Re: Zero – 38 – The Starting Line of Resolve

Just as Subaru is dealing with Echidna’s apparent heel turn, along with the antics of all the other whimsical witches, Satella shuffles back into his presence, forever enrobed in black miasma, loving him and wanting him to love her. But for the first time, Satty has more to say about love, specifically begging him to love himself more.

Subie isn’t about to be lectured by a bunch of witches. The way he does things and saves those he loves is his business, and if he has to keep suffering and dying, so be it, as long as he doesn’t lose anyone else like he lost Ram. He’s had so much of his fill of these witches he decides to peace out by biting his tongue and bleeding out.

But when it comes down to it, he doesn’t want to die, or even be hurt. Minerva can sense this, and so heals him with a headbutt. The witches share the sentiment that Subaru is someone worth keeping alive and watching, and so he acknowledges that each one of them has helped him in some form or another.

Heck, if not for Satella, he wouldn’t have Return by Death, his only means thus far of doing anything in this world. Yet when Echidna holds out her hand for Subaru to take, promising him she’ll take him to whatever future he desires, he rejects it. If he’s going to find his value to others beyond his continued death, he feels he must look for it himself.

Before parting, he does take the hand of the most unexpected witch: Satella’s, promising he’ll endeavor to love himself a little more, and also that one day he’ll honor her wish to return and “kill” her.

Of c0urse, even if Subie is proceeding without direct witch assistance, he’s still going to need allies. He awakens outside for once; Otto tells him Patrasche entered the graveyard to retrieve him. When Subaru asks why, Otto mocks his denseness; clearly, it’s because Patrache loves him and cares about him. And despite his tsundere reaction, Otto clearly feels the same way.

But while Subaru has loving friends in Otto and Patrache, he’ll find no such affection from Roswaal, beyond his role as the margrave’s avatar of hope. He insists on Subaru following his recommendations to put Emilia first and everyone else second; Roswall sees Subie as a tool to save only one and no one else. Doing everything for Emilia’s sake, to him, means ignoring everything she wants.

That said, Roswaal believes Subie has yet to find his resolve, and indeed is only barely on the starting line on the road to that resolve. So he forces the issue, copping to having ordered the assassins at the mansion. By creating a situation where even someone with Return by Death can only be in one place at one time, he’s forcing Subie to make a choice: Emilia, or the others.

And I thought Echidna was bad! She’s only true to her nature as a witch of greed; Roswaal is, and fully admits to being, completely insane, and has been so ever since he first saw the witch’s eyes. But to him, insanity is a requisite, not a liability, to achieving his goals, and he wants Subie to be just like him.

Subaru runs out, determined not to be anything like him, but the shock of learning he’s been set up in this way by Roswaal for just that purpose sends him into another uncontrollable fit of despair, running through the forest until he trips and takes a tumble, then repeating over and over what he should do, and coming up blank.

When in such a state, there’s nothing for it but for someone to pull him out, and Otto happily takes up that mantle by punching Subaru in the face. Subtle it ain’t, but it was what Subie needed, when it was needed. Otto scolds him for continuing to put up a brave face right up until he’s on the edge of madness-by-despair.

Hopefully Subaru has gotten the hint that yes, doggone it, people like him, and with our without the witches’ help or Roswaal’s hindrance, they’ll find out what to do together. Unfortunately, we won’t find out what until part two in January 2021, when hopefully things will be looking up a bit in our own world!

The Misfit of Demon King Academy – 13 (Fin) – A Hero’s Hero

When Hero Kanon was murdered, he used Evansmana’s power of breaking destiny to prevent Anos from becoming the Demon King of Tyranny, and taking his place as Avos. Now he wants Anos to kill him, believing his sacrifice will break the chain of hatred that is the Asc spell. Now that Ray/Kanon’s affection for humans has taken a more specific form in Misa, he can no longer wait for “someday” to arrive and bring peace; it has to happen here and now.

Anos initially seems willing to play along, pulling out all his OP magic tricks to destroy all but one of Kanon’s sources. But then, at the last minute, Anos lets Kanon stab him through his own source. As the boundaries of their battlefield drop, he slips Avos’ helmet on his head, making it appear to everyone assembled that Ray has defeated the Demon King.

Anos hoped this would extinguish the humans’ hatred, but the Asc is still going strong within Diego, who musters his ten thousand Zeshia troops and orders them to extinguish all demons. Eleanor enters the fray to try to halt their advance, while Commander Jerga himself appears in monumental scale to finish the job.

Ray/Kanon tries to attack the giant Jerga with Evansmana, but his holy sword has no effect on the “true sacred magic”. Enter Misha and Sasha, who know their King will resurrect, and in the meantime will do what they can to protect their demon brethren.

To that end, they use their Necron family magic Dino Jixes to merge into a single entity that fights alongside Ray/Kanon while Eleonore and Misa attempt to hold back the Zeshia army. It’s ultimately all about buying time and hoping the Demon King returns.

Just when Jerga seems ready to unleash a holy magic spell to exterminate all demons, it is negated by a giant black and red magical circle, and all the hundreds of Zeshias fall to the ground, stunned. Anos makes his re-appearance, having used Ray/Kanon’s killing blow to repair his source via source magic.

In this final stage of the battle, Anos and Ray/Kanon fight side-by-side, while the Demon army commander helps Eleonore and the Human forces. When Jerga tries to use Asc, Anos counters with an Asc of his own, fueled by the Fan Union’s latest song. He even summons Delsgade!

