The Dangers in My Heart – 25 (Fin) – Their Everything

Kyoutarou most definitely ended up in quite the fix last week, but even as girl and love talk ensues, the other girls don’t suspect he’s beneath Anna’s blankets. When the lights go out, they almost kiss, but Kyou wants to talk to her about something first. This makes her leap up in bed and attract the others’ attention all over again, but thankfully one of the guys hanging outside from a sheet rope provides the perfect diversion for Kyou to escape.

The next day becomes all about finding the right time and place to actually talk to Anna, but it occurs to him: what does he want to actually say to her? He figures it out when the two end up in the middle of  tunnel made of gate arches, through which a couple will be together forever if they emerge hand-in-hand.

Anna bursts into tears, owning up to wanting to do the audition but feeling awful for not having fun on the trip. Kyou is finally able to lift his mask, revealing he’s also crying, when he confesses that he likes her out loud for the first time.

Not only that, but he wants her to keep being Anna, which means working as hard as she possibly can at what she loves, which is performing. He’s even prepared a bunch of snacks that will hold her over on the bullet train home.

They run to the station hand-in-hand, evading Kankan’s  congratulations flashmob (Hara is not so lucky, alas). Chihiro remains as oblivious as ever, showing up just when Anna is about to confess back to Kyou, but time is of the essence, so the two of them see Anna off.

When Kyou is back from Kyoto, he heed’s Anna’s invite to meet “at the usual place,” and after checking out a couple of possible locations that fit the bill, he ends up back where their romance began: in the library, with her munching on illicit snacks. She’s still in her audition clothes, looking like a picture of spring with a red top and pink skirt.

When he confessed to her, Kyou told her that he was able to figure out who he was and like himself and the world around him, all thanks to Anna. Now it’s Anna’s turn to tell him that she was able to learn the same, and learn to like herself, thanks to him. And while Kyou is willing to subordinate himself to her career, and only be “the tiniest part of her life,” that’s not enough for her. He’s the most important thing to her.

He’s the most special; her everything. She doesn’t like him, she loves him, and makes it plain as the gleaming afternoon light hits their faces just right. She takes his hands in hers and asks if he’ll go out with her. Both of his eyes visible and looking right at her, he answers in the affirmative with a sheepish nod. THEY DID IT, FOLKS. THEY’RE OFFICIALLY A COUPLE. Thank goodness! Not that I had any doubts…

While the stirring piano-and-strings theme that has ended so many episodes tended to be subdued and almost wistful, here it takes on a triumphant, even epic bombast. And when the two try to kiss on the lips and just can’t quite find the right angle, even bumping heads, they don’t fret.

They’ll figure out how to do it with practice. After giggling, Anna manages to sneak a peck on the cheek that proves a critical hit for Kyou, and then she proceeds to frolic about, feeling lighter than air, and shouts “Yippee!!” into the hall before heading out.

Kyou gathers himself and chases after her, and takes her hands in his with the jaw-droppingly gorgeous sunset as a backdrop. The dangers in both their hearts have been well and truly reckoned with, and they have chosen to love and be with one another.

It’s as perfect an ending to a romantic show as you could ask for, and even if we never see these two lovebirds again, you just know they’re going to be fine, not just because of who they are, but the friends and family they have. They love them, they love each other, and most importantly, they love themselves.

Shows this wonderful and perfect and moving just don’t come around that often. This might just be my favorite romantic series of all time. It’s been a hell of a ride, and if the creators wish to continue it and show us what new dangers come with being boyfriend and girlfriend, I won’t mind at all!

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST +
CERTIFIED GODDAMN TEARJERKEr

The Dangers in My Heart – 24 – School Trippin’

The class trip to Nara and Kyoto is coming up, but Kyou can tell Anna is preoccupied with something. She shushes away Chi asking whether she got the part in a recent audition, and she’s checking her phone a lot. Kyou doesn’t want to pry, but he can’t deny that he might be looking forward to the trip, when just last year he was able to worm his way out of it.

Kyou’s hunky avatar tells him perhaps Anna is thinking of reenacting the kissing scene from the Kim-iro Octave manga’s 12th volume. When he sees that very volume on her bed during a video call, it adds to the intrigue, as does the fact that suddenly Anna switches her camera off, and Kyou can hear what sounds like sniffling on the other end.

Anna’s coyness continues on the train to Nara, where she’s seated right in front of him and surely resents him sitting next to and chatting with Hanzawa. But it’s Hanzawa who provides Kyou with a crucial warning: Kankan is making confettin in preparation to out a couple during the trip with a flashmob, and he and Yamada are her primary target.

Kyou may want to confess to Anna at some point, but in his own time, and certainly not surrounded by nosy classmates. So his defense is to try his best to stay away from Anna. This makes the class trip chillier than it should be, as they end up in the same group and tangled up among some hungry Nara deer, only for Kyou to slip away. He encounters Chi sitting under a pavilion, saying Anna’s “acting weird”, but acknowledging the “choice” Anna made was hers to make.

It’s clear to people as close to Anna as Chi and Kyou that something’s off with Anna, but only Chi seems to know why she’s putting on a brave front feigning enthusiasm for the class trip. That much is made all the more certain when everyone but Chi leaves Anna in the bath, and he gets a key clue when he encounters Anna and her phone slips out of her hands and into his, and he sees a calendar entry labeled “Kimi-iro Octave AD” for the day after tomorrow: June 12, 2024.

