Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen – 07 – Mall of the Damned

Now that we’re up to speed on the horrific circumstances of her past and torturous circumstances of her present, what does the future hold for Kamiki Izumo? Can she, like, maybe catch a fucking break at some point? The last couple weeks have made clear that she’s not just a prisoner of the Illuminati, but also convinced she is the only one who can and must bear this awful fate.

As she’s walked in cuffs down a long hall to her eventual doom, All Izumo can do is laugh and try to mess with Mr. Pink Hair, asking if he’s enjoying this. When he says there’s a chance she can walk away from this if everything goes well, she tells him there’s no hope for her: she’s a dead girl walking regardless of the results.

Her nihilistic attitude only lasts as long as the corridor, for when they reach Gedouiin she makes such a big loud outburst she’s able to swipe the pen from a guard, stab them with it, then cut herself with the spring and summon Uke and Mike.

When they tell her that people from the Order are coming to rescue her, she doesn’t want to hear it. The only one she’s relying on is herself and her foxes. She’ll escape, find Tsukumo, and get her to safety. It’s a terrible plan with little to no chance of success.

Pheles leaves the operation in Yukio’s hands, promising backup at some point but unable to tell them when. Inari Peace Town is full of brainwashed people who eat all day, like the pigs in Spirited Away. They’re then bussed off to a mall, for some unknown purpose. While Rin and the others ate food from Inari Peace Town, they’re saved from its effects thanks to Shiemi’s medicinal herb sandwiches.

Once they get past the first few guards and infiltrate the creepily deserted mall, they learn what happens to the people bussed there: They become Gedouiin’s experiments. The ones that fail become zombies, and he’s unleashed those zombies onto Yukio, Rin, & Co.

While the general zombie mall atmosphere is pretty creepy, it can’t really compete with, say, Jujutsu Kaisen, especially when the spooky zombies in question are lame CG models, some of which have identical blood splattering on their tunics. Some hand drawn stuff would pack more of a punch.

When Gedouiin learns that Rin and Yukio are among the Order intruders, he changes up his strategy, ordering the floor of the mall opened and all the intruders shunted into the foreboding-sounding “feeding area.” Feeding what fell beasts, I ask?

Izumo, flanked by an Uke and Mike determined to protect her they disobey her orders, try their best, but Shima is able to summon a demon that not only disperses the fox spirits, but eliminates them. Just like that, the foxes Izumo thought of as brothers are gone from her life.

Her spirit newly-crushed, Izumo is re-shackled and her long walk to her doom continues. As for Shima, if he wasn’t before, he’s truly an irredeemable villainous scum now, right?

As if the zombies whose head wounds healed wasn’t enough, now the exorcists are separated in different dark places, next to some kind of horrendous beasts that are excited for food. Rin recalls Shima telling him he’s going to have to be okay with killing humans if he’s going to have any chance going forward. The time for wavering and half-measures is over.

Saving Izumo means Rin will have to do a lot of horrible things and will have to live with himself. Even then, so as long as Tsukumo is in the enemy’s clutches, Izumo doesn’t even want to be saved. It’s just a big old downer. The good guys need a win somewhere in the worst way. Hopefully they can score one next week.

Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen – 06 – Outfoxed

This week is given over entirely to the story of Kamiki Izumo’s childhood—if you can call it that—and it’s a tough watch, even during its more comedic moments. At no point does anyone in this episode treat Izumo like the child she is. We open with her ostensible mother, Tamamo, crying on her shoulder about Souji, Izumo and Tsukumo’s father. Meanwhile, all of the household duties are handled by the foxes, who love Tamamo unconditionally.

That’s because no one in the long line of Kamiki Tamamos throughout the centuries has performed a more powerful or beautiful dance of appeasement before the Killing Stone, where the Fox of Nine Tails dwells. Even Izumo is in awe of Tamamo when she’s doing her dance, even if the rest of the time she’s a complete train wreck of a mother unable to subordinate her forbidden love of the high priest Souji for anyone, even her daughters.

Tamamo takes every opportunity she can to pawn Tsukumo off onto Izumo, who must serve as a surrogate mother while she hangs out with Souji. When Izumo is at school, she has to leave Tsukumo in the care of other priestesses, who consider the girls bastards who sully the shrine. She’s made fun of and isolated at school for being able to see fox spirits. It’s a lot for a little girl, but this is Izumo; even she smells something shady-af when reps from Illuminati roll up to ask her some questions about the Killing Stone.

