Heavenly Delusion – 07 – In Your Head

We spend this week totally away Tokio’s side of this story, and since last week the gears turning in my head have be believing we’re dealing with two different timelines. If Tokio and Kona are Maru’s parents, then “Heaven” is a facility that was running just before the Collapse.

This also supports the theory that “Heaven’s” children were the experiments that led to the creation of the Man-Eaters/Hiruko, which caused the Collapse, and why Maru has the power to kill them. Mind you I’ve not read any of the source material, so we’ll see how right or wrong I am!

What’s great about Heavenly Delusion is that the theorizing is fun, but not vital. I’m fine to let mysteries to unravel in their own time, and in the meantime we have this beautiful story of the found family/rom-com duo of  Kiruko and Maru roving the gorgeously rendered ruins of civilization.

This week the pair put their two brain cells together to make a sign advertising their Hiruko-killin’ services, and the show pulls of a nifty bit of misdirection. We’re led for a moment to believe they’re about to be captured by Immortal Order, but they’re actually scooped up by a group zealously opposed to IO, called Liviuman.

Led by the charismatic Mizuhashi, it is an organization that opposes IO’s efforts to replace human bodies with machines and achieve immortality. Mizuhashi herself was the victim of a forced amputation of her leg, and while wandering the facility, encountered a human being chopped in pieces yet still somehow alive enough to beg her to kill them.

That’s some haunting, Mitty-ass shit right there, and sent shivers down my spine, because my mind immediately went to Dr. Usami, the doctor who put Haruki’s brain into his sister’s body (evidence of which is clear when Kiruko is bathing and her hair is back, revealing their head scar). He’s still up to his old tricks.

Kiruko is obviously naked when they’re bathing, and Maru notes that “she” seems “less coolheaded” than usual, like the Haruki in “her” is coming out. Kiruko hops out of the hot bath, stands before Maru in their birthday suit, and declares that they’ve “always” been Haruki in their head. Maru gets in the bath after them, chastened…but also turned on.

The next day, Kiruko and Maru agree to take care of the Hiruko rumored to be located on Immortal Order’s premises. Mizuhashi rallies Liviuman and stages a big loud protest as a diversion, allowing our duo to slip into a well-lit parking lot—a curiosity in a world with no power grid.

As for Hirukos, they find none that are moving, and instead find several small, white growths that appear to be dormant. Maru uses his touch to kill them for real, one after the other, until Kiruko locates the “big boss”. I agree with them that it’s almost more annoying that they aren’t moving, but it’s also far creepier.

When the boss’ face lights up, other Hirukos suddenly spring forth from inside the floor, walls, and ceiling, exhibiting an ability they haven’t seen before. The Kiru-Beam has no effect on the swarming monsters and runs out of juice. Kiruko is set upon by one, then two, then five of the little blighters.

Then, the unthinkable happens. One of the Hirukos grabs hold of her harm with its blade-filled mouth and bites down hard. Her arm is chomped off; then one of her feet. Maru is several yards away, similarly overwhelmed. Kiruko can’t do anything.

Fearing this might be the end, Kiruko calls out for Robin to help before passing out. But then they comes to…with Maru kissing them. He’s doing so to snap Kiruko out of what was apparently a hallucination; the boss Hiruko hypnotized her into thinking Hirukos were everywhere and making them shoot at nothing.

If Maru wasn’t there—and immune to the hypnosis—Kiruko might’ve been toast for real. That said, they still don’t let Maru sneak another kiss—one was enough, and they acknowledge it was necessary to snap them out of their trance. But goddamn was that nightmarish and stressful. I honestly didn’t know if Kiruko was actually being horribly maimed before our eyes.

With all the dormant Hiruko killed, Kiruko and Maru start to hear the approaching footsteps of fine black wingtips. A man in a well-fitting black suit, lavender tie, and eyepatch appears, holding a gun and inspecting the dead Hiruko. He then turns to the duo, and his gun clacks as he does.

That said, he doesn’t pull the gun on them. Instead, he asks them if they can kill something else for him. Kiruko says sure, if they can, and depending on what exactly he wants. She also mentions she’s looking for Dr. Usami, and the much younger man than she knew says that he’s Dr. Usami.

Clearly, the not-good-at-all doctor’s research on immortality has borne some fruiton on a personal level. We’ll have to wait until next week to learn the unspeakable but inevitable human cost, and if we’re actually dealing with a post-“Heaven” scenario in which Maru is the son of that facility’s residents.

Heavenly Delusion – 05 – Pride (In the Name of Love)

Back in the remnants of Tokyo, Maru plays old 8-bit arcade games while he and Kiruko ponder their next move. Maru is interrupted by some thugs who judge a book by it’s cover and try to bully him, but he fights back and kicks all eight of their asses, suffering only a chipped front tooth and a bruise on the cheek. Kiruko arrives to mop up, assuming the thugs started the fight—and they mostly did by picking on him—but there’s no doubt he escalated.

We learn that before Mikura took him in and taught him how to kill Hiruko, he lived in a home with a bunch of other kids, but that place was eventually shut down and the kids were split up among other places. Maru ended up in a roving gang—which explains why he can handle himself in a fight—until Mikura entered his life. Unlike Kiruko, he didn’t see Mikura as a woman so much as another person he had to listen to and obey. It’s in these scenes of his youth that his resemblance to Tokio is really made clear.