Kanzaki thwarted Kankan during the deer incident, while Adachi inadvertently thwarts her by chatting with Kyou while Anna bails. That night, while out on the balcony assuring his cool alter ego that Anna isn’t just thinking about the kissing scene, he hears her rehearsing lines from that very chapter on her balcony. After she reads out the confession, she collapses into herself, looking extremely forlorn yet still insisting she’s enjoying herself.

Kyou finally puts all the pieces together, and realizes Anna only came on this trip because she knew Kyou was looking forward to it, and also because she wanted to be with him. But by doing so, she apparently is either neglecting her practicing for an audition for the adaptation of the manga they both love, or already auditioned and fears rejection.

Whatever the case, Kyou feels bad. If Anna had told him the full story before the trip, it’s possible he’d have told her to focus on her rehearsing in order to get what could be a career-changing part. At the same time, I’m sure a part of him respects that she made a choice that was her’s to make, and the only thing he can do about it is make her sacrifice worth it.

Unfortunately, it’s already close to lights-out when he makes this realization and runs around the hotel. He manages to encounter Anna, but their teacher spots them, Anna covers his face with a towel, and the teacher, mistaking him for Chi, shoves them both into the girls’ room. It’s not the ideal secluded spot for any kind of serious conversation, not to mention a place where Kyou is strictly forbidden to be!

The Dangers in My Heart – 22 – Slowly But Surely

The good news? Anna and Kyou are back in the same class for their third year (i.e. eighth grade). Moeko, Serina, and Chihiro are also back together with Yamada. The bad news? Their tacit agreement to keep a healthy distance in public is far easier said than done.

To whit: when Kyou first enters the classroom and Anna learns they’re back together, she calls him by his first name and rushes to him, taking his hands in hers. This gets them some unwanted attention from their new classmates.

Anna’s half-hearted attempt to declare she greeted the wrong person doesn’t fool anyone. Moeko, who at this point is like us in probably thinking just go out already, is happy to cover for Anna’s indiscrection by loudly proclaiming so everyone can hear that Anna has issues with personal space.

Moeko is also happy to be in the same class as fellow gyaru-adjacents Kankan and Kanzawa, and the former earns the moniker “celebration girl” as she spearheaded a flashmob that led to a guy and gal in her previous class to start going out. She wants to know if Anna and Kyou are going out. They discuss this in the classroom after class, where Anna was giving Kyou the gift of a wallet chain for his birthday.

The two hide together in a lectern, and after the girls leave, Anna asks “are we going out?” After a pause she adds that that was what the girls were talking about. As Kyou tries to climb out, his foot catches his chain, and down go his pants, just as Moeko re-enters the room. They’re lucky it was just Moeko, too!

Kyou continues to want to ask Anna out, but has unreasonably high standards for the conditions under which he’ll do it. Surely there are other places they can go than school, which is full of students, some of whom would love to get the scoop on them, like Kankan.

When she overhears Kyou asking to see Anna’s (physical results), they smooth over her suspicion by saying they’re following the task their homeroom teacher gave them to make new friends. To that end, Anna becomes Kankan’s friend by insisting on calling her by a special nickname (Panda) and stoking her long, lustrous hair.

Kyou reports that he’s grown 5 cm since the last physical, and his voice is just about done changing. Anna wants to commemorate his growth by marking his height on the wall. Kyou gets her to compromise by only marking the inside of the bookshelves. When he sees that she marked his spot with “Kyou”, he marks her height with “Anna”, which has her blushing and twirling around, light as a feather.

Kyou once thought he never wanted to grow up, but now he wants to be “closer to” Anna, “physically.” Yes, he’s talking about height, but c’maaaahn, we know he means in the other way too. Anna pulls him closer to her inside the library curtains, and this seems like as good a time as ever for him to say what he wants to say…

But they’re interrupted by a gust of wind and the presence of Hanzawa. She pretends not to react, so Anna re-closes the curtains so Kyou can continue. But the wind opens them again, and suddenly Hanzawa is right there, almost like a horror movie! She tries to withdraw smoothly, but trips over a stool, drops her book, and bangs into the door.

When seat assignments come, Hanzawa, who is clearly rooting for them, swaps her seat with Anna so she can sit beside Kyou for the first time. It’s almost too good to be true, and certainly consigns the whole “healthy distance” plan into the dustbin for good. Kyou starts worrying about worrying so much about their closeness that they start drifting apart, which is the last thing he wants and he also seems to recognize as a bad habit of his.

When he sees Hanzawa’s book on Anna’s desk, he sees a piece of paper sticking out. It’s a handwritten letter from Anna to Hanzawa, clearing up her and Kyou’s deal. As of April 10th, she writes, they’re not going out. But Kyou is very shy, like a cat. It’s taken some time, but they’ve slowly but surely built up their friendship.

The time they’ve spent and the closeness they have is “very important to her,” so she’d rather Hanzawa and Kankan not try some kind of flashmob thing on them. Anna also states that she plans to … but Kyou stops reading, afraid of what it might say. I can hazard a guess that she’s planning to ask him out when the time is right.