Even so, Izumo takes the business card of Illuminati’s Yoshida Maria, just in case she needs advice from someone else who can see what they call “demons.” As for Tamamo, she is responsible for appeasing the Nine Tails, a job that requires extreme emotional focus and stability. All that is destroyed with a few words from Souji, who as high priest should’ve really known better. When Tamamo asks if he’ll visit their children, he says he doesn’t want to, and if she keeps bringing it up, he’ll stop letting her visit him.

In the present, Izumo can’t stop blaming herself for everything that happened that has placed her and her sister in such a predicament. But she’s wrong. This is the fault of one person, and one person only: Souji. He sent Tamamo over the deep end, and eventually the Nine Tails took advantage of her heartbreak, anger, and despair, and possessed her, and transforming her into a murderous demon. That night, it’s all Izumo can do to run off while the foxes protect Tsukumo from Tamamo. She doesn’t even have time to put shoes on.

Izumo calls the only person in the world she can call: Maria, who takes her and Tsukumo to Illuminati, while her Nine Tails-ified mother is captured. Maria promises they’ll all be taken care of and protected from Holy Cross, who will want to eliminate Tamamo on site. But Maria isn’t in charge of Illuminati, and even though Izumo eventually comes to trust her a little bit, Maria never had the power or authority to make any such promises.

When Maria learns how mistaken she was about what goes on here, how much torture Tamamo is undergoing, and how Gedouiin plans to experiment on Tsukumo next, she make another unilateral call and has Tsukumo whisked away for adoption. When she did that, she automatically ruined any chance of Izumo trusting her ever again, no matter how good her intentions. Izumo asks if Maria will keep her cell door unlocked while she’s gone. She does, and Izumo leaves the room and is caught.

Once again, Izumo is subjected to sights and sounds a child should never see or hear, as Maria is beaten and begs for her life, only to be injected with an experimental immortality elixir that kills her after a few moments of unspeakable agony. The grotesque mad scientist Gedouiin is fearsome in his anger, and drunk with the absolute power bestowed upon him by Lucifer himself. Gedouiin doesn’t mince words with Izumo: submit to him entirely and he’ll leave Tsukumo alone … for a bit.

It’s a shit deal, and even young Izumo probably knows it, but she also knows it’s the best deal she’s going to get from this true demon in human skin. If becoming the next Nine Tails vessel will keep Tsukumo safe for a year, a month, or even just a day, she’ll do it.

Because if there’s one thing she learned in these hellish few weeks of her so-called childhood, it’s that she can’t rely on anyone. Not her mother, not Tamamo, and not Shima or Rin or Shiemi or Yukio. The gang rescuing her from Gedouiin and the Illuminati is one thing. Freeing her from the soul-crushing belief that she’s on her own in this wretched world, and always will be? That’ll be a far tougher task.

Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen – 05 – On the Back Foot

“An unfamiliar ceiling…”

Both True Cross in general and the Exwires in particular are in a bad way. The former, decimated into disarray by the Illuminati’s Seraphim and scrambling to pick up the pieces. The latter, deeply shaken by Shima’s betrayal and Izumo’s kidnapping. The dark dream that precedes her waking up in a stark laboratory does not bode well for her immediate or eventual safety.

Thanks to Takara planting a doll on Izumi, he can pinpoint her location, so the other Exwires are off to find her. That means heading to her hometown of Inari in Shimane Prefecture. It also means Rin and Shiemi flying on an airplane for the first time, and Shiemi making everyone what amounts to grass sandwiches. The little travelouge snippets of their journey are fun, but felt misguided considering the seriousness of Izumi’s plight.

One scene that does resonate well involves Rin dropkicking Bon in the back for being so gloomy. Bon is upset like everyone else that Shima betrayed them, since Shima is family to him. Konekomaru feels the same frustration because his failure to see Shima’s hidden intentions reflects badly on his future as an Exorcist advisor. Rin is grateful Bon and the others didn’t give up on him, so whatever they end up doing about Shima, they’ll do it together.

While the group has their jolly jaunt and try to stay positive, Izumo’s nightmare deepens, as her mother is wheeled in looking like a barely-alive mummy, bandaged and deteriorating from head to toe, clearly the victim of horrible torture.

Then a horrible porcine-looking little mad scientist Izumo identifies as Gedouiin trots in, reporting he’s gotten everything he can out of her mother, and must now choose another Izumo woman. If the choice is between Izumo and her little sister Tsukumo, there is no choice.