Soon, even Jerga’s hatred is transformed into love as he sees the shell necklace he gave his beloved wife. The present era of peace asserts itself and the united forces of Humans and Demons fight together to eliminate a solitary man’s two thousand-year-old grudge.

At this point we’re running out of episode, so Misha and Sasha split back into two girls in order to welcome Anos back to the world of the living, while Ray returns to Misa and embraces her with love. As the credits roll, the whole, the Anos & Co. return home, where his parents meet his “third wife” Eleanore (whom he converted into his magic so she’d no longer be misused) and learn of her ten thousand “children”.

That final scene really brings is back to one of the more unique aspects of the series, which was that the main antihero always had a loving home and family to go home to and enjoy some piping hot mushroom gratin. It’s welcome and necessary follow-up to an disorienting kitchen-sink final battle that in the end was only slightly more over the top than previous climactic battles.

While I maintain that things got overstuffed towards the end and that 5-6 additional episodes would have been ideal, Demon King Academy was nonetheless a fun new take on the OP Asshole MC, tempering extremely arcane magical jargon with a surprising amount of heart.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 12 (Fin) – The One He Wants

We’ve finally arrived at the end of one of the most frustrating, problematic rom-coms I’ve experienced in quite some time, and it ends pretty much how I expected: by not ending. But despite how hard it was to watch at times, I could never quite look away.

On not one but two occasions this week Kazuya shows signs of not only knowing what he must do but stepping up and doing or saying it, only to abandon the effort a half-step short of the finish line. First he does this with Ruka, realizing how lucky he is to have her and how unreasonable he is for feeling like she’s not enough.

He is right in the middle of telling her he’s ready to move past the “trial” period of their relationship and declare them “official”—only to be distracted by the arrival of Mizuhara and Mami at the karaoke parlor. It’s the first of two “showdown” scenes between the two women, and in this first one Mami has all the power and relishes wielding it.

Mami tells Mizuhara she didn’t book her to rag on her profession, but now that she knows she’s a rental, she couldn’t stay quiet. She doesn’t like the fact Mizuhara and Kazuya have had a fake relationship this long, and aside from deeming it bad for Kazuya, just watching it in practice pisses her off “a teensy bit.” None of her words are that harsh or cruel, but Yuuki Aoi’s expert delivery and Mami’s odd expressions make them feel like icy daggers.

Because this is a show where Everything is About Kazuya, Kazuya feels it’s his duty to not only eavesdrop on Mizuhara and Mami’s date, but pretend to be sick and excuse himself from work to follow them. Mizuhara rewarded him last time he did this, so why wouldn’t he do it again? He has an excuse ready to go: he doesn’t want Mizuhara to bear the brunt of Mami’s hate.

Meanwhile Ruka is left holding the bag, wondering if Kazuya was serious about making them official. Kazuya finds Mizuhara and Mami on a bridge about to wrap up the date, but not before a “rematch” of sorts, only this time with Mizuhara having a slight rhetorical edge.

Mizuhara asks Mami straight up how she feels about Kazuya, as she’s sure Mami still occupies a special place in the guy’s heart. Mami doesn’t take the bait, but tosses the question back to Mizuhara, suspicious that in a year of fake-dating, she’s fallen for Kazuya for real. Mizuhara simply states “He’s my boyfriend”, not adding the “rental” part because at this point, until the end of their contract, whether it’s a rental or not is irrelevant.

Mami considers that a dodging of the question and turns to leave, but Mizuhara grabs her hand and tells her they’re not done. As scenes of Kazuya crying about Mami flash by, Mizuhara tells Mami how being a rental girlfriend helped her realize the importance and difficulty of falling in love. She asks if Mami ever faced Kazuya’s feelings head on, in good faith, seriously engaged with his love, or considered that he may be the one to make her “happy for life”.

Mami tells her to buzz off under her breath, and states that all of that is between her and Kazuya. Fair enough, but Mizuhara wins this round. She knows Mami wouldn’t have bothered with this date if she didn’t care one way or another about Kazuya. Of the three lead women, Mami is the one most unready, unwilling, and unable to reckon with her feelings, preferring her cool, aloof, gives-no-fucks, bored-with-everything…facade.

That night, Kazuya is waiting by Mizuhara’s door when she comes home, confessing he saw and heart what she said to Mami, thanking her for having his back once again, and apologizing for not being able to do those things himself. Mizuhara then shocks Kazuya by apologizing in turn, for not being able to secure him a real girlfriend (apparently Ruka doesn’t count!).

As she’s suggesting he consider asking Mami out again, for closure if nothing else, Kazuya steps up to the plate, as he did with Ruka, and says something he should have said long ago: “You’re the one I want. It’s gotta be you.” At last, some progress! Only no, he immediately recants, saying he wants her “as a rental girlfriend”, before rushing into his apartment with a curt good night.

Yet another disappointing, immensely frustrating moment of failure for Kazuya, who comes away from the incident thinking it’s a sure thing that Mizuhara isn’t into him. Meanwhile, next door, a blushing Mizuhara wonders WTF just happened. I have no doubt if Kazuya had made it clear he truly did want her as a real girlfriend, it would have been better for both of them, whether Mizuhara accepted or rejected him.

Instead, as a closing montage indicates, it’s still very much anyone’s game when it comes to winning the Kazuya Sweepstakes. Sumi’s out there doing her job with renewed confidence, Ruka smiles at the phone background of her and Kazuya, Mami is utterly bored to death by her latest rich old dude, and Mizuhara is still showing up early for dates with Kazuya.