I feel like at this point, with Kyou trying and failing several times this week, it’s only a matter of time before one of them asks the other out. I think Kyou wants to prove to himself he’s capable of doing such a thing, but even if he doesn’t, I don’t see any problem with Anna taking the initiative. They’ve got three whole episodes for it to happen. I’m feeling pretty optimistic!

As for Kanzawa, it turns out she’s not a busybody, but genuinely curious about love. Even she, with her limited experience and inability to quite grasp the concept, can see it all over Anna and Kyou. Yet when Anna asks for her LINE so she can tell her all about it (implying that she, Anna, knows exactly what love is), Kanzawa gets overly flustered and runs off. No matter, she’ll be back!

Skip and Loafer – 09 – A Taste of Summer

Synching right up with the official start of Summer here in the States, Mitsumi’s summer break arrives, and she leaves Nao-chan’s place early to hop on a train to the airport, then a plane to Noto. The immersive, almost meditative sequence unfolds with minimal dialogue, ambient sounds, and familiar images, perfectly capturing the exciting yet slightly lonely feeling of being on a trip.

The summer details don’t stop there. Mitsumi’s lively family picks her up and takes her home, where grandma is out back making special red rice and warns Mitsumi to cover her legs lest the skeeters eat them up. Her fam prepared a sumptuous feast and they go to town, then nap it off on the cool tatami. I totally get why Mitsumi’s such a good person…look where she comes from!

Then there’s the impossibly sweet reunion of Mitsumi with her bestest friend Fumi-chan. She literally jumps onto her like a baby panda on its mama. Fumi reports that she’s officially seeing the guy she spoke of before; she wanted Mitsumi to know first. They get together with the rest of their middle school chums and launch some fireworks on the beach.

The next morning Mitsumi oversleeps due to a excess food hangover. Her mom, who took the day off work to have more time with her, gives her some soothing watermelon. Each time Mitsumi takes a bite, we get a new idyllic image of summertime in the countryside. Her reverie is interrupted by Fumi, who joins the Iwakura siblings on a trip to the beach.

Mitsumi would go on to visit the beach every day, such that by the time she’s back in Tokyo for the new semester, she’s got a serious tan. The first person she encounters is Sousuke, which she takes as a good sign. When Kanechika tries to give Sousuke a script “just to read”, he refuses.

Mika has brought cookies from Kyoto for everyone, including her newest friend Nao-chan, while Mitsumi has brought her hometown’s famous squid crackers. In monologue, Mitsumi notes how the summer break was a month of transformation. Some couples were made, some broke up. Some friends grew closer, while others drifted apart.

Mitsumi’s spirits are lifted after her student council session and a detailed presentation on the upcoming school festival, which the president correctly presumes is unlike anything Mitsumi has ever seen (at least outside of TV shows). She’s super excited about the festival, and when she spots Sousuke walking alone, she wants to share her excitement with him (as well as her squid crackers).

When she finally catches up, she hands him a cracker and talks at length and with great enthusiasm about all things festival. Sousuke politely listens and adds a monosyllabic comment here and there, and then Mitsumi takes her leave, saying she shouldn’t be acting like a giddy schoolgirl, but more like a “cool and composed adult” like Sousuke.

As she walks away, in Sousuke’s mind he says she’s wrong: he’s frozen in place because he “doesn’t deserve anything”. He recalls her running in her bare feet, and also a long-haired blonde woman I don’t believe we know. He calls Mitsumi “so dazzling…and so far away”, but just then she turns back around and returns to him, offering two more crackers as she sensed he seemed down.

Will Mitsumi be able to pull Sousuke out of his funk without knowing what’s really causing it? I hope so, but the fact their class is putting on a play—the last thing Sousuke wants to do—the odds are stacked against her. But I’m sure as hell pulling for her to succeed!

Tenten Kakumei – 03 – So Far From Me

It is a crying shame that such an intelligent, capable, and beautiful young woman as Euphyllia finds herself in such an existential purgatory. She’s immediately sympathetic as someone whose life has taken such a sudden, sharp turn, she’s still recovering from the whiplash. This episode focuses on the young lady and the unmoored feeling that now suffuses her days.

There’s no morning bed talk between Euphie and Anis, as the latter had flown of on her broom at dawn. She reappears during Euphie’s breakfast, setting off the house alarm system she invented, and offers Euphie a chance to ride the broom. While Anis promises not to let go, she does so, and Euphie takes to the skies full of joy and excitement. It’s only when she realizes Euphie isn’t behind her that she comes crashing down.

It’s a fitting practical symbol of Euphie’s difficulty acclimating to the sudden freedom Prince Algard’s shunning and Princess Anis’ friendship has afforded her. Ilia, the not-so-secret MVP of the show so far, assures Euphie that Anis was once even more absurd, idiotic, and insane, while at the same time calling her duty to her mistress a perk.

Ilia tells Euphie if she “doesn’t like” the current arrangement, she should say so now and save both of them. But Euphie doesn’t dislike it, she simply doesn’t quite yet understand Anis, saying she feels “so far from me.” Iwami Manaka delivers this line with such longing and vulnerability, I almost felt like Honda Tooru had entered the room.

