Kiznaiver – 12 (Fin)

Nori has gone over the deep end, driven by the convictions she’s been developing since the Kizuna System was begun. It’s a flawed philosophy that everyone will be hunky-dory if only they shared each others pain, with her specifically.

She’s not going to stop, so it’s up to Katsuhira to stop her by setting the record straight about just what friendship and love are and what causes them (hint: not the Kizuna System). Nico leads the rest of the Kiznaivers in backing up Katsuhira.

What seemed to be a far larger-scale operation, with the power going out, the bridge retracting, a random explosion, and Nori’s plan to connect everyone, turns out to be a lot smaller in the end: Nori on top of the bridge, Katsuhira climbing up to meet her, and a long and emotionally pitched conversation about why she’s wrong and should let go of the pain.

Whenever Nori counters one of Kacchon’s arguments, either Kacchon or one of his friends has the answer. The Kizuna System didn’t make them friends, or make Kacchon fall in love with Nori; it was merely a facilitation; a nudge in the direction of one another.

After that, even after they were disconnected, the Kiznaivers cared about each other, what they thought, and even if they didn’t quite understand immediately, sought to understand, even if it caused them emotional pain. Nori doesn’t need Kizuna, and she never did; she just had to learn what it was to truly be friends with someone, something she never had the opportunity to do.

Because she was alone before Kizuna and not alone after, she made the corrolation that Kizuna could cure all the ails of the world. But it’s not that simple. Honoka puts it best: it’s not a constant connection, but a constant cycle of distancing out of frustration and coming together due to new epiphanies about one another. The former Kiznaivers aren’t friends in spite of no longer sharing each other’s physical pain, but because of it.

Once Kacchon reaches Nori, headbutts her (accidentally or not), and they go into the drink, the resulting plunge is a kind of new revelation for Nori. Now, at last, she can start letting go of everyone else’s pain, knowing they won’t disappear.

Indeed, post pain release, her painless friends start to gradually “wake up” from their catatonia. Thankfully, the episode does not go into excruciating detail abotu the exact mechanism whereby Nori makes all this possible, but suffice it to say she’s on the right track now.

Just as gradual but steady will be the other Kiznaivers and how they interact with one another. Honoka seems willing to give Yuta a try (or at least tease him about it), Chodori has to admit she’s been thinking about Tenga a lot lately (to his delight), and Nico is willing to play the long game against Chidori for Tenga’s heart, cheered on by Hisomu (who likes the sound of that potential fistfight).

As for Nori, she didn’t get as messed up by the fall off the bridge as Kacchon, but there’s no doubt it was a transformative experience, asking Kacchon what he’s thinking (because she doesn’t know), smiling, and possibly even preparing to lean in for a kiss—until the rest of the gang bursts in.

PDA aside, that gang seems willing to bring Nori into their circle, and it’s Honoka of all people to recover the photo booth photos they took together. Nori notes the add-on special effects that make them look more cartoonish; one could say the same of her now-discontinued Kizuna System and its army of Gomorin.

While such embellishments, be it to social experiments or photos, can be fun, there’s nothing like the genuine article. Genuine faces, genuine emotions, genuine friendships, and genuine love. Nori has gained far more than she lost.

Kiznaiver – 11

Noriko and Agata are two individuals whose lives have been dominated by close contact with one another. Agata had seemingly forgotten how much contact until he connected the girl in his dreams to Nori, while Nori herself clearly remembers everything, and how the only one she really needed seemed to be Agata. They were an inseparable pair, until they weren’t. Now, with one episode left they find themselves on potentially opposing ends of the game board.

Hardly anything in his recent life has ever affected Agata as strongly as seeing his doll-ified friends. But it got him thinking, and he thinks a lot throughout the episode, something he hadn’t done much of before because he was too busy not having emotions and going with the flow.

Now he thinks he understands a little more how Chidori saw him, and why she always protected and defended him, and how much pain he caused her by being the way he was. He calls to thank her and apologize, which Chidori sees as a furtherance of his wider rejection of her.

The mayor is telling (not asking) Yamada and Urushii that Kizuna is kaput, but wants them to soften the blow of the news. Of course, we know Noriko will not accept any news of that nature: The Kizuna System has been, is, and will continue to be her life. Taking Kizuna is like taking that life away.

The two researchers, able to look back and realize their overeagerness to achieve results for a world that needed them desperately, acknowledge the collateral damage done to Nori as a result, and Yamada is determined to make up for that by granting all of her wishes. Urushii seems to agree. Without knowing it, they’ve become more than minders or underlings to Nori; they’re her friends too.

That realization seems to come to the former Kiznaivers as well—that they’ve been friends for some time now, without knowing it. It’s the reason they were able to get through all their trials so easily, and it’s why even though their pain is no longer connected artificially by Kizuna, they still feel pain in their collective hearts when Agata bears his to them on the rooftop.