They’re still rental dates, and she’s still a rental girlfriend. I get it; that’s the name of the show. And the point of the show wasn’t really about Kazuya to end up with one girl over the others, but to explore the different ways in which we fall in love, now made more complex and at times strange via new technologies.

Kazuya was almost always abysmally hard to watch, but that was kind of the point too. What kept me coming back were Ruka, Mizuhara, Mami and Sumi—in that order—as much care was put into their voices, character designs, clothing, and personalities. They were the stars, while Kazuya was an unfortunate but necessary variable in the equation. If RaG were to return for a sequel, they’d be the ones who’d bring me back.

Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai! – 12 (Fin) – The Hanging Out Continues

As expected, last week’s shocking cliffhanger is resolved within the episode’s first two minutes, as Uzaki clarifies she can’t hang out with him because she still has to do her college summer homework. Sakurai closes the door in her face, despite the fact she’s soaked by the rain. Pretty lame fake-out there, to be honest. Also, college summer homework? Sounds high schoolly to me…

When the cafe owner throws out his back lifting something he should have left to his hulking employee, it affords Ami an opportunity to ask Uzaki how she and Sakurai were like in high school. Uzaki basically reiterates that while she was initially intimidated by his scary face, she soon learned he’s a kind, earnest guy. What Uzaki didn’t realize until Ami tells her is that she’s picked up his speech patterns!

On to the next vignette, in which Uzaki, having shown her whole ass (figuratively speaking) to Sakurai when drunk, is determined to get Sakurai into a similar state of vulnerability. Sakaki tells her Sak intentionally keeps his alcohol intake down to avoid showing that side of himself, so she’ll have to work for it.

To that end, she cooks a delicious but spicy dinner for the two, pretends to drink so he’ll keep up, and brings bad shark disaster movies to distract him from his intake. By the end of the evening, Uzaki is successful as Sakurai is very drunk and for once couldn’t act cool if he wanted to, but when he earnestly praises Uzaki’s cooking and lets the word “love” slip, it leads Uzaki to binge drink in order to steel herself.

The end result is Sakaki puts drunk Sakurai in his futon to get a good night’s sleep, and drunk Uzaki crawls into the bed with him. When they wake up face-to-face, they have no memory of what, if anything, happened, and head to the cafe to treat their hangovers with quality coffee.

Naturally, Ami and her dad are eager to hear details about what happened, and are perhaps too amused by the fact neither Sakurai nor Uzaki can definitively state that they did not have a drunken tussle. One would hope that if and when they do it, they’d be in charge of their faculties and, more importantly, remember the experience!

The next college semester starts, and Uzaki has breakfast with her mom and previously unseen(?) little brother. Uzaki spots Sakurai on campus and catches up to his lumbering gait. She’s still experiencing post-summer break shock, and is mostly down in the dumps because she thinks they won’t hang out with classes in session.

Sakurai assures her, perhaps too earnestly, that it doesn’t have to be summer for them to hang out, and that “they’ll always be together.” That last bit brings out Uzaki’s mischievous flesh fang, and we’re basically back to their warm, cozy status quo dynamic.

While watchable and possessed of some nice moments here and there, Uzaki-chan wants to Hang Out! was a pretty ho-hum, take-it-or-leave-it rom-com. Too often the leads felt more like high schoolers than the adults they’re supposed to be. The antics of the Owner/Ami/Sakaki rooting triad grew stale, while the weird Tottori tourism ad episode was…a weird Tottori tourism ad.

That said, Oozora Naomi gave a solid performance as Uzaki, and I’ll be keeping an ear out for her in other lead roles (she’s also great in the far-superior Chio’s School Road). Other than that this show was a somewhat marginal-effort Summer time-passer…which will be back for a second season of hanging out!

Season Average: 7.5

No Guns Life – 24 (Fin?) – The Size of the Monster

I’m a big sucker for weird neo-noir/cyberpunk series, so No Guns Life is a show I’ll miss despite its flaws. For one thing, it doesn’t look like any other show airing this season or back when its first season aired. It’s just so much grittier and grimier and greasier, while still maintaining a worn-in futuristic look.

And while Berühren is indisputably evil Big Bad, one of its agents in Pepper gets more of the gray-shading she needed to be more compelling. We go back to the time she first met Seven, and learn he wasn’t the first Seven. That was a seven-legged spider, the only thing in Pepper’s life that was hers. Of course, when she saw the spider with another “test subject”, she stomped it.

Upon first approaching Seven, Pepper receives the wound that leaves the scar she has today, but she approaches him again and delivers a big wet kiss to his face, marking him as hers. She was always deranged like this, but what do you expect? Anything and everything she might have had before meeting Seven was taken away by Berühren. She couldn’t beat them, so she joined them and being given worth by the company meant she could live on.

Now she’s laid up in a hospital room and Seven is gone. Juuzou is ready to interrogate her (with Olivier listening in) on what she knows about Berühren, but Pepper escapes her room, only to be confronted by a husband and father seeking revenge for losing his family to the dustup at Armed Park. Pepper is saved by Juuzou of all people, and when she rushes at him, she trips and he saves her again.

Before he was destroyed by the Berühren twin sisters, he asks Juuzou to take care of Pepper. She may have seen him as merely her property and a tool for her to use, but like Juuzou, he actually had his own will. Gun Slave Units are only vulnerable to control due to the loss of their pasts to the extension process. But once they’ve lived enough life and met enough people, their own wills reassert.