Deciding to keep Maru hidden while they goes on a shopping / gun-charging run downtown, Kiruko overhears the thugs still searching for Maru, and also mentioning a “Ministry of Reconstruction”, which they believe may just be an urban legend. They’re glad and even proud to hear “their Maru” is tough, but then wonders why—after all, when their mission is complete, they’ll be all alone again.

Kiruko is in that state of mind when they return to the room to find Maru missing, and immediately panics. Turns out he was next door jerking off to a porno mag, but he can tell how shook Kiruko is, and gives them a supportive hug. He also apologizes for being so dramatic about his past without considering that Kiruko’s was worse…at least in terms of what they lost.

Back in “Heaven”, despite the efforts of the children to keep Tarao in good spirits with a music and dance performance, the next morning the AI cheerfully reports that he has passed away. The children are allowed to participate in the memorial service.

Tokio is particularly wracked by the loss, and brings up the only other kid to die, Asura, with whom Kona was friends. Asura died of suicide, but the director blames their own research for causing her death. When we see Tokio vomiting into a toilet, it’s a bad sign. Is she now ill like Tarao, either just because, or somehow from her adventure with Kuku?

The paths of Kiruko/Maru and Tokio edge ever-so-slightly closer together when a man who was on the boat comes to Kiruko and Maru asks if he can hire them as bodyguards. He’s headed for a place called “Immortal Order” with a priceless sample of the Hiruko. But when he shows them the jar containing the sample, it has already rotted away to nothing.

Nevertheless, Kiruko and Maru are keen on going to this “Immortal Order”, which is in the same area on a map Kiruko purchased where there’s 100% clean water, suggesting it might be the “Heaven” Maru is seeking. Of course, it’s long since been established there’s nothing heavenly about “Heaven”, and the additional label “strange people” is also foreboding.

The researchers at “Heaven” don’t know what killed Tarao (who was immune to everything prior to taking ill), or whether it will happen to the other kids. And when they cremate Tarao’s body, a bizarre, creepy growth remains, untouched by the flames. The man from the boat mentioned transplanting parts of monsters into humans to give them powers and make them immortal.

Heavenly Delusion – 04 – Touching Me, Touching You

The fish monster that attacks the boat Kiruko and Maru are on proves to be a slippery customer. When Kiruko fires the Kiru-Beam, it either misses or fails to fire, causing a large cloud of smoke and nothing else. But Kiruko notes the aqueous membrane around the Hiruko, and determines that the best place to fight it is not outside where it has access to all the water in the world, but in the maze-like, dry interior of the boat.

Meanwhile, in “Heaven”, Kuku leads Tokio to a ventilation hatch that leads to the “babies” Kuku says she saw. Tokio doesn’t have Kuku’s astonishing physical gifts, so she uses one of the cleaner robots to give her a boost up to the hatch, which is located some twenty feet up the wall. Curiously, despite there being surveillance cameras pointed everywhere, including at this very hatch, neither Tokio nor Kuku appear on the screen.

After briefly arguing with the crew of the boat, Kiruko executes their plan, which relies on the fish following them and Maru using his “Maru-Touch” to kill it when he’s able to touch it. That time comes when the fish is lured into a cargo bay full of boxes and dried marijuana, which sucks all the water away from the fish and dries it out. Maru is then able to finish the monster off just by touching its skin with his hand.

Kuku takes Tokio to a kind of weird laboratory nursery where even weirder “babies” are being raised with targets for faces, vaguely resembling infant versions of the Angels from Evangelion. Tokio puts her hand on the glass and one of the babes takes notice and even reaches out to her. An intruder alarm sounds and Kuku and Tokio book it out of there, after which the baby says “To-ki-o”.

What’s odd is that the intruder alarm doesn’t take the adults to the nursery where Tokio and Kuku were—once again, they don’t appear on the surveillance monitors—but instead to another part of the facility entirely. This place also has some serious Evangelion vibes, but in place of Ikari Gendou, there’s an elderly woman in a wheelchair conversing with a robot. As Alice once said: Curiouser and curiouser…

Once they reach land, the gangster boat crew offers Kiruko and Maru cash for taking care of their Hiruko problem. Kiruko refuses payment, since they and Haru had to either act or be killed, but does ask if the crew recognizes the bird logo on the Kiru-Beam. They say it’s the logo of a home goods store in the ruined town, but that turns out to be a completely different logo. Kiruko and Maru laugh about it while tucking into soup made from youkan.

Back in heaven, Tokio watches Shiro take Mimihime by the hand and run off; she follows them and overhears Shiro asking about the nude photo Mimihime sent him, which she knows nothing about and has disappeared from his phone. He then tries to explain the “urges” he feels when he sees her, but comes of to her sounding like he want to eat her.

When Tokio visits the critically ill Tarao, he tries to kiss her, but she recoils and runs off in a tizzy. Kona sees her running, follows her, and stays with her until she calms down. When she tells him how she’s scared how everyone is acting so weird, he tells her there’s no reason to be confused about people falling in love with one another.

Tokio then says if there’s someone among them she wants to touch and be touched by, it would be Kona. Kona, in turn, says he’d like it to be her. This absolutely makes her day, and she goes to bed positively giddy, only to be interrupted by a summons to Tarao’s hospital room, where he’s asking for her.

Once she arrives, he asks the adults to leave, apologizes for having tried to kiss her, and then tells her he’s not going to get better, and she needs to run away, because this place is “dangerous”. Is it Tokio’s special ability to manipulate surveillance footage, or is that the old woman’s robot’s doing? And even if she wanted to leave her life behind and run away, how would Tokio go about doing that? I guess we’re going to find out.