That being said, they’re still incredulous, but when Urushii confirms they’re no longer connected, it’s hard to remain in denial: they have empathy for one another. Kizuna simply gave them the nudge in the right direction. Now these people who believed they could never have proper friends have friends.

But that’s not nearly enough for Noriko. After all, the world is full of conflict and rancor, all because people technically bear the pain in their hearts alone. Six people having the same emotions at once isn’t the same as being literally connected, via Kizuna.

Sensing the end of Kizuna is nigh without action, she gives an address to the entire town, announcing her intention to connect all of them, government and corporate interests be damned. This seems selfish on her part, and even paints her in the light of an antagonist, ready to impose her will on the masses.

But she is nothing more or less than what the system made her, and she’s not ready to give up on her ideal of a perfect happy future…whether anyone else wants it or not.

Kiznaiver – 10

After the seven Kiznaivers recovered from their collective “overload”, they decided to stay away from each other for the rest of the Summer. When they return to school, no longer bearing Kizna scars and no longer connected, Yamada seems to rub salt in the wound by describing all the crazy experiences they had over the Summer, even if things got a little too intense at the end.

Hisomu isn’t able to stay away from Katsuhiro, rightly worried he won’t properly feed himself (not that Hisomu does either, with those cans), and despite everything that’s happened—nay, because of it all—Nico still loves everyone and wants to stay connected. The pure joy she exhibits upon taking the hands of Hisomu and Kacchon, spinning around giddily, was infectious.

These three can be friends again without major issues. But what about the others? Harder to say. Tenga hopes that if Chidori gives him a strong, unambiguous rejection, she’ll feel better…but she knows she won’t. We barely see Yuta and Honoka, as the latter won’t talk or listen to the former.

Then there’s Sonozaki. The mayor informs her of an imminent investigation, and in the meantime, the Kizuna Experiment is being shut down, meaning everything she’s worked for in her life is about to go down the drain into a sea of futility. She can’t bear that outcome, and so races to the nearest ledge, and as she seemingly falls, Kacchon feels her pain in his newly-appeared chest scar, as strong and horrible as ever.

His desire to find and help her leads him to the secret subway station to the school, where he finds an Urushii who, perhaps feeling a bit of guilt right about now, is receptive to giving him, along with Hisomu and Nico, more answers about what exactly they were a part of.

This project isn’t just about pride for Sonozaki; it’s about her life, and the lives of those she lived with. Once she was connected to eighteen other kids, including Kacchon, she began to feel all of their combined pain as well as her own, multiplied nineteen times. Only with the use of harsh drugs that dull all her senses allow her to function.

Worse still, her body never returned any of the sensations she absorbed form the others, leaving some the ones who are still alive as serene mannequins, unable to function at all. Once Kacchon hears they’re still alive, is allowed to meet with them, and sees the hollow husks they’ve become, he breaks down and cries, as if Sonozaki’s hold on his emotions was weakened or suspended.

Kacchon clearly wants what Sonozaki wants: to undo what’s been done to their friends, as well as to end her suffering. The Kizuna System, it would seem, was always critically flawed and untenable. But maybe there’s hope for the unfortunate souls involved.

Kiznaiver – 09

What started this spiraling closed loop of intense pain that took down six of the seven Kiznaivers, leaving them writhing in the rain? Kacchon left Chidori. He left her at a critical time; when she was oh-so-close to telling him her past love for him is still present.

Worse, Kacchon left her to go after Noriko, whom she always suspected was a rival but now has to deal with the devastating reality that he chose Noriko, not her. He did it without even knowing what it would do to Chidori.

Yamada twists the knife by getting the other six Kiznaivers into an A/W room and playing a live feed of Kacchon’s talk with Noriko, as they discuss whether he likes her. He’s not sure, but he can’t stop thinking about her, and the little girl in the dream he has has become clearer since he was Kizna’d. He knows it’s her now.

It’s too much for Chidori to watch, and seeing her so hurt makes Tenga pained and angry. Nico, in turn, is pained and angry by Tenga’s concern for Chidori and not her. But both Tenga and Nico decide to go to that gym, Tenga hoping something can be done, Nico so she can “get hurt properly.”

Some shit is going down in that gym. The closer Kacchon gets to Nori, the more memories come flowing to the surface; the names of the other child subjects—those who weren’t so lucky—combine with Noriko’s rhythmic ball-bouncing that is a kind of heartbeat to transport Kacchon to that time.

A second Kizna scar, on his chest, glows just like the one on Noriko’s neck. These two are connected; they always were; long before the other connections. As his dream promised, Kacchon wonders if he’s finally getting his pain back. In any case, he can’t stop holding Noriko.

At this point, the others arrive, and it goes about as well as you’d expect. Chidori runs off; Tenga sucks it up and tells Kacchon to go after her; Nico runs off; Yuta tells Tenga to go after her; and Tenga learns for the first time Nico loves him. It’s a mess, and it’s wonderful how quickly a couple of initially cute love polygon vertices start to fray at the edges and become twisted into something far darker.

