Synduality: Noir – 07 – An Audience of One

When Kanata leaves Noir in Maria’s care for a day and a night for Magus maintenance, Ellie believes it’s finally her turn to strike while the iron’s hot. Unfortunately, Kanata isn’t as alone in his garage as she expected: as thanks for rescuing her from Range, Ciel has decided to keep Kanata company in Noir’s stead. Unlike Noir, she’s a lot better at household chores…and flirting.

After the house is made spotless, Ciel helps with Daisygore maintenance, singing while she works. She then whips up a homemade dinner for Kanata with real vegetables, offers to share her shower with Kanata “to save water” (he declines vociferously) and pays him a visit at his hammock in the night. It’s here where Ciel learns that Kanata treats Magus and humans the same because his mom was a Magus.

When Kanata tells Ciel about the lost paradise city of Histoire, she sneaks off in the night to make a report to some unknown organization, revealing that there’s more to her than just Kanata’s a second wAIfu. The next morning, Kanata can sense that Ciel’s being more distant.

He talks about this to Ellie at the canteen, and Ellie is eager to help out her childhood buddy when he tells Tokio “there’s no distance between them,” not knowing quite how happy that makes her. Kanata decides that the best way to cheer Ciel up is to take her somewhere. Little does he know if he hadn’t stopped a bit short and thrown her off balance, Ciel was ready to zap Kanata unconscious so that she could steal Noir.

Kanata has taken Ciel to a remote ruin of an old theater or concert venue, telling her she can sing there as loud as she likes to her heart’s content. Moved by this gesture, and Kanata’s continued treating of her like a human being, Ciel breaks into song for an audience of just Kanata. In her thoughts she admits that despite the fact her heart isn’t supposed to burn, he’s set it ablaze.

The impromptu concert is interrupted by rain that wasn’t in the forecast, which soon leads to an Ender attack. Not to worry; Ciel proves she’s a Jill-of-all-trades by hooking up to Daisygore and synching with Kanata, then obliterating all of the bogies while singing another song. Ciel can truly do it all, but that’s no longer a surprise considering she apparently works for a shady organization that considers Kanata and his dream a threat.

Mouton escorts Noir home, and she has a clean bill of health from Maria. Noir sees Ciel clinging to Kanata and determines that they’ve become closer in the day she’s been gone (though she doesn’t seem to exhibit any jealousy).

While Ciel mentioned one day finding her ideal master, it looks like she’s content to stay with Kanata and Noir for now. We’ll see if her developing feelings for the super-duper nice guy will overpower her sense of duty to that shadowy organization.

Masamune-kun’s Revenge R – 08 – Le mode de la servante

Poor Aki continues to watch for phone for something, anything from her purported boyfriend, to no avail. And when her stomach groans, Yoshino is out shopping. Her sister Narino says Yoshino is too stuck in “servant girl mode” to do anything for herself, and so she told her to buy something for herself.

We don’t learn what that something is (though it seems like her bag is full of snacks and/or sweets), but she does end up with something, in a sense: time alone with Masamune. Mind you, that’s not what she wanted under any circumstances, but when she tries to flee she sprains her ankle, and has to be carried.

Aki is late to a café meet-up with her self-proclaimed bodyguards, who spent the time before she arrived worrying about how to broach the topic of Aki dating Masamune. Everything about this seemed wrong: Aki with these girls who don’t know the half of what’s going on, while Masamune is giving Yoshino a piggyback ride.

I’m glad they love the embarrassed side of an Aki-sama in love—I do too—but these are less friends Aki can rely on and more admirers who believe she can do and say no wrong; they’re basically sycophants. The person she should be with is Masamune, her boyfriend. And don’t get me wrong: it’s him I blame for being AWOL.

I’m all for the occasional wrench in the gears of a romantic route, but the fact it’s now been two episodes without the main couple even exchanging a text feels unnecessarily cruel. That’s compounded by the fact that Masamune realizes that while Aki and Neko give him hives when he touches them (or they touch him), that doesn’t happen with Yoshino.

It’s enough for him to declare, out loud, while hugging Yoshino close, that he never should have gone out with Aki, and he was having the most fun plotting revenge with Yoshino. For this, he gets knocked out by Yoshino, who is gone when he comes to but for a note written on his face: “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

Fortunately, Aki does eventually end up with someone resembling an actual friend in Kanetsugu, even though she’d never believe she was worthy to be Aki’s friend after what she did. The thing is, Aki knows Kanetsugu well enough to know that she suffered with regret while maintaining her lies, which is why forgiving her is no problem.

She also understands why Kanetsugu did what she did—for her little sister. But now Aki is the one being weighed down by the possibility she’d been hurting Masamune all this time, judging from the page in his journal about exacting revenge. Kanetsugu offers vital advice to Aki: Don’t lie to your heart and accept your feelings.

It’s such a lovely, warm, and above all honest interaction between Kanetsugu and Aki; I love how it turned out so much more nuanced than “bad guy, who is actually bad girl, paid dearly for being bad.” Of course, it’s not nuanced for Yoshino: she’s not only a bad girl, but a “traitorous witch” for what she did to Aki.

While it’s natural to harbor regrets about lying and hurting someone you loved for so long, you can kinda see why Yoshino has locked herself into “servant girl mode” as her sister lamented. She believes she doesn’t deserve anything for herself after what she did—especially not the boy Aki loves, even if she alone doesn’t give him hives.

I’m not sure the hives a surefire sign that Masamune isn’t meant to be with Aki, or meant to be with Yoshino. But when he has a dream about dating her instead of Aki, he wakes up in a cold sweat, declaring it “wrong.” And it is, considering he’s still technically dating Aki. Also wrong? Not speaking to your girlfriend for what feels like weeks!