Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro – 05 – When You Gotta Go…

Both of the two stories that unfold in this week’s episode are focused, polished, and consistently hilarious. Chio faces a dilemma we’ve all faced: having to pee really bad. She fortunately finds a bathroom, but doesn’t realize until after she’s gone in and relieved herself that she went in the Men’s bathroom, near a busy bus stop to boot.

As we’ve learned, Chio is far more proactive, resourceful, and athletic than a below-average high school girl would be, but that’s what makes her so imminently watchable. We’re there with her as she susses out the best way to escape, finally making use of “mysterious bright-colored balls” that one would never find in the ladies’ room (because they’re for urinals).

One of those balls excites the nearby cat, who starts playing with it in the street. Two girls in miniskirts lean over to watch the cat, and two older men lean over to watch the two girls in miniskirts, giving Chio the opening she needs. It’s a brilliant tactic that almost goes terribly wrong when Chio’s momentarily stuck in the window, but manages to get out.

She even explains away her sudden and surprising appearance to the two men and girls by pretending the cat is her pet “George”, who clearly has no idea who she is and runs off again, allowing her to follow and extricate herself from the situation as everyone shrugs it off as a girl really liking cats…which a lot of people do!

The next episode begins from the perspective of Shinozuka Momo, member of the Disciplinary Committee and deep admirer of its faculty advisor Gotou-sensei. In an effort to be “useful” to him, she takes it upon herself to discover what student(s) from their distinguished academy have been chronically misbehaving in the vicinity of the campus.

This leads to her tailing Chio and Manana, who at first appear to be carrying themselves with “calm and grace”…until Chio pulls a long root out of a flower bed and whips Manana in the bum, setting off a good old-fashioned plant duel. The mortified Momo continues shadowing the two girls, and watches as Chio climbs a wall to see if she can beat Manana up a hill.

She can’t, and Manana rubs it in by denying Chio water, instigating another grappling match. Momo can’t hold her tongue anymore, and orders the two girls to stop hanging out, as they’re terrible influences on each other, going on to describe “true friends.” That leads Manana to correctly assert that Momo…has no friends. Poor Momo!

They make a deal where if they can prove their friends, Momo won’t record or report what she’s seen today. And boy, do they ever prove it, performing a thoroughly embarrassing (and long un-practiced) dance of friendship they devised back in grade school. It moves Momo to unironic tears, and the girls get off scot-free.

In fact, Momo asks them for advice on how to get closer to someone they immediately infer to be Gotou-sensei. As we know, Manana isn’t the person to ask about such things as she has no relationship experienced, but Momo doesn’t know that! As a result, next time she’s with Gotou, Momo acts mysterious and attempts to keep her blondie rival in check…with mixed results. That closes the book on a pair of very strong stories.

Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu – 24 (Fin)

After his out-of-Shinichi’s-body experience within Gotou, Migi has decided to go to sleep and think about things more deeply, which he says might lead to him never waking up. It’s a strange and somewhat sudden goodbye that Shinichi isn’t okay with, but it’s clearly for the best. They had some fun times, but Shinichi can’t be talking to his right hand forever.

As anyone who’s read my past reviews of this series knows, I’m a fan of Satomi, despite the fact she’s gotten so little to do, and a part of me is glad the show closes on a relatively pleasant note with the two continuing their relationship past high school. They’ve always had a nice chemsitry, when Shinichi isn’t acting like a weirdo.

What I can’t really forgive, however, is that they dusted off Uragami, a relic of my least favorite episode of the show, and brought him back to terrorize the happy couple one last time. As such, this felt more like an extra episode; a spin-off of the show we’ve seen to this point, and at no point did I think he’d succeed in killing Satomi.

The show tries to create stakes and make some kind of a point that Uragami is the real parasite, feeding off human life while contributing nothing but fear and misery, but I just don’t care about this guy or his goofy sandals or his deluded ideas about humanity and honesty. He also blows Shinichi’s cover, but fortunately for Shinichi, Satomi couldn’t care less what Shinichi is or isn’t, beyond the guy she loves.

So even though she’s forced to witness two rooftop murders and has a knife to her throat for most of the episode, Satomi eventually comes to a point when she can’t listen to any more of Uragami’s drivel and starts laying into how pathetic he is. Go Satomi!

Shinichi also realizes he’s probably quick enough to stop Uragami from killing him, but when he makes his move, Uragami an Satomi happen to be right near the ledge, so of course Satomi falls. But Migi wakes up long enough to stretch Shinichi’s arm out to catch her, remarking how humans “have the time” to think about and connect with others rather than just consume them, or something. I’m just glad Satomi’s okay.