Urushii can tell this isn’t going to end well, but Yamada insists the experiment continue, seemingly unconcerned with whether the subjects undergo full mental breaks. Thankfully, Urushii remembers a man’s weak spot and heads out.

She might be too late; the damage is done in the soupy, pounding rain tinged with industrial light; a striking venue for the things that transpire. At this point the Kizna scars turn blood red, and everyone can start hearing each others’ hearts. Chidori tells Kacchon to let go, but her heart wants him to hold her.

He listens to her heart, but that only makes things worse, since she knows he’s not doing it sincerely as with Noriko. Tenga, rather than go after a distraught Nico, starts beating the crap out of Kacchon. Nico and everyone else shows up, and the combined emotional pain starts coming in intolerable waves.

It’s even enough for Maki to reconsider getting any closer to anyone…and who can blame her, under such extreme, torturous circumstances? But what’s so sad is that Maki things this is what will always happen if people try to grow closer and closer.

She forgets that they’re all young people, and what seems like world-ending emotional distress can be seen as frivolous to an adult, like, say, Yamada. How many teenagers have screamed through their parents’ hallway, before slamming the door to their room, something along the lines of “MY LIFE IS OVER”?

Even so…this situation looks pretty damn bad, no matter what your age. It’s interesting, though, that Kacchon outlasts everyone in staying upright. Is his pain lessened by the fact he’s also connected to Noriko, and has been already through something similar to this for years?

All I know is, our would-be friends came face-to-face with more secrets about who has feelings for who, things have gotten very weird and dark, and I would hope, with three episodes left, this is rock bottom. As to how things get better or how they’ll wear the wounds they sustained this week, I can only conjecture.

Kiznaiver – 08

The Kiznaivers have never been closer, even if they still tend to snipe at each other, they also all show up when Nico invites them to the mall to hang out take booth photos together (which is what regular friends do) even during a typhoon warning.

Back at Kizuna HQ, Yamada and Urushi are licking their chops at the opportunity to move the experiments to the next level, and the conditions are perfect, so they use the Gomorins to bring the team in.

Before they do, the sight of an outdoor playcenter reminds Kacchon vividly of the time he was test subjects with Noriko. When Yamada nonchalantly explains more about the Kizuna Project and how they even went so far as to experiment on researchers’ and sponsors’ own children, it’s pretty clear what’s coming: some kind of epiphany between the currently frustrated Noriko and a Kacchon who is “disappointed” in her.

I must say, I’m not a big fan at all of Yamada or Urushi, who are way too laid back about the fact they essentially tortured children who had no say in the matter, not to mention all the adults who suffered from early experimentation. Morally speaking, the ends don’t usually justify the means…and they don’t even have any ends yet.

All they have are seven youths who have already demonstrated that they not only share each other’s physical pain, but also strong emotions, be they negative or positive. And Yamada and Urushi want to delve deeper into the positive by pairing everyone off. Again, it’s a bit icky, but they’re committed, as is Noriko, to ensuring the experiment is completed – regardless of how the subjects feel.

The chart of Kiznaivers relationships reminded me of the character charts Zane used to spend way too much time making, but once they were complete really gave a concise picture of who liked whom (One instance that was at times a closed circle of one-sided relationships was Nagi no Asukara).

Here, Urushi lays out the obvious: Yuta likes Honoka; Honoka still likes Ruru; Nico likes Tenga; Tenga likes Chidori; Chidori likes Agata, and Hisomu likes pain. Noriko can figure out the last one for herself, to the surprise of the adults: Agata likes her.

She’s known for a while that he had strong emotions, but didn’t know they were romantic. Now, all of a sudden, the pieces are falling into place for her, and she heads to where the others are to “kickstart” the experiment.

As Noriko purposefully makes her way, time runs out for Chidori to properly confess to Kacchon, despite the two being all alone for an extended period of time. Kacchon’s attention is turned elsewhere, quite suddenly, by a stronger sensation, and either the symbolic visualization or straight-up hallucination of his younger self and hi fellow test subjects leading him to where he needs to be.

That precise time and place turns out to be crucial, as Kacchon arrives at the place just in time to save Noriko from being crushed by a falling statue just as she emerges from an abandoned metro station. Just like that, Noriko’s experiment has taken a huge step forward.

Why? Simply put, Kacchon has achieved a kind of “spidey-sense” vis-a-vis Noriko. Or rather, he’s always had it, and it has finally fully re-awakened. That explains the cryptic visions of the younger Noriko. It isn’t that her feelings reached him in time. She is a part of him and vice-versa.

