Trigger Warning: This episode included a depiction of sexual assault. Viewer and reader discretion is advised.
I couldn’t really tell you what Tokio’s weird alternate universe dream was about, only that it was very unsettling and set the mood perfectly for an episode dedicated to taking everyone—both its characters and us—far out of out comfort zone. This episode expertly and utterly destroys what little order and normalcy existed previously.
Immediately after Tokio’s dream. Mimihime & Co.’s normal lunch by what looks like a concerted cyber and physical attack on the facility. The walls of this incubator of gifted children are finally crumbling from an outside they’ve never seen. Heaven has been breached, and will never be the same.
Kiruko and Maru’s side of the story starts out as normally as the Heaven kids’ lunch, until they find themselves in the biggest settlement they’ve ever seen, so big that the word town is the more accurate word to describe it. And at first, our duo is elated. Proper civilization at last!
They don’t even mind the red tape they have to cut through in order to gain official access to the town’s credit chip-based economy, because those baroque bureaucratic systems are itself both a relief and a novelty to two who have had so little. And then Kiruko learns Inazaki Robin is in that town, and schedules a meeting.
From that point onward, Maru notices a change in Kiruko; they’re talking to themself more. Kiruko has to go see Robin, and apparently they have to go alone. Maru doesn’t mind; to him, it seems like a quick errand from which she’ll be back in a jiffy. I’m still sure a part of him is weary of the two of them separating, and not just because Kiruko is technically his bodyguard.
Kiruko does not walk, but run to the filtration plant where Robin apparently works, and upon catching sight of him, they beam as their eyes tear up and their hair sways in the wind. It’s a classic “beautiful reunion” image, juxtaposed with Robin’s reaction to seeing Kiruko: a combination of fear, disgust, and something even worse.
The moment Kiruko and Maru separated, I knew things were going to take a turn. Robin’s face confirmed it.
Speaking of taking a turn, Takahara’s director is apparently crushed in the rubble after hopping out of her wheelchair like Dr. Strangelove and trying to make a run for it. The kids are on their own, and to their credit, Mimihime and her fellow older kids exhibit exemplary calm under such circumstances. But once the little ones are safe, they investigate the hole in the wall.
Kiruko’s reunion with Robin is lit beautifully just as Kiruko was upon laying eyes on Robin. Kiruko is going a mile a minute with things they want to say, but Robin urges them to cool down, they can take their time talking. They do, and they learn what became of Robin and how he came to become a key player in the restoration of civilization.
When Robin offers use of a bath to Kiruko, it seems oddly timed. I was so young and innocent when he first offered it, too. So was Kiruko. They break down with relief in the tub as the shower ticks their back with tiny droplets. They were so scared, for so long, but now everything is going to be okay.
The imagery of this entire episode is stunning in its thematic resonance. Just as Kiruko appears through the crack in the door, creating a slight pillar of light in the darkness, the Heaven kids are emerging from the darkness into the outside of the outside, the ceiling of which is dizzyingly high.
For a moment, Mimihime is afraid of falling up, so unaccustomed is she to being outdoors. Fortunately Shiro is there to cushion her fall backwards, and she is compelled to reach up into the sky at that seeming infiniteness. Contrast this with Kiruko’s rapidly diminishing freedom and welfare in one of the darkest moments I can recall watching in an anime.
Robin took away Kiruko’s clothes on purpose so he could lure them into a room and then handcuff them naked to a bed. Robin, who has either become quite the evil son of a bitch or was always this way, decides to conduct an “experiment” consisting of forcing the Haruki inside Kiruko…to watch his sister’s reflection in a mirror as Robin rapes them. Just…Jesus.
In hindsight, the warning signs and red flags were all there. I was even aware of them as things started to get dark. But nothing could have prepared me for the abject misery of this scene, especially how cruelly it combines a moment of attaining great freedom—as Mimihime does—with the worst moment of Kiruko’s life.
Not only are they being assaulted, but the perpetrator was their greatest hero, the person that inspired propelled them in everything they did. Well, Inazaki Robin is a monster far more terrifying than the deadliest Hiruko. I simply don’t know where anyone goes from here, or what comes next. All the walls have crumbled and fallen.
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