When people arrive on the roof to see what’s transpired, Shinichi and Satomi, sprawled out on the roof, can only laugh at the fact those people think they’re dead. But they’re also laughs of relief that no harm came to either of them, aside from Shinichi’s arm getting stabbed, which I assume is fine.

This episode tried to act as a kind of reflection on the show, but came off a little high-and mighty, and thought is was far weightier than it was. So, a bit underwhelming, like much of show ever since Kana died. But again, the nice character beats of the lovebirds made sure it wasn’t a total loss.

Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu – 23

While it felt like momentum-killing padding at the time, in hindsight it was a good idea to expose Shinichi to Mitsuyo’s worldview and advice before seeking out Gotou for a rematch. She instilled in him the idea of not simply rushing to his death half-cocked, but rather constantly using the noggin in his skull to think of ways, no matter how unlikely or ridiculous, to keep living. In other words, to trust his instincts; the same instincts that drive all other living things on Earth to survive.

It isn’t all that unfair a fight. Sure, Gotou is nigh invincible and far stronger and faster than Shinichi, (I even felt that mega-punch) but he can’t kill him if he can’t find him. This was one somewhat glaring flaw, however; it seems odd that Gotou has virtually no idea where Shinichi is. For one thing, he’s human, which is Gotou’s food…why wouldn’t he be able to smell out a meal? For another thing, there are still Migi cells in Shinichi’s body, which you’d think Gotou would be able to at least detect a little.

Another glaring flaw is that Shinichi survives the fight early on mostly because Gotou takes his sweet old time killing him, because he doesn’t consider a human to be any threat. Shinichi could have possibly even talked him into letting him live, or at least run far enough away that Gotou wouldn’t bother fighting him. Of course, that means putting more innocent people at risk.

And that’s primarily why Shinichi confronted Gotou; not out of anger, or for revenge, or because he wants to be the hero, but to prevent others from dying because of him. With poise that would make Mitsuyo proud, just moments before Gotou skewers him, Shinichi remembers Gotou bleeding in a specific location. Lying in a pile of garbage, he picks up a rusty pipe and stabs the lunging Gotou with it. It turns out to be a vulnerable area, and it pisses Gotou off even more.

But stabbing him there also broke the link between the “head” and the “rest”, and as I had suspected after the uncertain fate of Migi last week, Migi himself became part of that “rest” and is freed when the rusty pipe introduces life-threatening toxins that make the other “rest” parasytes wake up and resist the “head’s” orders.

For the second time in just a couple of minutes, Shinichi is about to face his death, but this time all he can do is sit there and wait for the blow to come. That’s when the Migi in Gotou’s swinging killing arm meets with the Migi in Shinichi’s stump and BOOM, Migi transfers back to Shinichi right then and there, nullifying the attack. Shinichi’s so damn happy he’s back his eyes glint!

From there, the duo of Shinichi and Migi is more than enough against the severely weakened and uncoordinated Gotou. It’s very satisfying when Migi goes through him like a wire through clay and he explodes, bringing about the dawn.

Upon inspecting the garbage pile, Migi deduces that the toxins on the pipe that proved fatal to Gotou were proof that “there’s no beating humans,” especially if you corner them atop a garbage pile they made that they can use the contents of to kill you!

It raises questions in Shinichi’s head about whether parasytes came to be to reduce the population of humans, who have spread across the earth and ravaged the environment. Those toxins are representative of human’s status as Earth’s wasting disease…and parasytes could be deemed the cure.

That’s one way to look at things, anyway. So when Migi declines to finish off a member of his kind (to do so would be murder in his eye/s) and leaves Shinichi to decide, Shinichi initially hesitates to finish killing the slowly reconstructing Gotou. When taking enough steps back, Gotou, or what’s left of him, has as much right to exist and survive as Shinichi does.

Shinichi changes his mind again when he realizes that he can’t live his life all those steps back; not as long as there are people at risk, or people he wants to protect. If Gotounator re-coalesces, he’s not going to stop killing humans; it’s what he exists for. That makes him, in the arena of protecting one’s own small band of humans, not all of humanity, an enemy whose existence is intolerable.

Shinichi sheds a tear before finishin Gotou, and in the brief cuts to the writhing, reconstructing corpse, it does indeed engender a kind of primal human sympathy for the weak and struggling, even if we know full well the monster it will become if allowed to reconstruct.