To confirm, Noriko removes her choker to expose the Kizuna scar on her neck, glowing brighter and purer than any of the others’ wrist scars. That’s Kacchon in there, and that’s huge, as it not only progresses the experiment, ill-begotten as it was, but marks the loosening of a knot that had been festering in Kacchon’s heart for years. I for one am intrigued.

Kiznaiver – 07

While Ruru wasn’t literally killed by Maki (obviously), her mother is glad Maki feels guilty for abandoning her as a friend, making her write the final chapter by herself. Half the house is a shrine to Ruru, so the tension runs high in the mother’s presence. They may have known Ruru was going to live a short life due to her chronic illness, but that doesn’t make the pain any less difficult to bear.

This week we also learn how Maki and Ruru —two loners—met for the first time and became more dear to one another than anyone else. They filled in each other’s manga weaknesses (Ruru’s writing, Maki’s art), and rose quickly as their audience soared.

But it seems Maki was never a fan of Ruru “joking” about jumping off high ledges, faking a seizure, or getting more romantic with her. Though the last one, Maki knew, wasn’t a joke, nor was she not interested.

Ultimately, it seems more like Maki cut herself off from Ruru in order to be spared the even greater pain she’s endure if Ruru died when they were lovers. This is a very tense but lovely scene because it’s so intimately shot, but also interspersed with art from their manga depicting the same actions.

The other Kiznaivers don’t know most of this…because Maki hasn’t told them, but also because they haven’t come out and asked. They come up with a plan to become her friend at all costs, not leaving her alone until she realizes there’s no point in resisting any longer; it’s six-against-one, after all.

It’s just really nice to see how much these six have gelled as a group, and how they basically became friends through osmosis, without even realizing it. Chidori in particular notices how Kacchon is changing, but for the better, and how he doesn’t simply allow Tenga to walk all over him, but rather likes having him around.

As blue and lost as Maki is right now, the six still want her around too, especially Yuta, who tries to use the manga to learn more about what happened. The final chapter is one that Maki never read, and she assumes Ruru “cursed” her to love her and no one else forever and ever.

That turns out to not be the case, as Ruru, treating the final chapter she wrote alone as a kind of indirect letter to Maki, telling her if remembering her ever gets too painful, it’s okay to forget, because she loved her smile and wouldn’t want her to stop using it.

Yuta manages to get Maki to come out for fireworks, but she’d rather watch everyone swim in the ocean instead. To everyone’s shock, Yuta doesn’t hesitate in running as fast as he can into the water and splashing around like a goon.

Once Maki has read and understood Ruru’s wish for her, the smile returns to her face, the first smile we’ve seen that wasn’t sinister or fake. And the Kiznaivers feels something that isn’t pain – a weight being lifted from Maki’s heart. She can’t be friends with any of them, she says—because they’re already far closer than friends or lovers.

I enjoyed the resolution to Maki’s impasse with the other Kiznaivers. It felt earned and realistic that these people who so badly want to be her friends would eventually pull her out of the darkness and into clarity, closure, relief, and understanding. It’s also neat how the story of these last couple episodes serves as a real-life extra chapter to the manga Maki and Ruru made together.

Kiznaiver – 06

In the OP, which I consider the most excellent of the season, the Chidori is the final of the seven Kiznaivers to run across the screen before the title splash, giving her a certain prominence. But in both of the OP’s character “roll calls”, the one in the middle is Honoka Maki, and in the second one, there’s a dramatic visual stab (and the presentation of the Trigger logo) when she appears.

This, and some of the mysteries surrounding Maki and the someone she says she “killed”, has had me thinking the whole time that the most significant character story to date would eventually come from her, not Chidori. Another piece of the puzzle falls into place in a powerful flashback where Maki’s friend (and apparent manga partner) Ruri nearly leaps to her death before being pulled back by Maki.

Ruri laughs uncontrollably, doubtless because of the profundity of what had just transpired—Maki may call her stupid, but still saved her when it mattered. But Maki is just stunned. Why did Ruri do that? What if she tries it again when she’s not there?

Maki is toeing a similar line in the present: she may act all aloof, but she still comes to Kiznaiver get-togethers when invited, even if she leaves early without partaking in somen. Nico tries to follow and be friendly with her, but when she calls herself stupid, Maki can’t help but be reminded of Ruri saying the same thing, gets upset, and runs off. But now that she and the other six Kiznaivers’ hearts are connected, everyone feels her pain, and they can’t just forget it.

While she’s still a far more sterile personality, Noriko also seems a bit lonely as the mayor warns her of increasing difficulties in keeping the experiment under wraps. Her time is running out—perhaps in more ways than one, judging from her in-car self-injection—but she’s committed to delivering results. And hey, it’s not as if she hasn’t made real progress with the Kiznaivers.

Yuta, still trying to maintain his normal life with his ladies, happens to be shown the same manga Maki created, made immensely popular when readers learned she and Ruri were middle schoolers. I like how Yuta is freaked out by the huge eyes, unimpressed by the hodgepodge of themes, but at the same time feels this is a window into Maki that, along with their new connected hearts, can help him get somewhere with her, in terms of helping to lift some of that pain and gloominess.