It happened to Juuzou and it happened to Seven, who stayed by Pepper’s side as long as he could. Thanks to Pepper’s info, Olivier has a better idea of the foe she’s dealing with, or as she says, the “size of the monster”. It’s infiltrated her superiors, but her sense of justice is such that she can’t and won’t stand by and do nothing. As for Pepper, she gets her red coat and lollies back and mourns her companion.

Pepper also told Juuzou where his Hands went, and he recalls how after his berserk attack his Hands came back for him, even knowing the consequences from the military that would follow. Before fleeing their wrath, he urged Juuzou to “do stupid things, struggle, and suffer like a normal person”, then make friends with whom they can laugh about such times.

Sure enough, Juuzou found those friends, be it Mary, Tetsuro, Chris, or Olivier. Shimazu survived her injuries and is laid up in his office, so there’s another potential friend, while Rosa is so smitten with him she mended his duster and added an adorable patch, as if to mark her man. Thanks to Pepper, Juuzou too knows the size of the monster he’ll face, but he’ll face it in full control of his body, mind, and heart.

This solid finale ends on a bit of an ellipsis, possibly foretelling a third season—there is apparently sufficient source material for one. That said, that’s not a sure thing, as it wasn’t announced after the end credits. There’s also the sense this anime is an acquired taste and may not be popular enough to keep going, but I for one would love to see more, if it happens.

Season Average: 7.81

Oregairu 3 – 12 (Fin) – A Genuine Something

First of all, wow, what a finale! It’s a pretty much perfect way to send off our crazy mixed-up kids while giving viewers who have eagerly watched them grow for three years a happy ending that seemed impossible at the beginning, when Hachiman was just an arrogant antisocial twerp. Now he’s an arrogant antisocial twerp with a goddamn adorable girlfriend!

But first things first: business. Hikki roped Yukino into a seemingly no-win joint prom scenario he came up with just as an excuse to keep her in his life, but the two dive into their mission with renewed energy and purpose. While before they’d sit far apart, now they’re right on top of one another, and while their dialogue is still awkward, now it’s romantic awkward.

Hikki even proposes the two go to a beachfront park and scout it as a possible venue on their day off, knowing full well it would be a date. With all the will-they-won’t-they tension melted away, we get to enjoy the warm, gooey romance in the center.

From Hikki noticing and complimenting the alternate hairstyle Yukino did just for him to Yukino pulling Hikki into a bubble tea selfie without a moment’s hesitation, to their reaction to seeing a wedding taking place, it’s just absolutely glorious finally seeing these two together and happy! It TOOK long enough!

The Service Club is back in operation for the sole task of organizing the joint prom, and between Hikki and Yukino, they actually have enough friends and well-wishers to help them out with their tall self-imposed task. Their gradual gathering in the clubroom serves as an unofficial curtain call for several secondary/tertiary characters like Zaiko, Saki, Yumiko, Hina, and Kakeru.

Someone important is missing, but she eventually walks in the door, fashionably late with her trademark “Yahallo!”—Yuigahama Yui, ready, willing, and eager to be working together as a team again, and even though the pain of losing Hachiman to Yukino is surely still fresh and raw, she intends to overcome it and continue a warm relationship with both of them.

Hikki and The Lads go for a quick revitalizing trip to the sauna, where buzz commences about whether Hikki is now dating Yukino. He refuses to answer, but Saiko (notably the only boy wearing his towel as if he had boobs to conceal) has his back as always, saying they all agreed to watch over them, not engage in futile speculation.

Afterwards as the sun starts to go down, Hikki meets up with Yukino, Yui, and Iroha, all ready to go to dinner with him Yui and Iroha leave first, leaving the couple together for a moment. He holds his hand out to help Yukino up, even though he knows she can stand up on her own, and she knows he knows. But he holds out his hand anyway, and Yukino takes it anyway. Daaaaaaaawww…

The big day arrives: the day of the joint prom, yes, but also the day Komachi and Iroha meet. It’s everything I could have hoped for, with the two exchanging formal pleasantries and vicious barbs in equal measure and Yui in the middle as a kind of referee. It’s rare you get Yuuki Aoi, Touyama Nao and Ayane Sakura sharing a scene together, and every moment of it is a gift.

Yukino’s mom tries once more to rattle her daughter’s cage, but her efforts are utterly ineffective. Yukino firmly and confidently acknowledges her duties and responsibilities as the boss of this prom—as well as the potential cost to her family’s rep if it doesn’t go well. When turning to leave, Haruno tells Hikki to “brace himself” for a real, genuine journey he’s undertaken with Yukino.

But thanks to all of their hard work and the assistance of their friends, the prom goes off without a hitch just like the last one, only without the dread of the three friends breaking up forever upon its conclusion. If the first prom celebrated the end of the beginning, this prom heralds the start of a new era for Hikki, Yukino, and Yui.

And all of this is, in large part, thanks to Hiratsuka Shizuka, who never stopped bugging a younger, stupider Hikki to join the Service Club and meet similarly transient souls who’d benefit from each other’s interactions. Shizuka ends up getting a lovely extended curtain call and special treatment in the form of a dance with Hikki in a emptied-out hall bathed in a gorgeous sunset.

Then Hikki gets a little lucky when Shizuka trips and lands on him. The romantic energy has never been stronger between these two, but Shizuka is content to be the wise sensei who considers Hikki to be her Ultimate Student. He’s proud of him, and he’s grateful to her, and their warm handshake is the perfect parting gesture.

Speaking of perfect, a seemingly frazzled Yukino has a thick stack of papers in hand as she warns Hikki that the “hard part” of the prom has just begun. Before they split up to perform the various necessary tasks, she rattles off a list of thinks for him to take care of. As the list grows, Hikki starts thinking it’s too much…until Yukino tells him one more thing: I love you.