There’s some foreboding about Euphie’s audience that day, but once it takes place I see that I had nothing to worry about. Both her father Duke Grantz and King Orphans contine to be the Best Dads. Both the prince’s and his friends (themselves sons of powerful nobles) have one version of the story, while Euphyllia has another.

Neither man questions Euphie’s version of events nor blames her for giving Lainie Cyan advise. Euphie refrains from vilifying Algard, as even in the moment she was being insulted and humiliated, she felt more righteousness than malice, like the prince was yanking against that which tied him down.

In this scene Iwami Manaka once more shows how good she is, resigned as she is to the fact the prince’s heart never had any room for her, but that fact isn’t a source of great pain. What she truly feels is nothing; numbness. While her father meant well, telling her she doesn’t have to worry about the future, and there’s “nothing for her to do” might just hurt her more than Algard did.

When she pays a visit the royal servants who had been preparing her portrait and wedding gown, Ilia mentions how bad Anisphia is at maintaining her measurements, and how it requires constant mending of her dresses. At the same time, Ilia adds that Euphie is now free of corsets and bustiers. There’s nothing to tie her down. Nothing at all.

The next morning, a totally sleep-deprived Anisphia bursts into the dining room like a bat out of hell, wearing practical work clothes. She’s extremely excited to present Euphyllia with the magical tool she promised to make. It’s a sword that allows Euphie to summon and focus all of her various magical skills. Fittingly, Anis names the sword Arc-en-Ciel.

This is another subtle yet effective nod to Anis’ past life in our world, as it is a French word for rainbow. Rainbow also carries double meaning as a reflection of the many colors and kinds of magic Euphie can wield, as well as its status as an LGBT symbol. With Arc-en-Ciel, Anis hoped to unlock Euphie’s smile, as well as to see her magic, which Anis considers more beautiful than anyone else’s.

So much great dialogue and vocal performances and nuanced facial expressions fills this episode, which is the most melancholy of the three and the closest look yet into Euphyllia’s personality and present situation. It all culminates when after Euphie’s badass demonstration, she and Anis sit under a tree together to rest.

Anis, who stayed up all night working on Arc-en-Ciel, nods off and rests her head on Euphie’s lap. But before she does, she says the sword and Euphie are a “perfect match” because Anis always thought she was “pretty as a rainbow”, and “so pretty it’s unfair.” It’s the first time anyone’s rested their head in her lap, and it makes Euphie cry.

She cries because she envies Anis so much for being who she is, and how badly she wants to be “even the least little bit” like her. But after harrowing days of being told she has nothing more to do, nothing to worry about, and nothing tying her down, here’s this feral princess literally weighing her down, keeping her tethered to the ground, with her. It’s something that must feel so good one could cry.

Euphie may still be overwhelmed by a personality so opposite hers, but at the end of the day, she has a good heart and kind soul just like Anis. In time she’ll surely feel more comfortable and more like she belongs. She may even find some of the Euphie she envies so rubbing off on her—and vice-versa. Freedom can be terrifying, so it’s best to have a guide.

More than a married couple, but not lovers. – 10 – All the different parts

As expected, Shiori was not gesturing towards the love hotel, but the beach nearby to make a sand castle. She invites Jirou to make a tunnel through it like old times, resulting in more innocently delivered double entendres as she tells him to go in deeper, etc. Akari is not amused by him acting all lovey-dovey towards Shiori. Notably, she is not acting the same way towards Minami.

When she and Jirou are assigned to go buy drinks and snacks for the group, Akari leaves his sight for two seconds and she’s mobbed by beach bros wanting to know her name and number. At first Jirou thinks she knows them, but it’s clear from her body language she doesn’t like their flirting, so in the heat of the moment he pulls her into an embrace and says they’re married.

This makes Akari happy, but then Jirou ruins it by apologizing like he always does, and for assuming she hated what she did when she said no such thing. She tells him to stop apologizing all the time, because it makes her feel like a loser for “letting her heart race”. Of course, one can’t really control one’s heart from racing!

After Shiori notes Mei’s tan line on her midsection is fading by touching her there, the two go into the bath where they’re in the midst of gyaru talk. Sachi and (possibly) Natsumi are the only actual non-virgins there, but they appreciate Mei contributing to their talk, while Akari and Shiori actually connect over their mutual discomfort with love talk.

After the bath, Akari runs into Jirou, notices his sunburn, and offers to rub aloe on his back (her watermelon nails are adorable btw). She notices he’s not ticklish there, and decides to test further by grabbing his midsection from behind. She’s very upfront about how she’s felt a distance between them since they arrived and doesn’t like it. When Sachi appears, they separate, and Jirou even calls Akari “Watanabe,” causing her to schedule a one-on-one talk later that night.

Once out by the beach shop, Akari lays it all out, literally: pulling off her hoodie to reveal the skimpier bikini just for him. She tells him she was excited about going to the ocean with him, but he’s so self-conscious about how others see them, it makes her feel cold and lonely.

When Jirou says he assumed she’d be embarrassed around a plain boring guy like him, she says she choses who she hangs out with. She knows how he looks at her at their apartment, and doesn’t want that to chance just because they’re somewhere else.