Really, gang? Shouldn’t you get to rescuin’?

Going from the sickening body horror and the promise of similar horrors in store for Izumo to the gang digging in to Inari’s delicious local food is some serious tonal whiplash. I get Rin wanting to keep everyone’s spirits up, but there’s just no urgency to their journey. It feels like they’re on vacation or on a field trip rather than doing everything in their (admittedly limited) power to locate and rescue Izumo.

Even worse, Izumo doesn’t want to be rescued. She can’t be, because then Gedouiin will just use her sister. While she accepts this, she doesn’t let Shima slink away without some kind of explanation for why he betrayed her and the others. His explanation: that he simply “got tired” of the whole cram school milieu, is underwhelming to say the least. Is he putting on the brave heel face on purpose here, or does he have a long game in mind?

I don’t know; all I know is he’s able to get Izumo to admit that they’re the same; that they’re both traitors, even though that’s nonsense. Yes, Izumo has been unable to tell anyone, even Paku, the deepest secrets about her past, because she’s never been able to completely trust anyone.

While Shima has justified that position, it’s also a product of her extremely fucked up family situation, which we’ll get into more next week thanks to Takara summoning Izumo’s familiar into a fox doll. Until then, I’m hoping the outsized goofiness of the gang is a sign that they’ve ultimately got this, and they’ll find a way to bring Izumo home without sacrificing her sister.

Kyousougiga – 10 (Fin)

Koto and Myoue travel to the celestial plane and meet their grandfather, God, who tells them they’ll be the ones to replace Inari, who will then disappear. Not liking the sound of that Koto and Myoue leave the plane and travel through a time continuum until she finds Inari and Lady Koto and busts in with her hammer. As she beats up Inari for being selfish, Myoue restores Lady Koto. God agrees that the thirteenth plane will be allowed to exist, while Inari will not disappear and remain with his family.

Just as it always announced at the start of every episode (or in this case, at the end), Kyousougiga was a story of love, life, and rebirth; with the latter two being possible because of the first, a love that started with a rabbit that became a beautiful woman. Inari states that before her, he merely wandered the world aimlessly, separate from it. Lady Koto and their children became his real world, and the start of his real life. He went on to make a common mistake family heads often make, out of stubbornness and obligation: to arrange the future in which his offspring would live; a future that didn’t include him, as he’d pass his duties to them.

Armed with the wherewithal to challenge his unilateral decisions was Koto. Just as she wanted to spend a little more time with Myoue before carrying out his death wish, Koto loved her father too much to let him quietly disappear. This results in climactic celestial family squabble, and ultimately, a happy ending for all. Inari meant the transfer of his heart and soul to be his final act of love to his children, but the only love Koto wanted was to experience the love of her family all in one piece, including him, sharing sunsets, meals, and other good times.

For all its whimsical extravagance of its fantastical setting, Kyousougiga always remained true to its staunchly human, immanently relatable themes of love and family. It was a story that left us as warm and fuzzy as, well, a rabbit.

Rating: 8 (Great)
Final Cumulative Rating: 8.400
MyAnimeList Score (as of 12/22/13): 8.08

Kyousougiga – 09

Koto pleads her case with the chief priest that the mirror world should survive. She doesn’t make any headway, but Inari embraces and praises her for becoming “the other [him he] always wanted”. He stabs her with his sword, putting her in a trance, and she starts to destroy all of the planes. Myoue wakes up in a cave with Kyouko and Kurama, who tells him he was always supposed to rule the mirrored city alone when he was ready. Armed with the beads that contain the power of creation, Myoue rushes to find Koto, snaps her out of her trance, to create a new beginning together.

It only comes as a minor surprise that Inari is indeed a god, the brother of the cheif priest, who was tasked with creating the twelve planes and looking over them for their “lazy dad.” Inari got bored with that existence and a bit too creative, resulting the thirteenth plane, which was outside of his mandate. When he finally returned, preceded by Koto, it was to put an end to the current order of things and start over. He instigated the end, which is in progress as of the end of this episode, while it’s up to Myoue to see to it there’s something after that end. As Kurama tells him in a subterranean pep talk, the world won’t change if he doesn’t.