She said it! No half-measures or weasel words, just the big three! Upon seeing Hikki’s stupid blushing reaction, she shrinks into her papers and shuffles away. I loved it, and even though he knows he’ll have to say something just as clear and unambiguous in response to her in the very near future, Hikki loved it too. The things about her that annoy him also kill him with cuteness, and I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.

Fast forward to the start of Hikki and Yukino’s final year of high school. The two are in the clubroom tying up lose prom ends when their new kohai Komachi enters, enthusiastically volunteering to join the Service Club. When they tell her no such club exists anymore, Iroha follows Komachi through the door (complaining about how fast the “little rice girl” runs) with a StuCo-preapproved application for a New Service Club.

Komachi is the new president, and no sooner do Hikki and Yukino learn they are listed as members does their very first new client arrive with another “Yahallo!” Yui has come for advice on what to do if the person you like has a girlfriend, but you want to be friends with her forever.

A knowing Yukino offers Yui a seat and prepares to pour her some tea. This could take a while, but it could take forever as far as they’re concerned, since that would mean they’d always be together, figuring it out, as they have so many other things.

Season Average: 9.08

Deca-Dence – 12 (Fin) – A New Grand Process

When Jill tells Natsume that Kaburagi has connected with Deca-Dence to become Kabu-Dence, Natsume is momentarily bewildered by her Boss’ constant changing forms. But change is at the heart of this episode, and ultimately the salvation of free cyborgs and humans both.

Everyone rallies behind Kabu and Minato, with the Gears logging in en masse to participate in the game’s climactic “Final Mission” while Donatello fills in Kurenai and the Tankers.

Minato and Jill are concerned that despite a successful connection, Deca-Dence isn’t doing anything. That’s because Kaburagi first has to deal with something very similar to Neo in The Matrix Reloaded when he meets The Architect. In this case, it’s The System itself, telling him that even bugs are a part of the system, meaning anything he does will be within the System’s calculations.

But if that were the case, why try to stop him? Kabu doesn’t buy that cog-in-the-machine crap anymore; he’s living his life by the precepts gained through Natsume: push yourself to the limits in order to help create a better, freer world. With that declaration, and Natsume simultaneously smashing her arm to pieces “waking” Boss up, Kabu-Dence finally stirs to life.

With glowing tendrils it reaches out at all the hunks of debris throughout its surroundings, which were brought back to life thanks to the Gears and Tankers topping them off with oxyone. To Kabu’s distress, one of the people helping is Natsume, initially trying to push a huge part all by herself before being joined by Kurenai and her Tanker comrades.

With less than ninety seconds until total spacial displacement, Minato orders the now charged and upgraded Kabu-Dence cannon to fire upon Gadoll omega, the beam of which Donatello deflects by sacrificing his Gear avatar. It fires, and there’s a big boom but…it doesn’t work. The beam wasn’t strong enough to break through omega’s adamantoise-esque shell.

With under forty seconds on the clock, Kabu seems resigned to oblivion…until stored memories of Natsume’s best and most formative moments flash before his visual interface. Natsume herself was drawn within Kabu-Dence’s machinery, and her presence seems to snap Kabu out of giving up.

Kabu-Dence’s limiter is suddenly removed, enabling a far more powerful attack even with the oxyone stores depleted. The blast is enough to destroy Gadoll omega, but completes the destruction of Deca-Dence as a mobile fortress in the process.

Whether due to the strain of the limit break attack or damage to his body caused by falling debris, Kaburagi concedes that his time has finally come. The System was right about one thing—that he was going to die either way. Left out of that statement is the fact he wouldn’t die until after he successfully broke that system, with the help of his friends.

When Natsume finally finds Kabu’s cyborg body, his face is broken and the one light remaining behind is about to go out. Natsume lets some tears fall, but she doesn’t lose it; she merely expresses gratitude to her boss and assures him she’ll be okay on her own from now on. He gave her and every human and free cyborg a chance.

Three Years Later, and Deca-Dence is now a bustling city surrounded by verdant farmland, where humans and cyborgs peacefully coexist. Under “Supreme Administrator” Minato’s leadership and Jill’s scientific prowess, the game has changed: no longer a brutal battle in which Tankers were cannon fodder and servants, now cyborgs share in the labor and betterment of the new civilization beside their human friends.

Natsume has started a business taking cyborg tourists out on exploration and adventure trips. Her new arm can become a helicopter rotor, which is pretty awesome and also makes her a kind of unique conduit between the human and cyborg experience. As she promised, she made a life for herself and thrived without boss around. But that doesn’t mean when Jill eventually manages to bring Kaburagi back, using his backup data and a new avatar body, she isn’t glad to see him again!

It’s a fast, focused ending and the epilogue-over-end-credits is perhaps a bit rushed (I’d have loved to spend more time in this lush, just new world). But seeing Natsume’s face light up once more as she recognizes him emerging from the glaring sunset is as fitting image as any on which to close the book on the tremendously entertaining and unflinchingly relevant Deca-Dence.

Season Average: 9.17

Re: Zero – 37 – Seven’s a Crowd

Returning by Death to the graveyard and Emilia, Subaru is more determined than ever to save her and the people of the sanctuary and mansion, even at the cost of his life. But upon returning and begging Echidna for an audience, he starts to experience what a voice much like his own voice calls “unthinkable presents”: visions of the worlds after he’d died and Returned by Death. Worlds that kept going without him.

