Mieruko-chan – 12 (Fin) – Best Butt Bun Buds Forever

The fox spirits’ initial attack doesn’t completely destroy Zen’s mother-ghoul, but their second attack does, and they mutter something in their bizarre language before skedaddling. Naturally Zen can’t see any of it. Hana and Yulia stop by just as the tormented cat demons all turn white and pass on. Whether this was due to his mom-ghoul being gone or Hana’s aura, Zen is no longer burdened by any spirits.

Once he recovers, Zen-sensei stops by Miko’s to pick up Mocha, the kitten he found that they were fostering. He dwells on the words Miko said about setting him free, and he takes it to mean he should be more honest with people. This leads to him flatly telling his neighbor he doesn’t want any leftover stew. Turns out she was putting something in it. That’s not cool…and it’s a good thing he didn’t eat any of it! He’s moving anyway, to a place that allows pets.

After the big Zen-sensei mom-ghoul dust-up, things pretty much return to normal. Hana is still constantly eating, but isn’t desperately hungry like she was before. She and Miko go out to watch the sequel to the Totoro analog while urging Yulia to watch the first; the fortune teller receives a picture of Miko and Hana at the shrine in the mail; Zen-sensei captures the animal abuser, and Arai-sensei has her baby.

Miko decides she should offer her gratitude to the fox spirits, so she visits their creepy shrine, this time going alone (and thus without Hana’s apparently built-in divine protection). She offers one stick of sweet dango and then several and then a mess of coins, but the fox spirits and their big, big brother only seem to get more and more angry with her. Things look very bad indeed until Miko wakes up in her bed. It was only a nightmare…and perhaps a message to her: just don’t go back there!

Miko continues to see ghosts, ghouls and monsters pretty much everywhere, every day, but it has become easier to ignore them…practice makes perfect! But one thing she’s learned is that when it seems like it’s in her power to help her friends or others, she should face those monsters head-on. Maybe she’s out of fox spirit bailouts, but as long as she has Hana and now Yulia by her side and a scrumptious butt bun in her hands, life is good.

Mieruko-chan – 11 – Meowruko-chan

While last week seemingly confirmed that Toono Zen was a Bad Dude who was behind the local cat abuse, all the episode really did was confirm that he’s an odd, lonely young man; it didn’t explicitly show him actually doing anything. Now we learn that both we and Miko judged him too quickly.

First we flash back to Zen’s childhood, which was strictly controlled by his mother, who wouldn’t let him for relationships with anyone or anything other than her without accusing him of “betraying her like his father,” and punished him by squeezing his head if he kept secrets from her.

Fast-forward to the present, when Miko has decided she can no longer stand by and do nothing while Hana is basically starved by the spirits surrounding Zen-sensei. She carefully follows Zen down mostly empty and isolated streets, until he comes across a mangy stray kitten in a tunnel.

Miko had planned to call the police and catch Zen red-handed abusing a cat, but couldn’t let the act actually happen, and cries out when it looks like he’s about to crush the little kitty’s head…which we already saw was a similar gesture her mother performed on him many times.

Zen asks Miko if she followed him and what she’s doing, and the huge ghoul seemingly protecting him pops out and threatens her. Miko runs with the kitten in hand, but trips and falls, though the kitten is unharmed. Startled, it jumps out of her hands and runs right into the street.

Right on cue, Car-kun races down that street at breakneck speed, threatening to flatten the poor kitty. But then Zen leaps out in front of the car to save the kitten, and suddenly Miko has no idea what is going on. Why would he want to save a cat…then kill it?

Turns out Zen wanted to do nothing of the sort. At the hospital, he tells Miko not to blame herself for what happened; he chose to leap in front of the car. He further explains that someone in his area—not him—has been abusing animals, and he was patrolling the area like usual.

Because of the odd way Miko had interacted with him when he answered the message about adopting another stray cat, as well as her odd demeanor at school, Zen assumed she might be the animal-abusing culprit, proving that both of these people simply needed more information before forming assumptions.

Miko gets more context on the hospital’s roof from Satoru, Zen’s friend since grade school, learning about his strict—nay, fucking psycho mother, who killed his pet cat when she found out about it, which…goddamn. Satoru, a vet, is the one Zen brings all the cats he finds so that he can secure new homes for them.