Shinichi goes home, having done what was necessary to protect Mitsuyo’s village, along with ensuring he himself will be safe for the time being, along with his father and his beloved Satomi. Gotou is by no means the last parasyte, but he was certainly the toughest. I doubt anything tougher will show up in the finale, which I hope will focus on where Shinichi and Migi go from here, and in particular whether he plans to finally inform Satomi about his deep, battle-tested friendship with the little monster in his right arm.

Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu – 22

Shinichi’s blissful honeymoon with Satomi doesn’t last long; in fact, there’s absolutely no mention of it, or even Satomi’s name, this entire episode, lending it a somewhat disjointed episodic feel. Mind you, more big things go down this week, but once those things are over and done with, the episode kinda grinds to a halt.

Migi alerts Shinichi that Gotou is on his way, and then Migi steals and drives a car, then ditches it off a cliff, hitting the one Gotou is driving. Naturally, this isn’t enough to kill him, so Migi decides to separate completely from Shinichi to act as a decoy, so the two can execute a pincer attack. However, in his weakened, separate state, Migi isn’t strong enough to fully behead Gotou, and begins to shrivel up.

Migi decides to stand his ground and cover Shinichi’s escape, saying a quick goodbye. But what’s interesting is that it isn’t just Shinichi who feels bad about this. Migi is no longer the cold, logical bastard he once was. Shinichi has humanized him as much as he’s parasytized Shinichi. Migi even considers Shinichi a friend. What he doesn’t do is wilt away into nothing, at least on camera. We don’t witness his death, so there’s a chance he’s not dead.

Shinichi runs, feeling like a coward for abandoning Migi, and when trying to steal a drink from an old woman’s backyard, that old woman takes pity on him and takes him into her house.

This woman, named Mitsuyo, used to work in retail, so she can read Shinichi to a degree: he’s not a burglar (he’s too polite), he hasn’t had his right arm for a while (since it’s been Migi), and his injury is the result of being bullied in an unfair fight. She gets the gist right, but never in a million years would she ever believe the details…perhaps even if they were staring right at her.

Shinichi ends up staying for days, making me wonder whether Satomi or his Dad are worried about him, or if by now they’re used to him pissing off for days at a time. In any case, while under Mitsuyo’s roof, he has another creepy dream in which he communicates with what’s left of Migi within him.

When he awakes, it’s even able to form an eye on his stump…but no more. If anything, Shinichi feels worse than if there was nothing left; those cells being a constant reminder of the fact he’s still alive thanks to Migi’s sacrifice.

Mitsuyo, ignorant as she is to his specific situation, nevertheless imparts some wise council wizened old ladies tend to impart in these situations. When Shinichi blathers on about “making use of his life” to stop the monster that’s terrorizing the town, Mitsuyo scolds him on his youthful recklessness.

Having lived life far longer than him, she knows full well how precious it is. She won’t stop him from doing what he thinks he has to do (face the monster), but she does insist he exercise caution and flexibility, and not squander his life so readily.

Deep in the forest, we see Gotou lying as if in wait for a rematch with Shinichi. But the emphasis on his single gleaming eye makes me wonder if Migi didn’t get absorbed into the weakened Gotou, either by his own will or not. That will mean one of two things: Shinichi will have to finish off his friend, or Migi has taken control of the parasytes within Gotou.

The fact that it’s not certain at all whether Migi is really dead and gone, and probably isn’t, detracts from the drama, and makes Shinichi’s crisis of confidence and extended stay with Mitsuyo feel like leisurely padding for a show with just two episodes left. Still, with Shinichi only armed with a rusty old gardening ax thingy, it should be an interesting fight. Here’s hoping this was the final “rest” in the narrative.

Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu – 21

Parasyte has been listing badly for the better part of a month, starting with a overly tidy, unsatisfying end to Tamiya Ryouko’s arc, followed by a tiresome, by-the-numbers numbers SWAT battle in the dark that seemed like it would never end. Even the majority of this episode’s A-part is devoted to wrapping up that story.

Hirokawa turning out to be an ordinary human who just happens to espouse the parasyte philosophy is an interesting little twist, but as he’s killed in the process, it feels a bit like a dead end, especially when his faceless audience all ends up dead by Gotou’s hands (or rather claws). Even Yamagichi’s last stand on the building’s roof ends in his beheading, in a decidedly shrug-worthy end to a long slog of a battle.

The episode only starts to show signs of righting the Parasyte ship when Shinichi is again involved. Then Gotou (whose muscle mass seems to vary greatly in every shot), has plans on killing him for “closure”, but there are a few more cops still alive, so he retreats, and…Wait….what? Why doesn’t he simply waste those cops like he wasted all the others and Shinichi with them? “Too much interference,” he says. Seems like a thin reason, after how powerful and efficient a killing machine the show just made him up to be.