Again and again, he witnesses what he’s indeed never considered: that in those worlds he leaves, those he leaves behind still suffer his loss, and he certainly feels both the crush of those deaths now compounded by his guilt over causing further pain to those he loves. Then again, this could be the second trial, and not true reality.

Those experiences flash by faster and faster, giving us not only a glimpse of how Emilia, Beatrice and Ram (among others) react to his demise, but serving as a kind of mini-montage of all the times he’s died period, starting from the very beginning. Then, all of a sudden, we hear a familiar voice…of Rem. Rem is there to comfort Subaru and urge him to basically lay down, rest, and let her shoulder his burdens.

Once the shock and elation of reuniting with a conscious Rem wears off, Subaru realizes this isn’t Rem. Rem may love and dote upon him, but at the same time, no one is stricter when it comes to him overcoming the pain and standing back up on his own two feet…Starting Over from Zero and such!

Turns out it’s not Rem after all, but a very flustered Carmilla, Witch of Lust, sent to the graveyard by Echidna to keep his mind from being totally worn away by the trial, an illusion that drew upon his memories. The trial, to, Subaru, would seem to present a series of failures, almost mocking his efforts as pointless.

However, Echidna assures him that he is where he is now due to everything he’s seen, done, and experience, good and bad. It mattered. None of it was a waste. To that end, since he’s here now, she wishes to enter into a formal contract with him, forming a bond between their souls that will enable her to help him when it’s needed, and will grant her the ability to Return by Death with him.

It’s hard to see her sudden dropping of this proposal to be the sum product of a deliberate and calculated effort on her part to butter him up and come across as a reasonable, even benevolent ally. To make her promise to help him achieve the future he wants—not to mention use her body, mind, and soul however he likes—appealing.

When the other witches (including Sekhmet, Witch of Sloth, who constantly yawns!) appear up one by one to warn Subaru not to take the deal—there’s too much fine print Echidna isn’t telling him—she launches into a passionate monologue describing in detail all of the ways she’ll help him, declaring it, essentially, a “vow of love.”

But as with Carmilla as Fake Rem, the vow feels hollow and performative to Subaru. Echidna may indeed be a kind, gentle, naïve maiden, but she’s also a witch, and the Witch of Greed, no less. It is her greed that primarily drives her wish to contract with him, as it would “contribute greatly” to the satisfaction of her curiosity. But that assumes she can ever be satisfied.

By the time miasma is coming off Echida and her face has become more demon-like, Subaru finally asks her what he wanted to from the moment he returned: Does she know Beatrice? Yes. Does she know “that person” whom Beatrice has waited? No. In fact, Echidna always intended, and has been waiting all these 400 years, to see whether Beatrice would choose “that person” herself.

Basically, Echidna is pointing out that she gave Beatrice a raw, cruel deal before asking Subaru to trust her enough to give her a “taste” of everything he is, was, and will be. And Subaru isn’t having it. He declines her offer, and while Echidna looks disappointed and even miffed, she probably doesn’t think her fight for Subaru and his Return by Death is over just because he refused once.

Still, before we see fully how she’ll deal with that refusal, the seventh witch, Satella, makes her appearance, just in time for the second season’s first cour finale next week. I’m hoping she has a bit more to say to Subie than “I love you”!

The Misfit of Demon King Academy – 12 – The Necklace

Eleanor explains to Anos that Hero Kanon’s right-hand man Commander Jerga feared that the humans would forget their grudge against demons in time, rendering them vulnerable for destruction. So he used taboo magic to split his source into two distinct spells. One is Asc, the manifestation of his grudge that infects every human, including the hero academy students.

The other spell, Eleanor, was a “bust” because while she performed her role of creating source clones, she failed to absorb any of Jerga’s hatred. She believes Anos can end Jerga’s grudge by destroying her, but her clone children begin to gather around her and beg Anos to save their mother.

And, oh yeah…Jerga freaking murdered Kanon, when the hero wouldn’t support the generational spread of hatred into the future. While Hero could have instantly resurrected himself, he didn’t, apparently washing his hands of humans and their inevitably treacherous ways.

Anos and Eleanor are interrupted by Diego and his guards, but they’re interrupted by the arrival of the three remaining brainwashed Seven Elder Demon Emperors…along with a masked Avos Dilhevia himself.

Diego and Avos project their images over the human and demon capitals, respectively, in order to drum up support for a new war against each other. Both the human and demon crowds welcome a return to hostilities. It’s as if Diego and Avos were coordinating with each other.

Not content to sit back and let this play out, Anos resolves to prevent the war before it starts. Naturally, he is accompanied by Misha, Sasha, Ray, Misa, the Fan Union, and the four Elder Demon Emperors loyal to him.

The day before they head out, Ray comforts a nervous Misa, believing his own lack of nerves to be a sign he once fought in the war two thousand years ago. He also asks for half of Misa’s single-shell necklace, which tradition states is a essentially a proposal.

The next day, with the Fan Union providing rearguard support, the Necron sisters neutralize the advancing demon armies to the west, while Ray and Misa are tasked with neutralizing the armies to the east. Anos himself heads to Avos’ fortress, and Misa informs him remotely that she’s lost sight of Ray. Uh-oh…

As the two opposing groups of Demon Emperors fight (three on Avos’ side, four on Anos’), Anos and Avos meet in the field, and Anos connects the dots. After Jerga’s betrayal, Kanon resurrected as a demon: Ray Gransdori. As for Ray? Well, he’s Avos Dilhevia, and has been all along.