Heavenly Delusion – 03 – Sister’s Keeper

Five years ago in 2034 (a decade after the “calamity”), a girl named Takehaya Kiriko did indeed race electric go-karts in Asakusa as the stoner commune resident recalled. She was on a team led by Inazaki Robin, and lived with her little brother Haruki in a makeshift orphanage with other kids.

Haruki admired Robin, who we first meet rather violently curb-stomping two men threatening him. He also taught him not to look in the eyes of his opponents, but instead focus on their collar and the ground under one’s own feet. In a brief scene, we also see that Kiriko and the mysterious “Doc” seem to have some kind of relationship.

It’s a hard-scrabble existence, but compared to the present-day Kiruko considered that time to be akin to heaven. When Kiriko was cold at night, she was about to climb into Haruki’s bed, but an alarm for a man-eater sounds, and Haruki gets up and follows Robin (against Robin’s wishes). Little did he know that would be their last night together.

As much as Robin (and Kiriko) want to keep him out of danger, Haruki is determined to keep his sister and friends safe and make himself useful to Robin. He fashions his own crossbow, and before Kiriko’s next race he surveys the area from a vantage point.

He finds a man-eater with cloaking ability in the arcade where there are no cameras set up, and when he can’t get anyone’s attention, decides to take care of it himself. Only his pea-shooter isn’t enough against its thick hide, and when he stabs it in the “face” it grabs him and starts to suck him in.

Kiriko takes the lead in the race, and is the first to reach the arcade, where she finds a horrifying scene. She crashes her kart into the man-eater, then tears Haruki free, but his arms and legs are already gone. Kiriko holds Haruki’s body and cries for help as his life fades.

After that, things are fuzzy for Haruki, who is briefly conscious for his sister’s embrace. We get flashes of his life with her before the orphanage when it was just the two of them, and during some of the happier times thereafter. These scenes are full of nostalgia, longing, and melancholy, for they are times that will never be again.

While this is going on, the “Doc”, who one of Haruki’s friends said was doing human experimentation, seems to be doing just that to Haruki, sawing off the top of his head in a gruesome, unsanctioned operation of his own design.

After one last vision of the last time he was with his sister, where the arcade and everything around them is blood red and Kiriko walks away from him, Haruki comes to in a hospital bed…and finds himself in Kiriko’s body. Whether she had a traumatic brain injury that meant certain death, or she volunteered to donate her body to her brother, Kiriko is gone.

The other doctors talk as if it’s still Kiriko in that bed, and that due to some kind of mental break she now believes she’s the little brother she lost to the man-eater. But our omniscient POV of the operation suggests that “Doc” really did put Haruki’s brain in Kiriko’s body.

The length of Haruki’s recovery is such that by the time he can walk around, everything has changed in Asakusa. The Doc skipped town, while Robin is rumored to have either been murdered or disappeared. Haruki decides to believe he’s not dead, and longs to find both him and the Doc for answers.

Haruki assumed the name Kiruko (an apparent merging of his and his sister’s names) and began working on his own as a handyman and bodyguard-for-hire thereafter, which led to him to meeting Maru. Having heard all of this, Maru still can’t deny his attraction to Kiruko, and laments he’d never be able to find a girl with whom he gets along so well.

But now Maru and we know the truth, and what drives Kiruko—who I’ll refer to with they/them pronouns going forward. The thus far peaceful ferry ride back to Tokyo is interrupted by the arrival of another man-eater, this time resembling a fish with many human arm-like appendages. After the credits we get a little scene in “Heaven” where Kona is drawing a baby, and Kuku reports she’s seen a real baby, only “without a face”, which she believes to be normal.

It dawns on me that the drawings Kona is drawing seemingly from out of his imagination (like the fish with arms) are the man-eaters in the outside world. Is this simply a form of ESP, or is he actually conjuring these monsters through the drawings? It’s just one of many answers I’m yearning for as Kiruko and Maru hopefully have better luck finding “Heaven”.

Vanitas no Carte – 10 – Into the Maw

Upon entering Dr. Moreau’s laboratory of torture and death, Vanitas makes sure to play nice, pretending to be reuniting with his old pal. As long as they’re chatting all friendly-like, Moreau is no threat. The good doctor recalls that unlike the other children, Vanitas (or rather “69” never cried no matter how cut up or battered he got, but he’s probably got a selective memory.

Soon, the casual conversation over coffee becomes a bit too much for Noé, who slams Moreau against the table once he’s heard enough, ruining Vanitas’ plan to keep things nice and copacetic. Then again, Moreau wanted to gouge out one of Van’s eyes so he could study it, so you can’t blame Noé or Roland for wanting to mop the floor with the guy.

Unfortunately, Moreau slips away before he can divulge the “exalted one” with whom he’s currently collaborating. Spider, one of the members of Charlatan, drops in to whisk Moreau away, while one of Moreau’s most deadly experiments breaks out of its cell, looking every bit like Spirited Away’s No-Name, and with just as big an appetite.

Because this Prédateur is a monster made of shadow, Roland and his underlings’ weapons have no lasting effect. Vanitas gets slammed hard against a wall and starts to give up hope, but Noé, who doesn’t know as much about the beast as Vanitas apparently does, insists they can defeat from the inside it if they work together.

Sure enough, Noé provides cover with his fists and legs while Vanitas uses the Memoir to heal and release the child from his curse. The Prédateur turns to stone and crumbles, leaving only Vanitas, Noé, and the rescued child. After Noé admits he grossly underestimated how close they were to dying, he and Vanitas break out in spirited laughter.