Maki, for her part, stubbornly rejects any kind of help, even when Yuta offers it unsolicited when her former editor asks her to sign off on a documentary of “Charles Macking”, her nom de plume.

The editors ignore her refusal to permit such a project and arrive at school to film her. When the cameras are stuffed in her face and everyone hears she’s Charles de Macking-sensei, she starts to lose it right quick. Fortunately, the other six Kiznaivers are given a mission she’s not aware of to “save her”, and they do—at least temporarily, from the camera crew.

It’s great teamwork, but it does nothing to solve the underlying pain Maki feels. Indeed, she seems to be repulsed by any attempt to help her, perhaps because she feels responsible for Ruri’s death, and thus feels she’s no longer worthy of friends, happiness, or pity.

Maki’s covered it up with her antisocial personality up to this point, but now her comrades know her game, and they aren’t about to accept her continued self-punishment. But rather than pester her more—she still needs to recover form the shock of that camera confrontation—they decide to try to learn more about Ruri, the person whose death caused Maki to fall into this state whom we know precious litle about, besides the fact she was a little bit of a daredevil.

As for Kacchon, he branches off from the others momentarily to express his disappointment with Nori-chan, most likely for giving them a mission involving Maki without Maki’s knowledge; a mission that saved her in the immediate but if anything made her emotional state worse. Noriko, for her part, is as surprised by Kacchon’s words as he is for saying them. She’s being pressed from both sides. I wonder what will happen, and if and how she’ll change, as conditions grow more desperate.

Kiznaiver – 05

Humans, particularly while young and coming into their own, need bonds, if for no other reason than to define their place in the world, and make them aware they’re not the only person who matters. Adolescence by and large, makes kids extremely arrogant, and that arrogance is manifested seven different ways among the Kiznaivers.

Let’s go ahead and add Sonozaki to the mix as an eighth teenager who internalizes the universe. The latest trial the actual adults have for the adults-in-training (which include Sonozaki) throws her for a loop. She isn’t at the mountain inn retreat out of duty, she’s there because Kacchon invited her.

With another test looming in the background, the retreat still begins with a pleasant casualness and subtle excitement of the eight kids simulating a household for the first time. Divi-ing up the chores, getting to know  more about each other bit by bit; Tenga’s scheme to help the “emotionally heavy” Chidori; Maki and Yuta’s intriguing dance; Nico’s sidelong glances…the bonds are being enriched without the aid of shared mortal danger. It’s all very absorbing.

In fact, the first shared zap of physical pain doesn’t come until Sonozaki smacks Kacchon in the cheek while the two are keeping each other company alone in the dark. She’s not reubking him, just killing a mosquito, but Chidori sees what she wants to see (already suspecting Sonozaki is an interloper) and races off into the night in tears.

I knew informal assigning of individual original deadly sins to the Kiznaivers was a risky (and not entirely necessary move), but it’s interesting to see the very complex emotions on display between Maki (AKA “firewood”) and Yuta as they share a scene in the kitchen.

Yuta is surprised Maki makes good omelette rice for him, as if feeling sorry that he’s hungry (his dietary restrictions kept him from having dinner with the others). He sparks a conversation about how he got fat, then invites her to share something about herself.

Maki, who I labeled as “pride”, seems reluctant, committed, even, to avoiding showing her true self to anyone. Yuta has seen reason to doubt her stuck-up facade (like the fact she made him dinner), and takes the bait when she asks him if he likes her chest.

“Chest”, though, is only her metaphor for the thing no one normally sees, and if it was seen, could change one’s feelings about the person completely. Maki is haunted and tormented by a ghost from the past in her private moments. That’s what she’s still trying to hide, but now that she’s a Kiznaiver, that may no longer be feasible.

It’s not the first think Maki and Yuta say to each other that means more than one thing. Maki takes things in a more explicitly amorous direction, saying things like “not caring if she breaks”, using the term from the ghost’s voice. Yuta thinks she’s only talking about masochism and sex, but after she jumps him (and inadvertently makes him admit he’s still a virgin), their liaison is interrupted by Yamada, their teacher.

Yamada and Urushibara arrive (not informing the Kiznaivers that they brought Kacchon’s Kizuna’d bullies with them) and another high-stress test begins: a purported Test of Bravery so common to these kinds of inn/camping retreat episodes. One bully bashes in the room with a chainsaw, the other weild an axe and corners Chidori in a cabin.

Fueled by fear and adrenaline, the six Kizzys other than Chidori rush out into the night and find their own graves, but when Nico hits a Gomorin and it goes down easily, they calm down a little, confident they can do this.