Kurama’s always been the one to deliver him cold truths, from the time he says he and Yase are “false siblings” to the day their parents leave. It’s fitting that the big bro, false or not, is there to give a sulking Myoue a slap in the face. For so long Myoue’s been fixated on the past and his own denied death. But the truth is that life is gone and won’t be coming back. But he does have Koto, and his prayer beads, and he won’t let everything end the way Inari has set things up…”probably”. Inari pulls a bit of an infodump early on, and the score goes big and movie-like, almost bordering on sappy at times, but after last week’s standoff it’s good to see things on the right track to a favorable conclusion.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Kyousougiga – 07

Koto returns safely to the Mirrored City with her mother Lady Koto in tow. After a reunion and tour of the city, Lady Koto says it’s time for her to go back, surprising everyone. She tells Koto to help her older brother Myoue, but later that night a distraught Koto breaks down in Myoue’s room. Meanwhile, a portal opens in Kurama’s temple, and Koto’s first “sensei” Inari emerges. He arrives at Myoue’s house and removed his mask revealing himself as the original Myoue, Yakushimaru’s adoptive father. As a result of his entrance, the Mirrored City starts to disintigrate.

For something as momentous as Myoue, Yase, Kurama and Koto’s mother returning after who knows how many years away, her return is surprisingly low-key. Koto and Yase are the ones most outwardly excited, but Myoue and Kurama are more reserved. She’s glad everyone is all right, is pleased with what they’ve done with the place, and asks forgiveness for being gone so long. But she doesn’t solve everyone’s problems; in fact, she creates totally new ones. The original Myoue must’ve sensed her arrival and came back himself, causing serious damage to the drawing in the real world and thus the Mirrored City.

So what, is he the bad guy all of a sudden? Is he improvising, or was this all part of his original plan? Did he even have a plan? Is the city toast? There are just three more episodes to answer those pressing questions, but for now, despite the foreboding tone of the ending, we’ll be cautiously optimistic. After all, the family is finally back together; how could that be bad? Also of note this week: Koto finally protesting being constantly used and asked to do things when nobody is willing to give her any answers about her past. With her sensei back in the picture, that might change.

Rating: 9 (Superior)

Kyousougiga – 02

This episode documents the young Koto’s life prior to entering the Mirrored Kyoto and becoming the ward of Myoue. Abandoned at a very young age, she was taken in and trained by Inari (AKA “The Fox”), and despite early complaints by his peers, she proves to have a great deal of talent. When Koto suddenly appears in the Mirrored Kyoto with her two familiars, A and Un, the Council of Three (the siblings Kurama, Myoue, and Yase), they debate whether she is related to them, or could actually be the reincarnation of their mother, who shares her name and eyes.

It’s just a fact of anime that whenever there are two characters with identical eye color (in an anime where not all characters have the same eye color, that is), it almost always means they’re related. So it’s no coincidence that lil’ Koto has the same red eyes as the departed Lady Koto or Myoue Shounin, just like it’s no coincidence that Inari also has the same color eyes. The narrator in the very first moments of the episode is also quite clear: “This is the story of one family’s love and rebirth.” Meaning Inari and Koto could well be Shounin and Lady Koto, reborn.

Mind you, the episode doesn’t come right out and confirm anything one way or the other, while the dream-like sequences of Koto and Inari in the secret room with the drawings of Mirror Kyoto and Koto the rabbit don’t make things much clearer. But whether she’s Myoue/Kurama/Yase’s mother or sister, she’s definitely a member of their family. Her appearance represents a sea change, both in their lives and in the world they preside over. The first major change since their parents left. We’ll see how each of them end up dealing with it.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Kyousogiga – 01

For this newest version of Kyousogiga – the first having aired last December and the first of five episodes to air this year – we’ll forgo a synopsis, for two reasons. First; was less than ten minutes long. Second; we wouldn’t know where to begin. We’re not that well-versed in Doctor Who lore, we do know that the TARDIS is a vehicle that is small on the outside – a police box – and massively huge on the inside – containing all the amenities a Doctor would need for his travels. This >10min. episode reminded us of the TARDIS: within its tiny dimensions resides an entire universe.

A lot happens in that >10 min. A lot is covered. Could we make any sense of it, beyond the vague notion of a girl growing up strong and striking out in the world in search of her mother? No, but that’s not the point as we see it. The point is to just sit back and enjoy the artistry, the whimsy, the creativity. The point is to experience a lot in a little sliver of time. To see whole worlds and alternate worlds as through a microscope, but only a taste; a small glimpse. For this >10 min. window, we were transported somewhere else: somewhere we hope to learn more of in subsequent episodes.

Rating: 8 (Great)