Lately, with the animal abuser, Zen has only found cats who are either already dead or close to it, which explains last week’s suspicious scene. As for why Satoru helps Zen, well…for the same reason Miko wants to help Hana: if your friend is in trouble, you do what you can to help them!

Now that Miko knows that the cat spirits are the result of Zen encountering the victims of the animal abuser, and the ghoul was once his horrible mother, she decides to help Zen out, for his sake, for Hana’s sake, and hell, for her own sake. She addresses Zen’s mother-ghoul directly, asking her to set him free, and she charges after her into the corridor.

I’m not sure if Miko intended for the fox spirits to arrive and destroy the mother-ghoul, but I’m not sure what else she expected, considering she put herself in harm’s way. It’s supposedly the third and final time they’ll help her, but at least it was for a good cause, and will end up helping both Hana and Zen. But who knows; maybe this is only the beginning of Miko taking a more active role in helping people with her ability.

Mieruko-chan – 10 – One More Time

The show delivers one of its creepiest scenes yet without showing a single ghost or ghoul…just creepy-ass Toono Zen, cracking open the door of his pitch-black apartment surrounded by crows, accepting some leftovers from a kindly lady with some suspicious blood on his hand. He retreats back inside when talk turns to the recent maiming of cats in the neighborhood.

How such a guy was able to get a job subbing at a girl’s high school is beyond me, but a lot of the class finds him hot. Naturally, this doesn’t include Miko, who now has to constantly see those tortured cat ghouls writhe around Toono, who looks on the surface like he’s not aware of their presence, but at the same time could simply be hiding the fact he’s aware of them…just as Miko tries to do.

One side-effect of their new substitute teacher and his ghoulish kitty entourage started out as a joke, but is now starting to become worrying: Hana just can’t stop eating. She even inadvertently bails Miko out of a very sticky situation with Toono and the ghouls when they to to the nurse’s office. Yulia sees them go in, and immediately correctly diagnoses the problem: Hana’s aura is being drained by the spirits surrounding Toono.

That Yulia knows this could prove crucial to Miko and Hana in the days ahead, but there are two problems: Hana has no idea what Yulia is talking about, Miko does know but is still apprehensive about talking about it, and Yulia thinks Miko is out to get her. To Miko’s point, ghouls can pop up anywhere at anytime; there’s no safe time or place to talk about them, as evidenced in a “peaceful” park where one cute kid transforms into a ghoul and has to be destroyed by Miko’s guardian spirits.

But that marks the second of three times they’ve helped Miko; the third time will be their last, adding one more lump in her throat. The episode is bookended by two students accidentally interrupting their teacher Toono’s seemingly nightly cat-hunting mission. Here I thought the show was going to try to humanize him a bit at some point, but nope, looks like he’s pure evil.

The forces of evil seem to be amassing around Miko, Hana, and Yulia. With only one guardian intervention left to count on, it may be time for Miko to drop her guard and converse with Yulia about ways to protect themselves from the coming scourge…and prevent Hana from gorging herself.

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen – 10

It seems like the tide is about to turn with the arrival of Juzo & Co., but because Todo has a stronger fire-element demon, all their attacks are absorbed. Bummer! Yukio (whose guys stop glowing blue before anyone sees them) has a plan: let Todo absorb their fire…all of it.

In a well-planned gambit, the youngsters take Todo on as a distraction while the others chant, and Juzo drops a huge fireball down upon Todo. The Phoenix absorbs so much that Todo can’t handle it, and his body turns to ash, which is then soaked by the rain, slowing down his regeneration considerably.

That being said, it’s not the end of Todo, which was a bit disappointing, as he goes all muddy T-1000 on Yukio, Juzo, and the others, who dilly-dally in storing and separating his pieces to keep them from joining. I tellya, what’s it going to take to get this guy and make it stick?

We don’t learn that, though Koneko and Renzo manage to inform Shura that Rin and Bon are within the barrier, with Bon just barely keeping the barrier up to prevent widespread disaster.