Hearing a human and a vampire charms Roland so much, he decides to let Noé and Vanitas escape, using his authority as Paladin. He admits that vampires had nothing to do with this incident, and if anything, it was the Chasseur’s mess for letting Moreau operated under their noses. But more than anything, befriending Noé has turned everything Rolly believed about vampire relations on its head. No doubt he can be a valuable ally in the future.

When Vanitas and Noé finally make it back to the surface, they take a few minutes to rest, with Vanitas leaning against Noé unexpectedly. Noé wonders if it was Vanitas’ duty as a doctor and the presence of a curse-bearer that kept him involved with this incident, of if he uses his crusade to save all the vampires whether they hate him or not as a crutch to get through his days.

Clearly Vanitas suffered a good deal of trauma by Moreau’s hand; I just with Moreau wasn’t such a goofy caricature of a mad scientist. But Vanitas also seems to bear a good deal of guilt for what happened to his white-haired little brother, “Number 71”. Noé notes that while Vanitas is hell-bent on delivering salvation unto every cursed vampire, he may just be the one who needs salvation most of all.

As for Lord Ruthven apparently putting out a hit on Noé for what happened to Moreau’s lab, well…I guess I should have known a dude that powerful and mysterious was up to no good.

Vanitas no Carte – 09 – Qui Chasse Les Chasseurs?

As soon as Noé blurts out Vanitas’ name, Roland Fortis not only treats Vanitas gently and warmly, but with pity. Roland is as immune to Vanitas’ barbs as he is to the idea that a vampire who trespassed in these catacombs shouldn’t be slain. And while Roland proves he’s a tough opponent in a battle thanks to his ability-enhancing drugs and a Durandal that’s full of tricks, he’s no match for the duo of Vanitas and Noé.

Even when they’re almost constantly bickering like an old married couple, the two manage to slip away from one of the church’s most powerful chasseurs. But it isn’t Roland’s power, but his personality that rubs Vanitas entirely the wrong way. Noé can see why: Vanitas has met his match: someone who will not for one second stop being the person they are. The only difference is Roland still works within the structure of the church while Vanitas is his own master.

As they evade Roland and his underlings, Vanitas reveals why he knows his way around the labyrinthine catacombs: he basically grew up there after vampires killed his parents and the Chasseurs took him in. While they intended to train him, he caught the eye of one Doctor Moreau—yeah, that one—and became his guinea pig.

That’s a pretty dark past for our boy, and explains a lot about his reluctance to get to close to anyone, Noé included. But when Vanitas keeps making “that face”, and then decides to take one of the Chasseurs hostage, Noé objects, the two have a fight, Vanitas says more than he should, gets Noé angry enough to use him as a hostage.

Noé’s plan, while hastily hatched, ends up working perfectly, as tossing Vanitas into the air for Roland to catch ensures Roland is exactly where he wants him when he wants him there. But rather than deal a potentially killing blow, Noé holds back: and not just so he doesn’t kill Vanitas.

As Noé said before, he kinda liked the cut of Roland’s jib. So do I, now that I know his airhead act wasn’t really an act, but that he can flip a switch and enter Serious Badass Mode whenever he feels like it. Noé intentionally doesn’t seriously injure Roland because he’s hoping he can be reasoned with and a truce can be struck…and he’s right!

Despite his underlings’ objections, Roland not only decides to sit down and listen to Noé and Vanitas, but even agrees to be friends with Noé. After a lifetime of hunting and killing dangerous, insane, or downright evil vampires, Noé is a breath of fresh air, so much so that Roland can’t believe he’s really a vampire.

As for the reason Vanitas is there in the first place, Dr. Moreau is up to his old tricks, operating right under the Chasseurs who cast him out. Moreau himself seems to have a screw or two loose, and looks like Dr. Robotnik’s cousin to boot. It’s an odd choice to introduce someone who clearly traumatized Vanitas as a goofy eccentric, but that kinda also adds a layer of menace to the guy. Hes so caught up in his experimentation he’s long ago abandoned all notions of human morality.

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 09 – Nobody Is Perfect

Matters isolate quickly this week, as Chairman Takamatsu concedes that according to GEHENA and Grand Guignol, Yuri is a Huge, not a human or a Lily, and thus not under the academy’s protection. The StuCo brass goes to Riri just as she’s about to trim Yuri’s bangs, but thankfully Yuyu backs them up, giving them cover to escape.

Whatever she was to GEHENA and Grand Guignol, Yuri is clearly something else entirely now, thanks to Riri and the Legion. Yuri has also demonstrated free will, and it’s her wish to stay with everyone. Still, the government doesn’t see it that way, and orders all available Lilies to capture Yuri and arrest Riri.

Yuyu insists to Takamatsu that Yuri couldn’t possibly by a dangerous entity. The Legion sans Yuyu and Kaede makes a collective effort to support Riri and Yuri, and Yuyu soon joins them to declare that as vice commander she is going against the government’s orders. They’ll pursue Riri and Yuri and be the first to find them, and when they do, they’ll protect them from anyone who tries to take Yuri.

Kaede, whom it was hinted at could be a Guignol mole, ends up not betraying Riri and the Legion. Quite the contrary, her call to her father is to tell him she won’t soon (if ever) forgive him for getting in bed with GEHENA and causing this mess, before joining Yuyu and the others. Meanwhile Riri and Yuri find refuge in an abandoned, Huge-ravaged town.