I loved Hisomu’s contrasting  looks throughout this ordeal; delighted rather than terrified by the sight of the graves and wielding a bucket and ladle instead of weapons. Maki’s outrage at Yuta talking big while cowering behind her was also a nice touch. This couple’s been through a lot tonight.

But the central figures of this test, not surprisingly, are Chidori and Kacchon. When Bully #1 is zapped by Nico’s blow, Bully #2 (#1’s childhood friend) is unmasked as well before Chidori, and collapses in a pile of woe-is-me, why-must-I-be-the-only-one-suffering tirade that hits very close to home for Chidori.

Hearing her own problems expressed almost verbatim from another has an immensely powerful effect. Chidori takes after the bully and lays it all bare: if the bully wants to die, he’d better give Kacchon his money back first.

For the first time, Kacchon realizes the emotional pain of the all the bullying he endured expanded to Chidori. He only now knows the pain he endured and pretended didn’t exist at all was also hurting her because now their emotional pain is being shared as well. Not just between these two, but all seven Kizzys.

Now that he knows the error of his selfish ways, when Kacchon finds Chidori (in the middle of her tirade when she brings up how Sonozaki is also adding to her pain with her interloping), he demands the money back. He takes the stand Chidori always wanted him to take on his own. Now Kacchon gets her a little more.

What’s interesting is how connected Chidori and Kacchon truly have been for so long, not to mention Maki and Yuta (through their secrets); the Kizuna System is merely a catalyst to help them break through their inner shells and come to terms with the fact that everyone has their problems, everyone suffers, and knowing of each others’ pain and sharing in it, and being able to move past it (or make use of it) is a crucial element of life.

Those worried about a Tenga-Chidori thing can probably breathe easy for now, if Kacchon and Chidori’s closing scene together is any indication. And now it’s clear getting through the summer is another metaphor; for getting through adolescence.

Kiznaiver – 04

With the seven assembled, things slow down quite a bit as they get to know each other a little better, either voluntarily (Nico) or reluctantly (Honoka). And everyone is a little uncomfortable around Hisomu, mostly because the ways he senses the world and derives pleasure are so different from theirs. But…are they, really?

When the group breaks off (Kacchon, Chidori, and Tenga were already home), Yuta and Honoka have an exchange very common for them, with outwardly polite compliments by the former parried by icy insults by the latter. Yuta’s vanity and Honoka’s unpleasantness seem to feed of one another. Honoka can like it or not, she is bonding.

As for Kacchon, after the girl in his dream turns her head and reveals herself as a younger Sonozaki, he becomes way more fixated on her. This irks Chidori, but only because she clearly still has present-tense feelings for Kacchon and is jealous.

Jealousy is envy, which made me wonder: for all of Sonozaki’s talk of new deadly sins, do these seven still represent the old ones? Here’s as close as I got:

Honoka: pride
Nico: covetousness
Hisomu: lust
Tenga: anger
Yuta: gluttony
Chidori: envy
Agata: sloth

Anyway, when Sonozaki appears to inform the seven they’ll be going on a summer ‘training’ camp and to eat a giant plate of fried rice to deepen their bonds, Kocchan goes after her, asks that they exchange emails (as the seven did earlier) and invites her to join them.

As someone getting used to (knowingly) sharing bonds of friendship with others, a part of him (perhaps fueled by his dream) may wonder if Sonozaki’s distance is intentional or even necessary, or if a part of her would like to connect. That connecting with others line has haunted Kocchan and drives him to include Sonozaki in their camp getaway.

Sonozaki also reveals to the group that she and all the Gomorins around town are members of the Kizuna Committee, a group that “for various reasons” is growing smaller but hasn’t “given up” on its core mission of cracking the code for world peace.

It’s not a ton of useful info, but it does indicate she’s not alone in this operation, only one link in the chain, and that she is one of the true believers who will stick around to the end.

As for accepting Kacchon’s invitation (and his gentlemanly offer to carry her bag), Sonozaki seems to be proving his theory (about her not necessarily minding connecting with someone, even him) right. Honoka is dubious as always, however, and wonders if there’s a connection between Hisomu’s sudden late addition to the group and her increased presence.

Then there’s Chidori, who doesn’t like Kacchon’s interactions with Sonozaki one bit, no ma’am she does not. Well, she has no one to blame but herself for backtracking on her confession by strongly insisting (to someone she knows will usually take what she says at face value) her love for him was in the past.

Then again, maybe it took Kacchon’s heightened ‘flirtation’ with Sonozaki for her to realize that. One thing is clear: whatever pain is being derived by her jealousy for that situation isn’t being shared among the other six.

Tenga doesn’t have to be connected to read what’s written clearly all over Chidori in thick black marker, and his offer to help her (along with her delayed acceptance of that offer) suggest one more mini-alliance among many that have sprouted up in the septet.