While Anos states Ray’s knowledge of the neckless and ability to wield both a Unique and Holy Sword as evidence Ray is Kanon, looking back there were other little clues here and there that in hindsight indicated Kanon/Ray was Avos. There’s…a lot that happens and is revealed this week, and it’s a bit rushed, but that it all mostly makes sense and holds together is a testament to the writers, as well as the adapters who clearly had their work cut out for them reducing the source material down to thirteen episodes.

Anos also deduces that Kanon must be trying to “save something (or someone) new” by posing as a fake Demon King. Did he become Avos and stoke a new war knowing the true Demon King would stop him, and end the grudge Jerga had spread? Does he truly love Misa, or was he just playing her? Despite all we’ve learned, the final episode still has plenty to reveal.

Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld – 23 (Fin) – A Hug and a Sword

She may have put up a brave front for most of last week’s episode, Alice’s cracks show at a cocktail party and culminate in an escape from Rath altogether. Kirito just gets off the phone with Rinko when he receives a large package.

Sure enough, it’s Alice, who shipped herself to his house! It strikes just the right balance of hilariously ridiculous and tremendously sweet, especially when you consider Alice isn’t just any heartsick maiden, but an artificial life form.

Alice has been unfathomably lonely since awakening in the real world, and who can blame her? She’s literally the only being of her kind in that world. She’s lost and adrift, but the sight of Kirito—or rather the physical presence Kirigaya Kazuto—soon soothes her, especially when wrapped in a big hug. He also tells her she is his hope, and the hope of all decent people in the world.

But Kirito can discern that she needs more than a tour of his humdrum family home. He takes her to the nearby dojo puts a practice sword in her hand, and the two spar. After defeating him with a cheekily improvised move called “Iron Headbutt”, Alice’s confidence and sense of self is restored. All a knight needs is a sword and a cause, after all!

Alice stays the night, and gets to witness a rare sight for SAO: the entire Kirigaya family seated around the dinner table. After his dad asks him to once again apologize for stressing them out during his latest mission, Alice herself defends Kirito as a hero in her world.

To her surprise, her father responds with pride that he’s aware of Kazuto’s accomplishments, and that he’s already a hero in the real world as well, making his son blush. Kazuto also informs his parents of his new course in life: to earn a degree in electronic engineering and join the Oceanic Resource Exploration & Research Institution, AKA Rath.

That night, Alice sneaks into a sleeping Kirito’s room, but not for that. She received a strange message through the network, and with Yui’s help Kirito determines the message is code for a specific IP address in which to re-access the Underworld.

Kirito, Alice, and Asuna meet at the Roppongi facility where Rinko helps them log back into the Underworld, two hundred years after leaving it. The three are shocked to find they’ve spawned not on the Underworld, but in orbit of it, out in space!

There has clearly been some possibly Macross-inspired technological advances in those two centuries, because Tiese and Ronie (or two people very much like those two) are “integrity pilots” locked in a desperate space battle with an eldritch abomination called “The Abyssal Horror”, all eyes, mouths, and tentacles.

Since the pilots are in trouble, Kirito, Asuna, and Alice all pool their considerable offensive powers in order to freeze, impale, and utterly destroy the spacebeast, all while the pilots gaze in awe and recall that the trio are historical figures back in the Underworld. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see the planet surface and how things have advanced.

Granted, that would probably have been digging too deeply than what was required of this episode: a worthy send-off for Kirito, Asuna, and Alice, and a tantalizing sneak-peak at their next adventure, called the “Inter-Intellegence War.”

Whenever that new anime is released, I’ll certainly be there to follow our old friends as they hopefully manage to avoid falling into comas or being held hostage by perverts! Until then, I bid sayonara to the now-completed War of Underworld and ja ne to Sword Art Online. It was quite a fun ride.

Season Average: 8.55

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 11 – Beauty and the Least

After a TV-style cold open intro to Sakurasawa Sumi and her morning routine, which is the most we ever hear her talk, Kazuya meets her for their date, and he’s equally astonished by her innocent beauty and her social awkwardness. Seiyu Takahashi Rie does a great job with all of Sumi’s various flustered peeps.

What Kazuya soon learns (besides confirming the fact he really wants a real girlfriend) is that Sumi is working extremely hard to have as much fun doing things on their date as possible. It turns into a sports extravaganza, with Sumi giving her all (and mostly failing) at bowling, batting, soccer, rollerblading, etc.

Kazuya himself feels pretty useless and inept at helping Sumi with her problem, but he at least has the sack to rescue her from some leering punks, and she rewards him by holding hands and sharing her ice cream. When he comes back from a bathroom break, he’s shocked to find Mami sitting across from Sumi.

Mami spotted Kazuya with Sumi earlier in the date, and has been observing them ever since, much like Kazuya followed Mizuhara. He has to walk an extremely fine line with Mami since as far as she knows he’s with Mizuhara and this looks like two-timing, especially when Sumi clings to him as if defending her real boyfriend from a rival.

At least a partial truth would have probably sufficed: he’s helping Mizuhara’s friend, who is a rental girlfriend. But even that isn’t quite bulletproof, as it plants the idea that Mizuhara is also a rental, and if she were Kazuya’s real GF she wouldn’t have him going on dates with other girls, even for practice.

Kazuya’s date with Sumi ends well despite Mami’s interruption, and while Mami’s brother implies she’s messing around with another guy at college, she’s still fixated on Kazuya, and frustrated by that fact). Then it dawns on her: is he really dating Sumi? A quick search of Sumi’s name turns up her rental profile.

