Loving Yamada at Lv999 – 03 – This Thing Called Romance

Momo takes Akane out on a double date, but Akane just isn’t feeling it, and after some non-verbal communication between the two, they split. When Akane gets a text from her guild leader Rurihime, Momo wonders how Akane knows for certain it’s not some old geezer. On her way home she crosses paths with a beautiful girl dressed yumekawa style with rabbit ears, and wonders if that’s what Rurihime is like IRL.

Akane is far more stoked about pouring herself a glass of barley tea, ripping open a bag of potage chips, and settling in for some FOS than she ever was about the group date, and I can tell you, I’ve been there. But neither Rurihime nor Yamada notice when she logs in, and she obseves as they talk and act like they’re an item, making her feel awkward for interrupting.

The apparent romantic vibes between Rurihime and Yamada weighs on Akane through her afternoon classes, and even when her date from last night flags her down, she’s immediately distracted by the sight of the yumekawa girl meeting up with Yamada like two people meeting up for a date. She figures Yamada would have “a girlfriend or two” with his looks, but is still depressed about it, to the point she doesn’t even feel like logging in that night.

Then Rurihime sends a very chipper and enthusiastic invitation for Akane to join her and the guild members, including Yamada, for an IRL meetup. When she leaves the station she can’t quite find the spot on the map, but gets bumped into by a tall, handsome young man and drops her phone. He picks it up, sees the spot, and asks if she’s headed to the meetup, ’cause he is too.

This fellow proceeds to totally gamer geek out on her, but there’s something about his enthusiasm that’s very…Rurihime-esque, to me at least. In fact, I’m confident saying that he’s the guild master Rurihime and genderswaps in FOS. Further evidence of this is that when they meet up with the yumekawa girl, who is with Yamada and clings to him, she acts nothing like Rurihime. Judging from what we know of Yamada, I’m not inclined to believe she’s his girlfriend, but we’ll have to wait until next week to find out who is who for certain.

After some early credits, we get a flashback to when Akane passed out at the izakaya, and we get Yamada’s POV as he carries her to his house. He’s about to start practice with his pro FPS team online when she starts to whimper, and when he goes to her bedside, she begins to sob into his chest. He stays still and lets her cry it out, sensing she’ll only cry harder if he doesn’t, and finally seems to drift back off to sleep. He’s fine letting her sleep there in peace…then she suddenly announces she’s going to be sick.

I’m not entirely certain why the awkward IRL meetup was interrupted for this flashback, except that I guess it was nice to see how Yamada felt bad for Akane for having her heart broken, and being as foreign to that world as her group date dude was when she mentioned FOS. As for Yumekawa Girl, she just doesn’t seem like a love rival for Akane. If I had to guess, she’s Eita(the other gamer guy)’s little sister who has known Yamada forever and harbors unrequited love. Again, we shall see!

Hell’s Paradise – 03 – Where the Rules Don’t Apply

Last week’s rundown of all ten convicts and all ten Yamada Asaemon executioners was a little intimidating, and had me worried the runtime would be too split between characters, but we got a satisfying ratio – mostly Gabimaru and Sagiri with a nice sprinkling of the other pairs.

No sooner do they leave the boat (never get off the boat) than Gabimaru is kvetching about his binds. Sagiri puts her blade to his throat and makes something nice and sparkling clear: they’re not friends or allies, she’s his executioner, and he will obey the rules. I love his nonhalant sigh of “whatever”.

No sooner are the binds back on him than he’s walloped by a giant ball-and-chain launched from a fellow convict, Twisted Keiun. The former priest collects weapons, and the immortal Gabimaru is the perfect canvas upon which to test them. As for his Asaemon minder Kisho, he couldn’t be bothered to fight with Keiun about keeping his hands bound.

You get the sense that in Sagiri Gabimaru is with the most hardass and rules-obsessed of the executioners, when the rules of society never mattered anyway to the other convicts, on an island where there may be no rules whatsoever. In any case, Gabimaru makes relatively quick work of Keiun, and Kisho is free to head home and take a bath.

Before he does, he identifies Sagiri as the lowest ranked Asaemon, apparently not just due to her age, gender, or inexperience, but because she’s so damn rigid and by-the-book. Their duty isn’t to follow every one of the Shogun’s rules to the letter, but to accomplish their top priority: the Elixir of Life. If they have to bend or break a few rules to get it, it’s better than following them and failing.

Kisho also warns Sagiri both of Gabimaru and the other convicts, which is where the nice sprinkling comes in. The eyepatched Eizen-dono, who I assumed was one of the higher-ranked Asaemon, watches his sword shatter against the arm of his titanic convict Rokurota, and meets a sticky end.

There’s also a nice switcheroo where it seem like the courtesan will successfully seduce and devour her Asaemon, but she ends up losing her head. We got a decent, restrained sampling of these characters, heightening the danger and establishing them people to keep an eye on, without detracting from the Gabimari-Sagiri focus.

