrilling, action-packed infiltration op following Muetta’s lead and calling her “sister” with deference and loyalty. She ends it by suddenly but inevitably betraying Muetta, shoving her knife in her belly so she can go home and take all the credit for finding the stone.

It’s another demonstration how bad and fundamentally immoral and messed-up the Efidolg are, more an advanced form of the everyday cruelty and brutality from feudal times much (though certainly not all) of the modern world has left behind.

But Mirasa’s treachery also forces a new choice upon Muetta / Yukihime. Assuming she survives her Fugitive-style jump off the dam (a good bet), she’ll be hurt pretty damn bad, and she’ll be alone.

Chances are the UN finds her first, and they’ll treat her. I wouldn’t even rule out such a fall ringing her bell to the extent some memories of Ken return (if they’re there, and if she doesn’t have them already). In any case, it will be Muetta’s turn to make a choice.

Kuromukuro – 15

The battle is over, the chaos paused, and disaster averted, for now. This episode deals with the aftermath of the last one, as Muetta’s stunning assault on the school has made a lot of people make up their minds about leaving town. Others, like Sophie, have hard choices to make, which include going along with the choices others have made for them.

Sophie Noelle isn’t your typical stuck-up rich kid: yes, she’s very rich and kinda stuck up, but she’s fiercely loyal and kind to her allies and is also perfectly capable of taking care of herself – and making her own choices – despite her unadvanced age.

When she sees Ouma, a real-life samurai like the ones she’s always admired, begging before a food-ordering machine in the canteen, she happily pays for his meal in exchange for listening to her problem.

As he gorges with relish (Dr. Hausen’s hospital food just wasn’t doing it for him), Ouma makes a point about a warrior being responsible for themselves, and sticking with the decision they make to the end. He’s talking about flavors of popsicles, but Sophie still gleans insight. Staying or going is her call, not her parents’.

For their stunning failure last week, Muetta and Mirasa are essentially neurally tortured by treatments that invoke persistent “primal fear”; both beak out of their torture and crumble to the ground, indicating this isn’t the kind of society we want running Earth.

Even after all the mayhem they caused, I still feel bad for them. They probably knew this would happen when they returned in shame, but they did so anyway, and they’ll gladly go back down to Earth, either to accomplish what they couldn’t before, or die trying.

We see that Mirasa’s a little more hesitant to do a space drop back to Earth, but once Muetta jumps, there’s little she can do but follow her. The choice has been made.

Even last week’s hectic episode managed to still have some moments of levity, and the comedy is ratcheted up a little more here, what with more funny “Ken vs. Modern Times” moments, Carlos’ family troubles, and what I believe to be the first time an anime scientist was only joking about dissecting someone (…or was he?), or the scene where Yukina thinks he’s saying he’s dead, when he’s sad that he’s fully recovered.

In the beginning of the episode Yukina is with Ouma, but he’s unconscious, so she goes back to school, where we see Mika isn’t letting current events get in the way of her goal for a cosplay film (and enlists Kaya, Ryouta, and Carlos to help her), while other classmates wonder if Yukina’s an alien too.

When Yukina finally finds Ouma to scold him, he’s already healed. She pivots to the uncomfortable subject of the princess who looks just like her. Ouma tells her she’s nothing like her, but the Efidolg warrior is “without a doubt” Yukihime.

The question is what he’s going to do when they meet again, whether she’ll even give him a chance to speak before trying to kill him, and whether he’ll again fail to properly defend himself from the woman who was once his only reason for living…because now he has two; three if you count his friendship with Sophie.