It isn’t just Riri’s Legion who question the justifications of the government’s pursuit of Yuri. All over the search radius, groups of Lilies from Yurigaoka and other academies are all wondering the same thing: “Is Yuri a person or a Huge?” Their answer determines how they should proceed, and whether they should disobey orders. In the case of three Yurigaoka rank-in-files, the answer is obvious and unanimous: Yuri is a person.

But the government won’t take their word, nor Riri’s, nor even Chairman Takamatsu’s at face value. Their belief must be proven, and that’s what brings us to a surprisingly excellent mini-“courtroom drama” as Takamatsu is grilled before arrogant government representatives. As always, Takamatsu’s position is that the young girls who must bear the burden of combat should be afforded as much free will as possible, and Yuri is no different.

That assertion is proven beyond doubt by the absolutely clutch and badass Moshima “Weekly” Moyu, who just finished science-ing the FUCK out of this issue, and has come to the conclusion that Yuri is not a Huge; she’s Human. 99.9% human. Why not 100? Because no one is 100% human, or we’d all be exactly the same and evolution would never occur.

With the matter of what Yuri is settled, the question becomes a matter of jurisdiction and precedent. Moyu demonstrates how prepared she was for this presentation by citing a treaty their nation’s government ratified last year affording “genetically human” individuals like Yuri the same human rights as naturally born ones.

Takamatsu completes the absolute ruination of the pencil pushers by concluding that the order to arrest Riri and capture Yuri were baseless and illegitimate, and thus should be rescinded. As for Riri and Yuri, as Lilies, their punishment is his responsibility.

Riri and Yuri have some tough conversations about where Yuri belongs and what will happen if things don’t go their way, but thankfully all of that is moot when Yuyu and the rest of the Legion arrives in force, and Yuyu declares the crisis resolved. Yuri has been proven to be human, and thus is now safe. The episode could have ended here…All’s well that ends well…Let’s all celebrate over ice cream!

Well, hold on…not so fast.

Their reunion is interrupted by the emergence of the biggest, baddest, most destructive mega-Huge yet encountered, an Evangelion Angel by any other name that is not only able to control Magie, but draws a continuously replenishing supply from its nest. It demonstrates its power by focusing nine energy fields into one and condensing it into a particle beam that utterly destroys everything in its path.

The Lilies amass on the beach, and the moment Yuri understands the situation, she’s off, on her own, at blinding speed over the water, while effortlessly using a combination of Thi Mai and Gropi’s Rare Skills.

One by one she takes out the nine fields while dodging the Huge’s counterattacks, in another sequence lush with awesome sakuga. When Yuri delivers the coup-de-grace, the resulting explosion is massive and, she smiles a sad but determined smile…as it seems to consume her.

As the remains of the Huge burn offshore, Yuri’s ruined CHARM washes ashore, and Riri takes hold of it as she grieves for her sister who sacrificed herself to save everyone who fought to save her. She bitterly remarks how the day started so innocently—with her giving Yuri he first haircut. How that same day end like this?

This is without doubt the finest bloom yet in Assault Lily’s bouquet. It upended the status quo, raised the stakes to the rafters, and put all the pieces together. It employed its reliably-strong eye candy not as a crutch but to back up some truly superb character work, badass scientific research, and some smart, electric conference room sparring.

As for whether Yuri is really dead, that’s something I’m not yet ready to concede with a certainty. It depends on several factors. Will Assault Lily get a second season? After all those lengthy introductions and lighter, quieter early episodes, I truly hope so…I’ve finally memorized everyone in Riri’s Legion!

Second cour or no, it isn’t even about Assault Lily’s “courage” or “guts” to keep an apparently killed key character dead. If it can come up with a good reason to bring her back, I’m all for it. Like she was for Riri and everyone else, Yuri was taken away far too soon.

Assault Lily: Bouquet – 08 – Field Day at the Garden

Yuri is assigned her ring and CHARM, making her an official Yurigaoka Lily in addition to being the new talk-of-the-academy. The Student Council is weary of arming her, but as far as the (Acting) Chairman is concerned, until new information comes to light, Yuri is as entitled to defend herself as any Lily.

While lounging on their bunks, Shizu reveals that she’s already thinking about the war that could follow the defeat of the Huge: a return of humans fighting each other. Now that humanity has found Magie, what will they (or to be more precise, its shadier elements) do with it?

Shizu ultimately apologizes to Lily for being so somber, especially on the eve of Yurigaoka’s athletic festival. But as Yuri senses with her nose, all the Lilies are carrying a measure of sadness due to their roles as sole defenders of mankind. Athletics aside, there’s also a mood-lightening cosplay division for which the Legion decides Yujia is best suited.

The sports day is an opportunity for outside onlookers to infiltrate academy grounds and observe their defenders; the Chairman calls them “voyeurs” but orders the StuCo only to “take care of them” if they overstep their established bounds. Like the Lilies of the academy, all outsiders’ eyes seem to be fixed on Yuri, so what better way to keep her safe than keep her in the spotlight?

Yuri (re-)learns defeat in her first game to an elite first-year. Rokkaku Shiori shows off her dual-CHARM-wielding skills, while second and first years demonstrate new CHARM mods from the Arsenal Division. Gropi ends up beating her rival Tanaka Ichi in the target-blasting game by using her Phase Transcendence.

This has the side-effect of draining all Gropi’s Magie for the day, so someone else must fight Moyu’s special “Huge-roid”, which she makes clear she designed to defeat Gropi. Instead, it’s Yuri who faces off, and shows off the same stance as her big sis and unofficial Schutzengel, Riri.