Just like that, the one person Kazuya wants to know about the truth the least has a pretty good idea anyway. He and Kuri are able to keep the secret about their respective GFs from Kibe, but with Mizuhara out on rental dates in the same place they’re hanging out, that too is a tenuous fiction.

Bottom line, something’s got to give, and with only one episode left after this one, something will! That night Kazuya gets another impromptu balcony meeting with Mizuhara, which I believe to be their best and most genuine interactions, because they don’t put on airs. She thanks him for helping Sumi, who was over the moon from their date, but also tells Kazuya she’s thinking about quitting the rental biz once her acting career picks up some momentum.

That said, she’s not in a hurry to quit yet, and will be honoring the promise she made to him to be his girlfriend a bit longer. She even has a date in the morning, and so turns in early, only to discover that her date, one “Maya”, is actually Mami! The jig is now well and truly up—unless Mizuhara insists to Mami that despite her rental job, she’s Kazuya’s real girlfriend, or something to that effect.

I for one am hoping that most if not all of the lies stop next week (if Mami fails to secure a second season, that is), no matter the consequences. Kazuya and Mizuhara have been shuffling their feet all this time, and it’s time to put up or shut up. And then there’s Ruka…

Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai! – 11 – The Inevitable Precipice

Following their Tottori trip (which goes completely unmentioned here), Uzaki and Sakurai continue to ride high as an item, with Uzaki coming over virtually every day and leaving her junk behind, a definite sign of intimacy. However, Sakurai’s a neat freak and when the junk piles up he makes Uzaki clean it up. However, when she cooks him dinner he apologizes for being so harsh, while Uzaki revels at how easy it is to calm him.

When he’s offered cooking duties at the cafe, Sakurai’s attempt at pasta it inedible, so he comes to Uzaki’s house to have a crash course in cooking. He finally meets Uzaki’s cats, but of course her mom overhears him talking about petting them and assumes he’s talking about her. It’s a rehash of a joke that wasn’t particularly funny the first time, but at least we get Hayami Saori “hoo-hoo-hoo” laugh out of it!

We then move on somewhat clunkily to a day of rock climbing, something that comes naturally to Sakurai but which exhausts Uzaki almost instantly. She has no choice but to accept defeat in this particular competition, and simply watches as her “himbo” climbs his heart out while barely breaking a sweat.

We cut awkwardly again to Sakurai doing solo karaoke, the rise of which is explained by a “wise narrator” type I don’t remember hearing much of before, but is only notable because it’s such a poor imitation of Kaguya-sama: Love is War—of which this show isn’t even a pale shadow of a pale shadow.

A tipsy Uzaki and Ami spot him and join in the fun, and due to their reduced inhibitions even dress up and crowd him with chinese dresses, a cop uniform, and a bunny girl suit, the latter of which an unguarded Sakurai declares to be his favorite.

Since this is apparently an episode full of sharp cuts to unrelated events, it ends in the same fashion. Suddenly it’s a dark and rainy day (or night), and Uzaki shows up at Sakurai’s door absolutely soaked…but won’t come in. She declares that she “can’t hang out” with Sakurai anymore, and tears fall down her cheeks.

I’m not sure what to make of this. It’s unusual for a rom-com couple to hit a “low point” or reach some kind of “precipice” before the big finale, but it’s all been goofy fun and games to this point with scarcely any drama aside from the high school swimming flashback.

While this is totally out of left field for the show, I’m still eager to learn why exactly their fun has to come to an end, and would welcome a measure of genuine drama. Was it because Sakurai said the bunny girl was best? Are she and her mom suddenly moving? It could be anything.

No Guns Life – 23 – Pulling Your Own Trigger

Deep within Juuzou’s sub-brain and in contact with his subconscious, Tetsuro assures his friend that he’s not there to pull his trigger (a somewhat dirty-sounding string of words, but that’s an observation I’ll table for this review), but to get Juuzou to realize and accept that it’s his trigger to pull: his will, his choice, his wish. By hanging in there against Seven, Kronen buys the kid the time he needs, even though from the outside it looks like his sub-brain is toast.

With Seven/Pepper and Juuzou’s battle attracting the media and crowds of gawkers, Cunningham decides it’s time to sweep their operatives under the rug, and sends an elimination squad after Seven and Peppeer. I expected the pair to be betrayed by Berühren, just as I expected Seven to easily repel their would-be killers. However, Pepper’s hand is blown off and she starts to bleed out.

Rather than getting Pepper some medical help, Seven decides to obey the last order his Hands gave him: destroy everything. That includes the EMS officers and crowds gathered around the plaza. Kronen can’t stop him, but Juuzou does. Having successfully “pulled his own trigger” as Tetsuro suggested, Juuzou can draw on powers previously only available when he had a Hands, but without a Hands.

As a Gun Slave Unit in the military, Juuzou put all the decision-making on his Hands. As a resolver in the city, Juuzou worked to fulfill the wishes of his clients so he wouldn’t have to think about his own. But thanks to Tetsuro, he now knows he’s not beholden to anyone, even his past self. He can choose to move forward and fight for what he wants. So can Seven, but Seven won’t hear him out, and their destructive duel continues.

At Berühren HQ the board makes preparations to bring Tetsuro in, having been impressed with his recent progress and not wanting the only successful instance of Harmony on the loose. However, one board member, the woman, vetoes the decision. She wants to watch Tetsuro a little longer without interfering, so see what else he might show them. Berühren still considers Tetsuro a tool and their property. Hopefully he’ll prove otherwise in the next and final episode.