When Jirou points out that Akari is talking like a jealous girlfriend would, she pushes back on that, but not all the way. That’s when Shiori and Mei show up and they have to hide in a hot cramped part of the beach shop in a very compromising position.

Again, Jirou’s main concern is “being seen” by the other girls, and even though he’s right on top of her, Akari feels like she doesn’t exist. He’s putting his concerns about what others might see or hear or think over her. Back in the simpler times she was admiring Minami, she kept a more optimistic outlook, but being close and comfortable with Jirou for months now only makes her scared about him leaving.

Even when Shiori and Mei run off, with the former worried about ghosts, the two stay in that cramped space and talk this out. He brings up how she wanted him to look at her, and she says “that was just in the moment”, but if she said that about all the things she’s said so far, why would he change his behavior? Basically, does she mean what she’s saying or not?

As expected, the cramped, overheated conditions result not only in Jirou getting hard (and Akari mistaking it for a knee) but actually fainting from heatstroke. He comes to back at the bathhouse, and when he’s feeling better, Akari is more clear about what she wants out of this. She doesn’t just want him ogling her body, but looking at all the different parts of her.

She also wants to see and know all of his different parts, seeing as how they’re still married and all. And it’s the “still” that stays with Jirou after their talk. What will they be to each other when the marriage practical is over? What do they want to be? And where do Shiori and Minami fit into that future? There’s a lot to sift through in the final two episodes, but at least these two are really looking at each other and consciously thinking about this stuff.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury – 10 – Drifting Further Away

On the surface this has the makings of a cooldown episode after the big Earth House win over Grassley. GUND-Arm Inc. continues its steady progress towards becoming a real medical technology company (something Bel is all to happy to help with), prosthetic tests go well, and Suletta is checking things off her wish list.

But while Suletta can giggle giddily at the prospect of making her friends laugh at her jokes or sharing keychains, at no point did I not feel thoroughly uneasy this week. Geturk and Zenelli seem to have had their fill of Delling and are preparing to off him, while Miorine has been away for two weeks on GUND-Arm business.

Everyone wants a piece of GUND-Arm, Inc., but between flying around trying to sell her 2-month-old company to investors and suddenly being in the decent-to-good graces of her father for showing true business acumen, Miorine is perhaps too preoccupied to notice the danger inherent in both purported friend and foe wanting a piece of that company.

Guel Jeturk, all but disowned, has seemingly started from zero as a ship maintenance crew grunt, and we finally learn that, perhaps among other things, Nika has been serving as a go-between for Shaddiq with what seems to be an Earthian terrorist group for hire that live in similar dingy conditions to the Iron-Blooded Orphans of a previous Gundam.

Zenelli is taking elements of his father’s and Papa Geturk’s plans and forging his own. As an orphan, he had already been forced to grow up fast, so school duels simply don’t hold his interest, if they ever did. Like Miorine, he’s ready to be a player at the grown-ups’ table.

Suletta is most definitely not. She’s stuck in having-fun-at-school mode, and Elan Ceres—or rather the latest enhanced Elan clone—knows it. He has a “wicked personality” similar to the real Elan and has basically been sent to seduce Suletta, building on her existing sorta-crush to sabotage the engagement, and possibly give the Piel Group the Aerial without having to duel.

Suletta is only an inch away form her first kiss when she rushes off to what seems like the most important duty for her: tending to Mine’s garden while she’s away. When she sees strange men in the pod, she hastens to shoo them out, but Miorine has returned early to no fanfare, having purchased a spaceship for quicker transport.

The men are professional gardeners she’s hired to take care of the garden as she’ll be away on business more and more. This crushes Suletta, who believed that as her groom she was the only one Miorine could ask. It’s also telling that after 16 days and change apart, Miorine doesn’t even look Suletta’s way, never mind show the slightest bit of affection.

Elan had just planted the seed that Suletta was merely a shield to keep anyone else from marrying Miorine, and between her hiring someone else to do the gardening and hiring Elan as a second test pilot, the episode ends with Suletta feeling as alone and useless as she felt on her first day of school.

The independence and survival of GUND-Arm relies on Delling Rembran and his unquestioned authority over the Benerit Group. But as the Dawn of Fold, the Earthian group led by Nika’s father figure, commences their attack on Delling’s Plant Quetta (with what looks an awful lot like a pair of Gundams), that authority is being questioned, and the future of Miorine’s company is as uncertain as her engagement to Suletta.

While this was pretty much a huge bummer of an episode (particularly for a Miorine X Suletta supporter), I’m actually glad things are continuing to progress rather than have a sense-of-security lulling episode less stocked with foreboding. Things. Guel is also looking like a skilled mobile suit pilot who was embedded with his maintenance group so that he’d be in the right place at the right time for the Quetta attack. Or is it just coincidence? We’ll soon find out.

The Duke of Death and His Maid – 08 – Beauty and the Grouch

This week’s first segment introduces us to Bocchan’s younger brother Walter, and…he’s a lot. First and foremost, he’s a bit of an arrogant prick, already measuring the drapes for his ascension to head of the family. He’s also got a complex about being called the secondborn son…even though that’s what he is. His goofy antics and physical comedy aside, Walter is not a good guy. At least Viola visits her big brother and treats him like a person!