However, both the battle and Gotou’s promise of another meeting in the near future have a profound effect on Shinichi that we really weren’t able to see until now, when the cameras finally turn on him in the aftermath. He’s scared shitless, and very aware that all of the dozens of men who fell that day did so because they were between him and Gotou.

They all died tiring Gotou out just enough that he decided not to kill him today. As inept as they might have been tactically, they saved Shinichi’s life. And now that Shinichi realizes the life they died to protect, Gotou’s face appears everywhere he looks, poised to pluck that life away.

Faced with this crippling fear of being watched and hunted, Shinichi goes to the only place where he feels he can be comforted; Satomi’s. She allows him to embrace her and feels him trembling, but when he squeezes too hard it frightens her, and her reaction causes him to run away again. But Satomi knows what she felt, and she’s not willing to leave things there.

That night, in a park, Shinichi contemplates running away from it all, hoping Gotou won’t bother chasing him across Japan. Satomi finds him, knowing he likes parks as she does, and seeing that he’s calmed down, invites him to come to her house so they can “talk”. This leads to their having sex for the first time, in another significant milestone in a relationship that hasn’t gotten a lot of screen time, but in hindsight explains a lot about the trouble Shinichi’s been having.

Whatever horrors Shinichi has gone through, or subjected Satomi to (possibly including his foreplay…but I digress), she’s going to stay by his side, because she loves him. She wants to know everything, so he doesn’t have to suffer alone anymore…even if it means she’ll suffer too, at least they’ll suffer together.

She may still not have a very good idea and the full scope of the shit Shinichi’s in, but scale and scope don’t matter: this is a matter of absolutes for her. The shit they’ve pulled through thus far, and the fact the Shinichi she loves is still in that mangled body Migi repaired and souped up, are all the proof she needs to have faith they’ll pull through whatever’s to come.

Getting Shinichi and Satomi back together and having them take the next step was a vast improvement over the tedium of the last few episodes, but also makes clear how lost and rudderless Shinichi was without Satomi by his side. She instills, comfort, confidence, hope, and above all, a desire to live. And whether living is running or fighting, he’d be wise to keep Satomi close from here on out. She knows what she’s doing.

Kiseijuu: Sei no Kakuritsu – 20

Disappointingly, Parasyte takes a turn for the worse this week, completely sidelining Shinichi and Migi and instead focusing the entirety of its running time to a dull, repetitive, interminable, and at many points downright moronic SWAT operation.

Random humans I don’t particularly care about, ineptly battling a cadre of random parasytes I barely know and also don’t care about, is not a formula for an episode of television I’m going to, well, care about. It is, in fact, a recipe for a pedestrian slog; one I couldn’t wait to be over.

Yamagishi, leader of the Parasyte Extermination Squad, seems to have a shrewd head on his shoulders, but quickly lets us down by employing scorched-earth tactics in hunting down the parasytes infesting the city hall, with absolutely no regard for either his troops or the scores of civilian bystanders, which he ends up treating like hostages. The scar on his scalp should have been a hint that this guy has a screw loose.

It’s a plan that mostly succeeds because the parasytes assumed their enemy would be hampered by the presence of those bystanders. In other words, they assumed the humans would act like humans, instead of acting just like them: cold and efficient. In concept this is an apt commentary on the lengths humanity will go to in order to survive, including abandoning the precepts and conducts of civilization they typically abide by. But the execution is clunky, and as I said, I’m invested in neither party.

The only member of the extermination squad I give a rat’s ass about is the psychic killer Urugami, and if I’m honest, that’s only because he’s voiced by Yoshino Hiroyuki. But Urugami is missing the exuberance of Yoshino’s other comedic and semi-comedic roles, and his too-on-the-nose snide comments about who’s calling whom a killer quickly grow tiresome.

He redeems himself, somewhat, by purporting to be bored and tired of this whole enterprise, telling the dudes with the guns to just shoot whoever, because it’s too much of a hassle determining who’s a parasyte and who isn’t.

Whoa, dude, watch where you’re pointing that thing!

Yamagishi adopts a similar attitude when the parasytes scatter and we find ourselves in a seemingly never-ending sequence of him deploying, splitting, merging, and re-directing the various units under his command. “Screw it, just shoot anything that moves” becomes the standing order.