Riri is as worried as a flustered mother hen about dropping Yuri into a veritable lion’s den, but her own Schutzengel Yuyu tells her to calm down and watch, as she once watched her. All the Lilies cheer her on and yell advice her way, and in a gorgeously-choreographed and animated sequence, Yuri defeats the Huge-roid with both ease, grace, and style.

It ends up being Riri crying tears of pride and relief and Yuri comforting her, while Tazusa swoons at the cosplay division-winning Yujia’s cat pose. All in all it’s a successful festival; no real Huge interrupted, and Yuri was kept safe while Moyu was able to gather quite a bit of new data about her.

Moyu makes her report to the Chairman, and sure enough, Yuri is an odd one; average human woman at first glance, but all too normal, as in lacking any of the usual slight abnormalities all humans possess. This jibes with a report the Chairman received from both Grand Guignol and the research institute G.E.H.E.N.A. of a joint “test subject” lost at sea.

The two organizations claim Yuri was born from Huge stem cells—a Synthetic Lily. This is not only super illegal but super immoral, but the groups came clean about it anyway because they are demanding she be returned. The Chairman notes that his purview is limited to educating and protecting humans, so if Yuri isn’t human, the law says he must turn her over.

That brings us to Kaede, the daughter of the Chairman of Grand Guignol, calling her father in the middle of the night. Has she been a Guignol plant, and all of her fawning over Riri been an act? Or is she turning traitor now only because her father’s prized test subject has mistakenly fallen into Yurigaoka’s custody?

For now, I’m inclined to believe the latter is the case. Even if Kaede wasn’t always a spy for her father, she clearly takes deep pride in being her father’s daughter, and her loyalty to him may simply trump her loyalty to anyone else, even Riri and her Legion. If that’s the case, Yuri could be in grave danger.

Akudama Drive – 07 – The Offering

As the elevator to Brother and Sister’s destination rises out of the debris, Hoodlum reunites with the others, proudly reporting to have stabbed the Apprentice to avenge his brother, Brawler, who didn’t make it. When Brother is flippant about there being casualties on the job, Hoodlum almost loses it, but Swindler once again plays the peacemaker, and his temper subsides.

At the end of the elevator’s descent they reach Expo Park, a sprawling abandoned underground amusement park. Bunny and Shark cut in to tell us it was built before the war to preserve the culture of Old Kansai, but ominously notes that “there are some things better left not known”. The siblings’ ultimate destination is a rocket that Brother says will convey him and his Sister to a base on the Moon, where they’ll be safe.

That’s when we learn from Brother that he and his sister are the result of human experiments at Kyushu Plant to create immortal humans. Between them they are the product of 5,555 other siblings who were sacrificed in one horrific way or another to make the two of them possible.

I’m reminded of any number of anime in which humans and innocent kids in particular are treated brutally by an unseen, unfeeling scientific villain. Brother wakes up in a lab in a puddle of blood that grows bigger and bigger until one day the gym once full of siblings is empty.

That’s when the “Headmaster” reports that he was a successful experiment. They go on to make one more, Sister, and the two of them will be sent to Kanto as an “offering”, with mass production to follow. But their “Professor”, an AI in an artificial cat body, took pity on them and allowed them to escape on the Shinkansen. The rest of their story we know.

With that, Brother deposits a billion yen in each of the surviving Akudama’s accounts and deactivates their bomb collars, and prepare to board the rocket. Swindler gives them a farewell hug with the wish that maybe someday they’ll see each other again and eat more yummy takoyaki together.

Then, as the siblings ascend to the rocket’s hatch, Sister is stabbed in the throat…with one of Doctor’s scalpels. She’s fine, but she grabs Brother, making her meaning plain: she’s sold them and everyone else out to the Executioners.

A huge contingent of them suddenly swarm the launch pad and surround the Akudama. When Swindler asks Doctor why, the Doctor coldly declares she doesn’t owe her or anyone a goddamn thing. In exchange for her delivering the “offerings”, Boss removes Doctor’s Akudama status; she’ll no longer be on the run. Boss also tells Brother that the “Moon” they see in the sky is a mere holo-illusion; the real moon was destroyed in the war.

Brother bites Doctors hand and breaks free, while Courier and Cutthroat fight off the swarming Executioners—the latter particularly concerned with Swindler’s safety. He gets cut up pretty bad (which spells trouble considering their medic has defected) but ultimately ends up buying time for Swindler and the siblings.

Brother takes hold of Swindler and leads her and Sister into the rocket just as the countdown reaches zero. The rocket successfully launches with Swindler and Sister inside. Brother probably feels better to have at least protected half of the 5,555 siblings who died for them than none at all.

As for where the rocket is headed, who can say? The episode ends with it trailing away from what’s left of the moon—though perhaps its course takes the earth’s rotation into account. Even if they reach the moon, there surely isn’t anything there but death…but that wouldn’t be any different from the Executioner-infested launch pad.

First Hacker split off, then Brawler died, and now Doctor has stabbed everyone in the back. It remains to be seen if the Executioners either claim or scatter the remaining team of Courier, Cutthroat, and Hoodlum. Much like the war shattered the moon, the show has blown its group dynamic to smithereens. We’ll have to wait and see where the pieces land.

Elfen Lied – 04 – Remembering a Strange Dream

Poor Nana never had a chance.