While her official stance is neutral, I imagine Viola prefers Bocchan to Walter, and hopes he’ll break the curse. During her latest visit, she meets Caph, initially assumes she’s a burglar (not a bad instinct!) and attempts to tackle her, only to bounce off her bust. Then she sits on Caph and ties her up by the fire, which is the scene Rob walks in on, much to Viola’s dismay.

While Viola is charming, cute and fun to watch, the real meat of the episode comes in the final extended segment, during which both Bocchan and Alice play a game of chess during a snowy winter night and reminisce about a similar night years ago, when Alice was appointed Bocchan’s maid. Bocchan was in a much darker, more nihilistic emotional place then, and his first instincts were to dismiss Alice and suspect she’s laughing at him on the inside.

This is because, no doubt due in part to the trauma of suffering the witch’s curse, he doesn’t remember Alice. He certainly isn’t aware of just how momentous him taking her hand and helping her off the ground meant to her at that difficult time in her life. That’s right: the kid who now kills anything he touches once essentially saved Alice’s life…with his touch.

No matter how many insults Bocchan flings Alice’s way or derides her mere presence, or tells her he flat out hates her, Alice does not bend, at least not in front of him; we see a rare moment of her vulnerability after he leaves his room and sighs. When he gives her an ultimatum of cleaning his rock starred-up room in three days or she’s fired, she does it in one night, even though she cuts up her fingers picking up shards of glass.

When Bocchan sees Alice isn’t leaving, he decides to leave instead, trudging out into a winter storm until he’s lost and freezing. It’s then that he decides it would be better to just die than continue living the joke of a life he’s endured thus far, unable to touch or be touched.

But it’s while lying in the snow that he finally remembers who Alice was. That’s when Alice arrives to help him up the way he helped her up years ago. The only difference is there’s an umbrella between their hands this time. Alice fell for Bocchan that day, and never stopped falling for him since.

The Witch told Bocchan “No one shall love you, and you shall love no one. You will live a life of misery.” But that’s no longer true once the two come in from the cold and warm themselves by the fire. Alice does love and care for Bocchan, then and always, and Bocchan soon comes to love her right back as the misery in his life gives way to that love and the joy it brings.

Could it be that ever since that snowy night, the witch’s curse has been broken all this time, except that he can only touch Alice? If Bocchan can touch Alice, could it be long before he can safely touch Viola, or Rob, or Caph and Zain, or Walter…or even his mother? Maybe it will all come down to loving and being loved. We shall see in the final third of Duke of Death and His Maid

The Duke of Death and His Maid – 07 – Suspension Bridge Effect

Not about to be discouraged by Daleth’s insistence they give up, Alice spends much of the episode trying to find alternative methods of lifting Bocchan’s curse. She begins by procuring a second-hand witch’s cauldron complete with a book containing recipes for curse-lifting brews. Unfortunately it’s unsuccessful, but it as worth a try.

In the next segment, Alice finds some odd sheet music from a composer named MacFarlane (not Seth) who wrote the music in white ink on black paper because it looked cool, which also makes it hard to read. That said, it’s believed if you play his piece perfectly it can lift a curse, so Bocchan does just that, powering through both the distracting ghost of MacFarlane and Alice’s usual flirting. Turns out the curse that is lifted is…the curse of MacFarlane’s ghost.

When Bocchan accidentally breaks a flowerpot, he runs and hides from the wrath of Rob, and Alice tags along. While he started out the segment wanting to create the “suspension bridge effect” in her by scaring her and causing her heart to race, the fact of the matter is there’s no need to scare her. Alice’s heart is always racing when Bocchan is around, racing all the faster the closer in proximity they are. She’s long since established she’s not scared of dying, she just loves the guy.

The final sequence, which takes place after the credits, involves Bocchan and Alice sharing an Alice in Wonderland-themed dream in which they must secure the White Rabbit in order to exact a wish from Alice (the book version).

Their mission is derailed by the fact they can touch one another in the dream, with Bocchan waking up just before committing to kissing his Alice. The book Alice is mad for them totally slacking off, but Bocchan is content to fall back asleep, hoping to pick up his dream with Alice where he left off.

The Duke of Death and His Maid – 06 – Knight in a Top Hat

By introducing the overgrown conservatory this week the show finally acknowledges that it’s hella hard to maintain a vast mansion with just two servants, one of whom has a bad back! But should Bocchan never lift his curse and his younger brother becomes the head of the family, he always has a lucrative future in landscaping, as his curse becomes an effective brush-clearing blessing.

After losing himself a bit in the satisfaction of clearing away all the excess greenery, Bocchan checks in on Alice to find her admiring some purple flowers. Rather than wither them, he manages to dry them and make a charming garland headpiece for Alice, who promises to treasure it along with the rose he gave her. If you can’t touch the one you love, at least make yourself useful!

One night, Bocchan can’t sleep and hears Alice call out. He inadvertently catches her naked, and she puts on a towel reports that a black cat has run off with her dressing gown. Bocchan gallantly offers to track down the cat and retrieve the gown, but Alice accompanies him. I mean, I know Bocchan wasn’t going to accidentally murder the cat, but there’s still that edge to his interactions, especially with animals that move unpredictably.