Some decent character moments, but the lack of action and slowed pace was conspicuous this week. The school counselor and teacher seeming to recruit Agata’s former bullies is only touched upon without much explanation, so I’ll reserve judgement on that until we learn how they’ll be used. If one one thought the bullies were gone, but like Yuta’s girlfriends, it would seem they still have a role to play.

Kiznaiver – 03

Maki’s murder confession turns out to just be a sick joke, as she amends her self-introduction as someone with a “terrible personality”, which seems to be enough for Sonozaki. With that, there’s nothing left to do but go home and prepare for the school day. But someone—who from the OP is clearly the seventh Kiznaiver—is watching them, seemingly approvingly.

Tenga decides the best place for him to crash is at Agatas, to make sure “random people don’t do random things” to him, which would now affect everyone. He’s surprised to learn not only are Agata’s parents away on business, but Chidori lives right next door to him.

As romantic a scenario as that might sound, especially after the two’s confessions, Chidori makes it plain (though not veyr convincingly) that her love for him was in the past.

Agata naturally finds a way to make her pity him by asking whether he should just forget she said anything, worried “unnecessary things” would make things awkward. While he made a smidgen of progress last week, this kid still has a long way to go as far as making connections.

The entire day is marked by the Kiznaivers all feeling a sudden jolt of shared pain, but when they’re all together, they learn it’s the pain of the seventh, whom they’ve not yet met. Once they figure out there’s a seventh, Sonozaki assigns them their next mission: find him.

I’ll also say that just because all the Kizzys are connected through pain doesn’t make them suddenly best friends at schol. Yuta doesn’t like “weirdos” like Tenga, Nico, and even Chidori hanging around him, nor do his girlfriends. But this is all about adaptation. Yuta can like it or not, he’s in a different clique now.

Through process of elimination, the six determine the seventh is Hisomu Yoshiharu, the only classmate not at school. They show up at his Ayanami Rei-style grimy apartment and use his own cries from their shared pain to flush him out. What follows is a breathless chase across town, with Tenga continuatlly punching Yuta so Hisomu will cry out and they can locate him.

When Chidori and Nico decide they’re tired of feeling the pain of others getting punched, they ask Tenga to hit them, but are stopped by the neighborhood watch ladies, allowing Hisomu to give them the slip. Agata, however, keeps following him, meets him on a bridge over a highway, and tells him he wants to “make a connection,” as Sonozaki assured him all humans wish to do.

Hisomu responds by asking Agata to jump to his death. Agata and Tenga realize jumping is the only way they’ll keep him from running off again…but Tenga can’t do it, and Agata beats him to it. He ricochets off a box van and falls into a MINI convertible, bloodied and concussed, but alive.

All six other Kiznaivers felt his pain, including Hisomu, who we learn is a masochist who loves and gets off on pain, to the disgust of Maki and Yuta but the fascination of Nico. The mission is complete, and now all seven modern deadly sins (Hisomu’s being “immorality”) are now represented.

While at first I was fuzzy on why they drew out the intro of the seventh member to the third week, as the episode ended I acknowledged the fact that this guy reacts the opposite way to pain as everyone else, making him exceptional among exceptions.

Sonozaki declares in an address at the institute where she works that obtaining the “true connection” involves those “tripped up by sin” who “struggle in the darkness” and find the true power od their bonds…even if those bonds were artificially established.

I wonder what their next mission will be, beyond the overarching task of surviving the Summer. I’m also a little apprehensive that it’s implied that will be no cakewalk.

Kiznaiver – 02

As the Kiznaivers’ teachers deal with the guilt of allowing their precious students to be appropriated in such an extreme manner, Sonozaki assigns the Kiznaivers themselves their very first mission: self-introductions. And she’s not talking about giving your name, class, and blood type.

She wants the deepest, darkest secret each of them carry within them, for if they’re really going to be All for One and One for All, they need to grasp the essence of who one another are, as well, perhaps, to experience the catharsis of finally releasing that which has never been released in their lives.

And no, they don’t get a choice in the matter. Dishonesty and incomplete answers result in penalties in the form of the continued shocking of Agata, who is still in the control room with Sonozaki.

When she sics a pair of attack dogs at “Mad Dog” Tenga, Tenga accidentally goes first when, in a fit of panic he confesses to being a cynophobe. The next trial involves demolishing the facility they currently occupy.

Meanwhile, Agata doubts he has anything he doesn’t want to say, because he “doesn’t know himself.” Sonozaki releases him, with what is sure to be a catch.

When a countdown nears zero for the next confession after Tenga’s, it’s Niko’s turn to reveal her secret, or at least what she thinksis her secret: she’s a Phony Eccentric; she only dresses and moves and talks weird because she’s worried with her looks and smarts and wealth could cause more trouble for her and others.

Just as they do with Tenga, the others don’t see the confession as a big deal. In fact, they consider Niko eccentric simply because she thought it necessary to pretent to be eccentric rather than act in a more socially normal way.