Not just when it came to going toe-to-toe with Lucy, but throughout her tortured existence. All but brainwashed by Kurama to do his bidding as some kind of superhuman replacement daughter, Nana sought his approval any way she could, whether it was taking on the task of bringing Lucy in, to going beyond her mandate and trying to punish Lucy for the trouble she caused.

All the while, Nana and Lucy would be on the same side, as both are victims of the utterly inhuman research Kurama and his criminal ilk have been undertaking. Instead, Nana is Kurama’s puppet, giving Lucy no choice but to turn against her own kind to preserve her freedom.

Nana’s vectors may be longer, but Lucy’s pack a bigger punch, and she’s more experienced in their use. But none of her shortcomings matter to Nana: she has a job to do and she’s going to do it…or die.

Things reach a boiling point between Kouta and Yuka, with the latter sick and tired of him talking about nobody but Nyu, Nyu, Nyu. She slugs him and runs off, but later regrets it, considering Kouta is suffering and Nyu is little more than a young child in need of care and guidance, and definitely not a romantic rival.

Then there’s Mayu, whom Yuka sees getting her daily bag of free bread crusts on which to live. Mayu ends up witnessing the battle between Lucy and Nana and tries to get them to stop fighting. Nana, not willing to cause collateral casualties, withdraws her vectors from Lucy, giving Lucy an opening to relieve Nana of her arms and legs in what is, and is supposed to be, a sickening spectacle.

Kurama and his men arrive, surrounding Lucy, but she manages to slip away, leaving Kurama with a critically wounded but still conscious Nana. He can’t very well scold her for disobeying orders, since he knows all she ever wanted to do was please him and make him proud, like any daughter would.

While transporting her back to the lab, Kurama receives a summons from his boss, Secretary Shirakawa. Yuka manages to run into Lucy, who has transformed back into Nyu, and Yuka realizes she erred in being jealous of her.

Mayu, whom Lucy tossed into a tree for safety during the battle, ends up in the hospital, and calls Kouta to pick her up, since she clearly has no one else. The two arrive at Kouta’s house to find both Yuka and Nyu home, and the four have dinner together. Yuka and Kouta agree that the homeless Mayu should spend the night, considering they have plenty of rooms to spare.

Shirakawa orders Kurama to kill Nana, as she’s no longer useful to their plans. It’s a gut-wrenching scene, and I wept bitter tears for poor Nana, a gentle soul who was never given a chance. It’s apparent Kurama also grieves for Nana, but the fact is he played an active role in her lifelong bondage and suffering, as well as that of Lucy who knows how many others. I for one hope he pays for that at some point.

Perhaps Nana’s early exit was a mercy; who knows what further carnage and torment await Lucy and other Dicloniï, representing both the future of humanity and the manifestation of their collective sins.

Elfen Lied – 03 – Unlucky Number Seven

When Yuka walks in on Kouta undressing Nyu, a lot of things must run through her head. While it makes sense to get soaked clothes off someone before they catch cold, Nyu is also a beautiful woman, and one with serious mental differences. Yuka’s initial thoughts probably dwell on how bad it looks. But on a more basic level, Yuka doesn’t want Kouta doing anything with another woman, whether it’s harmless or not. As far as she’s concerned, Kouta belongs to her.

A lot of questions ran through my head during Chief Kurama’s encounter with Nana in her detention cell. Like “why is she naked?” or “why is she drenched in blood?”, or “how long has she been like this?”. The exact nature of her situation is kept pretty vague, but suffice it to say Nana has lived her whole life in the facility, enduring what amounts to unspeakable torture with a smile.

As such, Nana knows no other life, and no other comfort but Kurama as her “father”. So she’ll do anything for him…except kill. Instead, she’ll try to detain Lucy for him if she can. All she asks for in return is his necktie, which she uses to conceal her horns.

Yuka tries to stay away from the house where watching Kouta with Nyu causes her so much discomfort owing to her Deep Feelings for him (incidentally, the episode’s title). But when she drops off some of her clothes for Nyu, she finds Kouta has caught cold from his beach excursion, and Nyu is absolutely helpless to care for him.

Back at the lab, Kurama speaks to Bondo about undergoing castration…which is probably not what he should have started off with. He then describes who and what it was that Bondo lost so badly to, and the reason castrating him might save humanity: Lucy can “reproduce” through her vectors, causing the mutation in whomever she touches with him. In that way, she and her kind could one day overrun humanity as we know it.

Yuka decides that if Kouta won’t take Lucy to the authorities, then she’ll just move in to keep an eye on both of them. She puts Kouta to work cleaning up the house, and Nyu is eager to pitch in. That’s when Mayu, the runaway girl with the dog, shows up with Kouta’s umbrella. He has many questions about that night on the beach with Nyu and the soldier.

Nyu ends up slipping and falling, and whether due to the impact of the fall or the music box that plays the show’s theme song (or both…or neither), she reverts back to Lucy. She comes this close to killing Kouta with her Vectors before a flash of a younger Kouta stops them dead. Lucy runs outside, and for a moment the show makes us wonder if she killed Mayu’s cute puppy. It turns out she just set it free, but it soon runs back to Mayu.

As Yuka tries to talk to Kouta about whether he has any feelings at all for her (he seems to have lost a lot of the memories of the two of them that she cherishes), Lucy wanders off, eventually encountering Nana, whom she sensed was coming. Kurama’s underlings don’t think Nana is any match for Lucy, but Lucy’s problem is she never knows when she’s going to devolve back into Nyu…and Nyu isn’t a match for anyone.