With Alice donning Bocchan’s coat so she won’t catch a chill (and absolutely loving the opportunity to smell his scent), the two eventually find the cat, and discover the gown is not in recoverable shape. Since the cat took it to make a warm nest for her litter of kittens, neither Alice nor Bocchan feel that bad about letting the gown go. As Alice demonstrated earlier in the episode, she has a pretty extensive wardrobe.

After these two cute little “home” segments during which Alice and Bocchan putter around the mansion, we get to the meat of the episode: the long-awaited Witches’ Sabbath. Caph and Zain arrive, repurpose a mirror in a storeroom into a portal to the meeting spot, and give Bocchan and Alice robes that will mask their scent so the witches won’t, ya know, murder them or feed them to their carnivorous plant.

As soon as they arrive, Bocchan is on edge; while there are some witches with human form (and who are dressed like they’re ready for the club/beach/beach club) there are many more witches who appear to Bocchan to be nothing but monsters. While the sheltered Bocchan shouldn’t be judging books by their covers, since he’s been judged by his curse for most of his life I suppose it’s easy for the pot to call the kettle black.

The witches’ leader, Daleth, runs the Sabbath like high school homeroom, with the stand-and-bow, roll call, and mundane announcements. It’s actually pretty funny how laid back it all this, especially considering how wound-up Bocchan got; he intended to bring along a suitcase full of weapons, but Caph burned it to ash.

Alice actually already crossed paths with the skull-masked Daleth when she and Bocchan went on their little town date, and Daleth recognizes her too, seeing right past her and Bocchan’s frankly half-assed disguises. She also happens to know—and hate the fucking guts of—the witch who gave Bocchan his curse. The bad news? That witch is dead, and even Daleth has no idea how to lift the curse.

She recommends Bocchan give up now rather than later for his sake. When he protests, she deems the conversation over, then covers her withdrawal by burning away Bocchan’s robe. With his human stench exposed, the witches chase him en masse.

When the club/beach chicks sic their carnivorous plant on Alice, Bocchan need only touch one of the tendrils to kil the whole damn thing. Still, Alice does not understate the fact that Bocchan risked his life to save hers, doubtless causing her love for him to only grow.

Bocchan, Alice, Caph, and Zain make it back to their mirror portal, which closes before any of the witches can press their pursuit. After a short stint in a most magical and whimsical land, they’re back in the relative normalcy of Bocchan’s huge mansion. Bocchan isn’t about to let himself be discouraged by Daleth’s words, and continuing to believe there is a way to break the curse is crucial to breaking it.

As for Caph and Zain, he thanks them profusely for all of their help. Caph again explains that seeing him go all out inspired her to take a chance with a human, and she didn’t regret it. She assures him that the next time she and Zain return to his mansion, it will be as friends, not merely magical facilitators. As for the curse, well…who’s to say it’ll take a witch to break it?

The Duke of Death and His Maid – 05 – The Viola Method

Viola is back, ostensibly to visit her dear old brother—who let it be said she does actually care about—but mostly to be in the presence of her beloved Rob. This may make Viola a “panther”, but she doesn’t care; men her age act like children and she has no use for them.

Viola also offers some unsolicited advice to Alice about having more charm and human appeal which…fine. Alice humors her by going along with her “Viola Method” of training, if for no other reason than it offers her yet another avenue to tease Bocchan, by talking and acting in a more cutesy manner than he’s accustomed to.

Rob later leads Viola to the kitchen to help bake, and the two find Alice and Bocchan already there making a stew. Rob is flattered by Viola’s feelings, but as she’s the age of her granddaugher (if he ever had any), nothing will ever come of it. Nevertheless, Viola likes being with Rob and Alice, and is glad her brother has them in his life.

For the next segment Viola heads home and Bocchan and Alice head to the frozen lake for some ice skating. Bocchan ends up encountering Caph’s old friend Zain (voiced by Kamiya Hiroshi), who is a magic user and bird-man, while Alice finds Caph on the ice and warms her up in her bosom. Bocchan doesn’t like how forward Zain is with Alice…and neither does Caph!

The four eventually link up (with Bocchan gingerly holding Alice’s sleeve) and skate/walk across the lake as a unit, looking very much like two couples on a double date. Just as Bocchan envies how physically close Zain and Caph can get, Zain envies how open Bocchan and Alice are with their feelings.

Caph and Zain have such a good time, they decide to invite Bocchan to the next Witches’ Sabbath. While they’re bound by oaths not to say anything that might help him, there’s nothing saying he can’t try to investigate on his own and possibly track down the witch who cursed him. And if he runs into trouble, Caph and Zain will help him out. Could some actual progress on the curse-breaking front be in the offing?

However it happens, I’m hoping breaking of the curse is definitely something I hope happens, period. Who knows, maybe due to their love for each other, Bocchan and Alice are already able to touch without her coming to harm…but it’s not exactly something they can test out, considering what would happen if they were wrong!

Instead, it’s Viola who ends up cozying up to Alice in the last segment. Kept away from Rob’s room by Bocchan, she decides to have a sleepover in Alice’s cottage, where they can engage in girl talk. Alice isn’t accustomed to bonding with other women, while Viola always wanted a big sister to pamper her, so it’s win-win for the pair.