Kisho also mentions that nothing is set in stone here: this mission will determine the next leader Yamada clan (and we know it won’t be Eizen), while messengers have already been sent to Iwagakure to recruit more ninja to the cause should this group fail. It’s upon hearing this last piece of news that Gabimaru suddenly pulls a sword on Sagiri as soon as Kisho is gone.

Gabimaru has made clear his priority is to be reunited with his wife. He can’t do that if they fail, or if the Iwagakure arrive on the island, and he believes Sagiri will be a hindrance, so he tries to kill her. She, in turn, tries to kill him too, not just because he’s breaking the rules, but because he’s simply too dangerous to be kept alive.

But here’s the thing: despite numerous opportunities, neither of them are able to kill the other. The source of their hesitation is their emotions. Gabimaru may claim to be hollow, and that’s how he was raised. The village chief killed his parents when they requested to leave the village after Gabimaru was born.

The chief, the first to take the elixir and become immortal, believes emotions to be a weakness that keeps you from protecting that which is most precious to you. For Gabimaru, that’s his wife Yui, who ironically brought Gabimaru’s emotions back out, where he had to face them and be true to them, not deny or reject them as the chief maintained.

Doing so, Yui told him, is true courage—and he believed her. Because she’s 100% correct that Gabimaru can’t possibly be “hollow” when he blushes so much when she kisses him!

Sagiri and Gabimaru have the same issue, as they’ve become weaker not by failing to repress their emotions, but trying to do so. It’s ultimately self-defeating, and it’s why even though Sagiri is on her back and Gabimaru has his blade to her throat, his hand is stayed by an ethereal Yui. While it’s not really Yui, it represents his love for her, and his desire to live by her teachings.

Sagiri can sense Gabimaru won’t kill her, even if she can’t see Yui. She realizes that his harsh upbringing led him astray by insisting he was a hollow monster, when deep down he’s a human being with the same emotions she has. She sees him enduring the weight every time he uses his ridiculous killing skills.

When he starts to tear up and say if he’s this weak he’ll never be able to protect Yui, Sagiri tells him that’s not weakness, but the seed of strength—one that needs to be nurtured and cultivated. She speaks from experience, since observing him help her stop averting her gaze. As she slides the scabbard onto Gabimaru’s sword, she decides she’s willing to help him reclaim his life. If he can do so, it means there’s hope for anybody.

It’s a beautiful, cathartic ending to what felt like the culmination of a 1-2-3 punch of an introductory character arc that established the two of them. They’ve come out the other side still perhaps not quite friends nor allies, but as two people who understand each other, and more importantly who don’t want to kill one another. Whatever comes for them, they’ll face it together.

The episode actually could have ended there, but I’m glad it didn’t, as this “uncanny paradise” immediately rears its ugly head. It starts with a butterfly floats over the hand of Tamiya Gantetsusai, but he notices the insect has a human face and a stinger. He slices off his hand without hesitation, and flowers immediately sprout from it.

From there it’s game on, as swarms of butterflies circle above, creepy giant centipedes with human fingers as manibles twist about the ground, and a gargantuan monster with a priest’s staff rises from the treeline. Gabimaru and Sagiri’s little coming-to-Jesus moment is interrupted by…a fish dude. These creatures are legit weird and unsettling, and now that I’m so firmly on the side of both Gabimaru and Sagiri, I very much want to watch them kick some fish dude ass.

TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You – S2 02 – Love You Can Taste

Yanagi’s class-wide grades have fallen since her top student Yuzaki Nasa left. But there’s nothing she can do about that, so she works as hard as she can to make up for the loss. That means giving all of herself to her job and declining dates from co-workers.

That night while buying ramen at the konbini, Yanagi-sensei happens to run into Nasa. When she sees the ring she immediately panics, assuming he’s been snatched up by some delinquent. But when Nasa takes her home to meet Tsukasa and they feed her her best dinner in months, Yanagi’s opinion of her changes drastically. Nasa and Tsukasa’s love is so intense and natural that it makes food taste better.

Another party initially unaware of Nasa’s nuptuals is Onimaru Ginga, who storms into the bathhouse demanding to know where Nasa is. Tsukasa goes on the defense, matching Ginga word for word in posturing and verbal sparring. Kaname is frightened of Ginga, but Tsukasa is scared of nothing and nobody, and a slow, painful death awaits anyone who’d hurt her Darling.

Fortunately, Ginga’s not only a nice guy, but Nasa’s younger cousin who followed him around like a lost puppy growing up. He admires Nasa, and with good reason: Nasa’s great! He’s also in high school, and the yakuza is a chuunibyou-like delusion, wherein every activity he describes sounds like crimes but is translated by Nasa to be perfectly harmless high school stuff, like trying to find a home for an abandoned kitten.

While the kitten is (understandably) freaked out and hostile, once the vet is done his checkup and the little guy has been cleaned and groomed, he settles down, and Nasa and Tsukasa agree to take him in for now (i.e., forever). Tsukasa names him Toast, since the blotch on his back resembles a pat of butter. Thus the Yuzaki family grows by one tiny fuzzy member.