Elfen Lied – 02 – One Or the Other

Things would have been so much easier—and far less bloodily—if Kouta hadn’t gotten angry and scared Nyu off. Instead, Bando and his tactical team arrive, and Bando is not particularly interested in anything other than killing the target. After the cops visit his house, Kouta somehow manages to get to Nyu first and tries to run away with her, but Bando gun-whips him and captures the target.

Yuka also briefly talks to the cops before tracking down Kouta, who is still dazed on the beach. Bando drags Nyu to another location, but when she won’t fight back he grows bored and orders his subordinate to kill her instead, since those are their orders. Instead, Nyu turns back into Lucy and does her thing, relieving the grunt of his chest, arm, head—you name it, she slices it off.

Suddenly intrigued, Bando tries to fight Lucy, but it’s really no contest; not when she’s tossing boats around and none of his bullets hit her. The fun ends when she closes the distance between them to the range of her telekinesis, and it’s seemingly game over, as she slices off his arm and gouges out his eyes. But Bando is spared when she suddenly turns back into Nyu.

Nyu runs off, and a young woman with a puppy finds the maimed Bando and runs for help. But when she returns, he’s gone. After a very brief stay in the hospital, Kouta takes a taxi and bids Yuka goodnight, only to find a soaked Nyu at his front door with a new shell to replace the one she broke.

Yuka returns just as Kouta is getting Nyu out of her wet clothes to keep her from catching cold, while the head researcher and his #2 prepare to deploy another human experiment like Lucy to go after her—a naked and bloody subject called “#7.”

Once again Elfen Lied delivers extensive blood and boobs, but if you’ve watched, say, True Blood (which didn’t premiere until four years after this show) you’re likely as desensitized as I am. What struck me more was just how much of a boorish asshole Bando was (and will likely continue to be, as he’s not dead yet), as well as the apparent heartlessness of the lab coats. Kouta may have messed up last week, but maybe now he understands how much Nyu needs him in her current state.

Elfen Lied – 01 – A Study in Extremis

The haunting opening credits feature Latin vocals and Klimt-inspired art, a blending of the sacred and the profane. A research subject breaks free of her industrial-strength restraints and goes on a harrowing homicidal rampage, lifting neither arm nor finger but utilizing a kind of telekinesis to relieve both guard and functionary of their heads and/or various limbs.

Every effort to stop or slow her steady march ends the same way: an abundance of blood and viscera staining an otherwise cold and sterile environment. She is finally seemingly neutralized by a shot to the head from an anti-tank round, and falls at least fifty feet into the inky ocean. But, of course this isn’t the end of Lucy…it’s only the beginning…of Elfen Lied.

Why am I watching and reviewing this show, which aired fifteen years ago in the season before Bleach premiered? Many reasons: A look at a show I missed because I wasn’t even into anime back then; a means of complementing today’s crisper, cleaner, and overall safer anime; and mere curiosity in a show notorious and controversial for its transgressive content; a show nearly as many people hate as love.

Also, it’s a show that gives you those first ten minutes, then follows it up by switching gears completely. What follows is a mundane, low-key romantic comedy without a hint of the supernatural horror or military intrigue of the prologue. College student Yuka meets up with her same-aged cousin Kouta in Kamakura, and end up on the beach reminiscing about his departed little sister, Kaede.

That’s when Yuka notices something, or rather someone quite out of place: a buck naked woman with pink hair: the research subject Lucy. Due to her head injury, she seems to have reverted to the developmental state of a young child, and can only say one word—nyu—which they eventually decide to name her.

Since Yuka and Kouta are decent folk, they do what anyone would do: offer Nyu clothes and then shelter at the otherwise vacant ten-room inn where Kouta and Yuka will be living. She confirms her developmental state by being unable to adequately communicate she has to use the bathroom, and relieves herself on the floor of the foyer.

As Lucy has profoundly changed and entered a profoundly different world than the lab where she no doubt lived and suffered for quite a while, her handlers are already planning an operation to hunt her down and eliminate her, as the lab’s chief researcher declares that an unbound Lucy in the outside world would spell the “end of mankind”.

Bando, the man they choose to lead the manhunt, is about as heartless and despicable as they come. He’s bored with simulated kills, slaps the shit out of unwitting assistants, and desires nothing but the opportunity to kill without restraint. In effect, he’s a “Lucy” by choice. In any case, he surely won’t hold his fire just because Lucy isn’t quite herself.

After sharing a meal of onigiri with Yuka and Nyu, Kouta takes out a shell that he keeps as a memento of his deceased sister, who died suddenly of an illness. Nyu interprets his connection to the shell as something making him sad (not necessarily wrong) and breaks it into pieces, throwing Kouta into a rage. He shouts and fumes and tells her to get out, and she does.

Returning to the now rain-soaked spot of beach where they found her, Nyu stares out into the ocean and tears start to fall from her eyes, as Bando & Co. close in on her via helicopter. Roll Credits.

* * *

Elfen Lied is a compelling blast from the past with a first episode that packs a vicious punch in its first act before easing into its more domestic latter two. It’s an exploration of extremes, be it between Lucy and Nyu, the research facility and the sleepy Japanese town, the blunt lethality of Bando and innocence of Kouta, and yes, the warmth of human flesh and blood and the chill of metal and concrete.

It sets things up superbly for one hell of a clash of worlds and personalities—between parties that seek to simply live their quiet little lives, and those who seek to end a life, before, as they claim, it threatens to end all life. Having no previous knowledge of Elfen Lied or where it goes, a great start is no indication of a great anime, but most definitely warrants further viewing.