Finally, while it’s a bit silly I haven’t mentioned it yet in five episodes, super kudos go to Mano Ayumi as the prim, silky, calm and alluring voice of Alice, particularly in her vocal performance of the ED, which is a bittersweet banger.

The Duke of Death and His Maid – 04 – The Witch and the Snow Fairy

After three weeks of chiding her for getting so close to him, one day Alice is keeping her distance, seemingly avoiding Bocchan. When he tries to approach her, she Shunpos away like a Shinigami out of Bleach. But he soon deduces that she’s caught a cold and doesn’t want to give it to him.

Defying her caution, he tucks her into bed in her cottage and vows to stay by her side until she’s better. It’s a lovely inversion of their usual dynamic, with Alice seeminly capable of anything while Bocchan is weak an ineffectual.

Winter has come to Bocchan’s villa, and with it a fresh blanket of morning snow. The episode really captures the childlike glee that comes with the first sight of such a snowfall (assuming you’re not trying to drive to work that morning).

Bocchan is similarly elated to get to see Alice set against the pure white backdrop, accentuating her loveliness. The two and Rob build a snowman and have a spirited snowball fight, with Alice demonstrating she also has Matrix-like powers of evasion.

In the midst of all the wintry fun, Alice loses one of her earrings, which belonged to her mother and is thus precious and irreplaceable. By the time she realizes it’s gone it’s nighttime and snowing harder, but Bocchan goes out unbidden to dig through the snow looking for it.

The conditions quickly sap his energy, and he’s soon lying in the snow, exhausted. This is how the witch Caph finds him, and when she hears what hes doing, for whom, and why, and that he won’t give up, her initially hostile stance softens, and she decides to help him with her fire magic.

The earring thus found, Bocchan and Caph go in and the witch is introduced to Alice. A lazier or more obvious choice would be to make Alice jealous of Caph for vice versa, but the two women get along famously, and in any case, Caph apparently has her own guy friend whom she admires and adores the similar to how Bocchan and Alice adore each other.

What she doesn’t have is any concrete answers for Bocchan about his curse or how to break it, no matter how much Alice plies her with food, tea, and dessert. Caph is sympathetic to Bocchan’s plight and has even taken a shine to the guy, but she doesn’t consider herself anywhere near the league of the witch who did this to him.

Caph flies off in her bat form, but I’m sure she’ll be back. The next day while outside touching up the Bocchan snowman, Alice recalls a memory from when she was bullied by the rich kids for not being rich, even though she was adorable. Only Bocchan was kind to her, dusting the snow off of her (he could touch people at the time) and saying she looks like a beautiful snow fairy when set against the white powder.

It really brings into focus Alice’s love and devotion to Bocchan, and when he says the same thing he said back then—that she’s like a snow fairy—Alice can’t help but chortle gleefully, for her beloved Bocchan has scarcely changed in all these years. Indeed, the main change is the curse, about which hopefully something will be done before this series concludes.

The Duke of Death and His Maid – 03 – A Distant Kiss

Bocchan loses a game of pool to Alice, and so cannot refuse when she asks if he’ll accompany her into town for a festival. Because many will be in costume, he’s able to wear a steel-framed suit to avoid contact with both Alice and bystanders. It’s a way for him and Alice to feel like they’re on an actual date out in the world for the first time, even if they still can’t touch.

When they become separated by the crowd, Bocchan demonstrates how despite the rumors around town about a monstrous shinigami, the actual person of whom they speak is actually a kind and gentle young man. When a lost boy clings to his coat, he cheers him up by playing a song on the piano set up in the town square.

Bocchan sheds his heavy disguise to join Alice atop the clock tower, where they gaze at the moon and she tells him the story of another couple separated by a witch’s interference. In the case of the story, the man is on the moon while the woman is on earth.

But the man could be on Pluto and the basic tragedy would be the same as Bocchan and Alice’s; they are together in their hearts, but can never actually touch as long as the curse remains in force.

One night Bocchan gets a note from Alice to meet her in her bedroom (set off from the mansion) if he has trouble sleeping. When he enters to find her brushing her hair while nude, he assumes she has naughty plans for him. In the end, however, between a calming scented candle and cammomile tea, she really was simply trying to help him sleep…though it’s clear she was also hoping he’d get the wrong idea so she could gleefully watch his reactions.

Another night, when a once-in-a-decade meteor shower is to occur, Bocchan is the one to invite Alice to an intimate boat ride on the lake. His true intention is to properly confess his feelings—as opposed to the offhanded ways he’s told her he loves her. Things go pear-shaped when the wind snatches his hat, Alice leaps into the drink to grab it, and he can neither stop her nor help her out of the water due to the curse.

When she tells him straight-up that she’d be fine dying by his kiss, he leans as close as he dares before backing off, not willing to sacrifice Alice for just that one kiss. Alice, knowing he wouldn’t do it, tips the boat so he falls in the water with her. Thankfully, the water doesn’t conduct his curse like it does electricity!

In all the excitement, they missed the meteor shower, but as they both dry off by the fire, Alice says she’ll accompany him to the next one, in ten years. Bocchan is constantly worried that he’s not properly expressing how he feels, but Alice already knows, and feels the same way about him. It’s why she’s stayed with him this long; it’s why she has every intention of being with him in a decade, curse or no curse…but hopefully no curse!