This isn’t particularly reassuring considering they seem to have recruited all these riot cops from high school. That there are all a bunch of unskilled, undisciplined, idiotic teenagers behind those masks is the only explanation for their gross incompetence.

Aww, look how neatly they laid their clothes on the chair before gettin’ it on

They have endless opportunities to demonstrate that incompetence since this is The Raid That Never Ends. They do, however, bust in on a couple of stragglers in flagrante delicto, which is pretty funny. Nothing like gunfire and the persistent fear of death to excite the libido, eh?

I’m sad because I’m not in this episode and I have nothing to do…

Meanwhile, the one character whose fate we still care about literally sits on the sidelines, doing nothing and saying almost nothing. He remarks about how there’s surely something he can do…but the writers don’t accomodate him. I think all Migi says is “No,” either unwilling to participate in the utter extermination of his own kind, or worried the threat of so many parasytes in one place is too great to involve themselves.

It’s Migi’s usual prudent pragmatism, but it just doesn’t make for good TV.

But here’s the worst part: while this episode ends, the raid doesn’t, as there’s still a boss and overboss-level parasytes still standing, along with a handful of riot police. My last straw for the idiot police is when they listen to Gotou and willingly follow him into a larger room so he can more impressively kill them all.

It’s a blatantly staged action set piece with no purpose other than to demonstrate what has already been well-established at this point—that Gotou is a tough cookie—and it elicits little more than a shrug and a sigh. Franklin has abandoned ship, but I must admit after this plodding dawdle, even my patience is starting to fray.

Kokoro Connect – 16

After getting told off by Iori, Inaba can’t argue with anything she said. Yui keeps her and Taichi and Aoki focused on completing their work for the presentation. When the rumors in class persist, led by Setouchi Kaori, Taichi tells the class he came onto Iori, causing the radical change in her attitude, in an attempt to stop the rumors. Kaori doesn’t buy it. After finals, the club room is ransacked and all their work sabotaged. They vow to start over, but when Iori sees the room, she goes after Kaori and has to be held back by Taichi and Inaba.

They get Iori in a room, where Inaba confesses every embarrassing detail about her love of Taichi. Iori is initially unimpressed, but the emotions transmitted between the three result in her confession that she’s really a very dark and cold person who got into the habit of acting like the opposite, and can’t do it anymore, especially in light of all of Heartseed’s experiments. Finally understanding, Taichi and Inaba tell her she’ll have their friendship no matter what. She asks for time to think. That night, Inaba comes across boys who ransacked the clubroom and confronts them, and they grab her.

Whew, sorry for the long synopsis, but a shitton of stuff got done and said in this episode entitled “Determination and Resolution” that we just happen to be reviewing the day after resolutions are made going forward into a new year. The dramatic heart of this episode is a lengthy confrontation between Iori and Taichi, with Tachi backing up the latter. Inaba’s painfully honest confessions intended to trigger an emotional catharsis end up provoking another diatribe by Iori about how she’s fed the fuck up with maintaining the Iori everyone’s known. That’s not her.

Iori is tired of being the “tragic heroine”, but like it or not, it’s what she is, victim of both the happiness she derived from acting happy and cheerful around everyone, and the torture of Heartseed’s machinations, which have nearly cost Iori her life and sanity on more than one occasion. Heartseed destroyed any chance of the “ideal Iori” surviving, and without that, Iori felt she didn’t deserve the love and support of the others anymore. That shame, and her frustration with nobody understanding the true cause of it, has her at her breaking point.

So, why don’t Inaba and Taichi just say “Fine, nice knowing you…fuck off, bitch?” Because they really do still consider her a friend, even if she deceived them. And it’s not like she didn’t have good reasons to do so. Of course, it isn’t enough that the other four CRC members forgive and accept Real Iori; her words and attitudes toward other classmates has stirred up a storm of hate. The scorned Kaori tells some boys to ransack the CRC clubroom, and when Inaba finds those responsible, she can’t control her temper and confronts the three of them, alone, at night. Bad, bad move.

Other details we want to mention (whew, we’ve written way too much here. That’s what Kokoro Connect does): it’s interesting to see Yui’s relatively quiet transformation to the strong club manager keeping everyone focused on the task at hand. She even prods(shames) Taichi into action, as he attempts to dispel the Iori rumors and repair her reputation by sacrificing his own. That’s the “selfless freak” we know, and it seems to work on everyone except Kaori and her two aides. It’s also hilarious. Inaba and Taichi have been very generous with the embarrassing confessions in these extra episodes. Also, the scene in which Gotou stops by and for once he isn’t Heartseed – very nicely done.

Rating: 9 (Superior)