When the super-ugly “pizza roll”-like Impure King advances, Bon has to cast a second spell to force him back, considerably weakening him in the process. Shura can’t come soon enough. Even Kuro’s in trouble.

When Shura finally does get there, Bon had dropped one of his two spells and let the miasma cover him, confident that Rin—his friend—will find a way to unsheathe his sword and save him. And what do you know, he does! And not a moment too soon.

In doing so, Rin seems to be doing exactly what Mephisto—his “older brother”—had hoped he would do: unleash the power of the blue flames for good, and show the Vatican that the son of the devil, once under control, is a vital asset in their struggle. But first thing’s first: Rin’s gotta pierce the king’s heart.

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen – 09

Todou’s “join me” schtick doesn’t work, as Yukio tells him he loves Rin as much as he hates him, but hates the old Yukio who was a sniveling little punk always in need of Rin’s help.

Yukio summons a coven of naiads and puts Todou in a water prison. I’m glad Exorcist isn’t playing the “Yukio switches sides” angle here, and that Yukio actually gets one over on Todou in what had been a laughably one-sided match.

As for Rin, he’s trying to stay positive and cheerful while riding Kuro to the sproangium, but Bon can tell from his shaking hands that Rin’s just trying to keep it together, like he is. Kuro gets them into position, and Bon is able to put up a giant fire barrier to contain the sporangium (during which a phoenix screams like a red-tailed hawk for some reason).

As all his family and friends fight what looks like a hopeless battle, Shino is consumed by fear and self-preservation, even going so far as to abandon Koneko when he refuses to run away. Shino only gets a few paces away before Koneko is about to be killed and he swoops in with his staff. As much as he wants to run from this situation—and his blood—he just can’t. He’s a part of this.

Meanwhile, Izumo lets her guard down while admonishing Shiemi for not letting herself be protected by someone stronger, and gets covered in spores. Using the “if not now, when” argument, a desperate Shiemi finally manages to summon Nee-chan, and prepares to free Izumo, who takes time to ponder why she agreed to all this in the first place.

Despite everyone’s efforts, the sporangium still bursts, and it feels like a huge setback when it happens. Fortunately the barrier holds, but that Bon can’t move if he wants to keep it up is a huge challenge for Rin and Kuro.

Rin almost felt like he could unsheathe his sword when Kuro was in trouble (Kuro gets out of it on his own); I imagine the time is quickly approaching when, like Shiemi with Nee-chan, Rin can’t go without its blade any longer.

As for Yukio, his water prison crumbles and he’s about to get burnt alive by Todou, but his eyes suddenly glimmer with blue flame—like Rin—which causes Todou to instinctively jump back.

Before Todou can get back to killing Yukio—or Yukio can determine what the hell’s up with his eyes—Juzu & Co. arrive to fight Todou. But yeah, those blue eyes are definitely an interesting development.

Nazo no Kanojo X – OVA

Tsubaki and Urabe double-date with Ueno and Oka at the Kazami Shrine’s Summer Festival. Oka drags Ueno away to let Urabe be alone with Tsubaki, but when the signal for the fireworks goes up, they are separated. While searching, Tsubaki comes across a strange “freak show” tent; inside he finds Urabe tied to a string high above the ground. A boy and girl in fox masks warn him he can only pull one of the pile of strings on the ground to save her. Urabe sucks on the string, and her saliva lights it up for Tsubaki, thanks to their bond. The fox kids thank them, and the tent disappears. They turn out to be fox spirits, a boy and girl in love, who exchange the bottle and cup on Urabe’s yukata in exchange for a love charm bracelet she puts on Tsubaki.

This was a pleasant revisiting to our favorite series of the Spring, which serves to further validate Tsubaki and Urabe’s bond as they come afoul of supernatural beings who give Tsubaki a test of sorts. Ueno remains unaware that Tsubaki and Urabe are an item, but it doesn’t matter, as he has his own designs on “scoring” with Oka this night. Tsubaki and Urabe are a little shy with each other at first when faced with the prospect of being alone on a date, but after the fox spirits put them through their paces, there’s no doubt that they were meant for each other, and will be back at the festival next year – just the two of them.

Rating: 8 (Great)