Yuta is next, as Niko notices a poster with a smiling fat kid. That fat kid is Yuta, and his dark secret—that he was once round—was something he felt would cripple his school prince status. The thing is, plenty of princes were/are fat. Again, it’s no big deal to the others.

That leaves Agata, Chidori, and Maki. Maki runs off rather than be the next one to confess, and ends up in a morgue where a female corpse in a school uniform calls out to her creepily. I must say, Sonozaki and the organization she works for really put a lot of effort into this house-of-horrors, considering it’s only necessary for this one mission.

The other Kizzies head to the roof, where Agata is hanging precariously in a gondola and will plummet to his death until the self-intros are complete. He attempts to give one by confessing he doesn’t care or feel anything about anyone, probably because he doesn’t care about himself.

This doesn’t get a ding-ding, but it does prompt Chidori to climb over to Agata and begin a rant about how cool and cheerful he used to be, and how he used to take care of her and be there for her.

This culminates in a confession that she loved that Kacchon and wants him back more than anything; a confession we all knew was coming a mile away. All of us, that is, except for Agata, who never realized Chidori liked him even as she stayed by his side though all his struggles.

He amends his confession to state that he feels happy about how she felt/feels about him, and feels happy that he feels happy, and since becoming a Kiznaiver made that happen, maybe it’s not so bad, aside from all the danger games.

And so there, after falling to their not-deaths onto a big landing cushion, Agata and Chidori and the other three all celebrate their catharses. Of course, there’s one more who needs to reveal her secret: Maki. And it’s what I expected when I saw her in that morgue: she murdered someone.

Now, clearly, being a murderer is, in the grand scheme of things, far worse than having been fat in their earlier years. But the fact everyone put the same weight and importance on their closest secrets, no matter how varied they were, is another important lesson about what it is to be Kiznaivers.

Before, they kept the most difficult things to say inside. Now the facades have fallen, those things have been said. The group was skeptical of being able to open up to virtual strangers, but no matter what else they were or are, they are a lot more than strangers now.

Kiznaiver – 01 (First Impressions)

Hmmm…now this is more like it: a bold, brash, imaginative, absorbing counterstrike to the comparatively staid, restrained Kuromukuro. Space Patrol Luluco isn’t all Trigger is up to this Spring; in fact, that’s just an appetizer for this, the main course…KIZNAIVER.

Rather than beating around the bush, Kiz gets right down to brass tacks: this is a story about youth, pain, and the ability or inability to fell and share in it, as part of a larger plan to eliminate interpersonal conflict in the world, which has been around since we were in caves.

Rather than a literal cave, Agata Katsuhira inhabits an figurative one that protects him from physical pain at the cost of not feeling any emotional pain either, to the consternation of his friend and classmate Takashiro Chidori.

His insulation from the work and from true bonds with other humans makes him a ripe target for bullies, since he offers no resistance to their blows or demands for money.

One such instance of this happens immediately after Chidori storms off (disgusted by Kocchan’s passivity) but another classmate, the Kamina-esque Tenga Hajime, steps in to rescue him unsolicited with the kind of stylish action Trigger is known for.

It’s here where Tenga learns Agata literally can’t feel pain, and starts having fun successfully testing that claim…when a striking, silver-haired class prez type appears.

Agata comes to on a roof with the girl, one Sonozaki Noriko, who asks him if he’s heard of the Seven Deadly Sins. He has, of course, but she believes those sins have evolved along with humanity since their inception in biblical times.

Rather than pride, greed, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, and sloth, she names new-style sins such as “The Cunning Normal”, “High-and-Mighty”, “Goody-Two-Shoes”, “Eccentric Headcase”, “Musclehead Thug”, and “The Imbecile (g/udon)”.

These aren’t just “sins”, they’re the actual personalities of five other classmates: Yuta Tsughuhito, Maki Honoka, Chidori, Niiyama Niko, Tenga, and Agata himself. The show does not shy away from specific, elemental personality types because it is the uniting of those disparate types that is to be Kiznaiver’s core dynamic.

“Everyone wants to carve their scares into someone else…connect with someone else,” says Sonozaki. Agata’s inability to do so to this is the reason he’s…the way he is, but that’s about to come to an end.

In Agata, Sonozaki has found the missing piece in her plan to make the union of personalities official. She does so by shoving Agata down a flight of steps, an act of violence he’ll likely feel, even with his formidable pain threshold.

After the town mascot “Gomorins” wheel an injured Agata through a disco ball-festooned hospital, he awakes to find Sonozaki, along with all of the five “sinners” she “quickly and precisely secured” (i.e. kidnapped) and performed identical operations on, installing something called the “Kizuna System” into their bodies.

She goes on to inform the other six that Sugomori City has always been an experimental testbed for the system, but she is implimenting it for the first time here and now. Kizuna System allows separate people to share one another’s pain. She says Agata only survived his fall because the pain of the trauma was spread among the other five.

She hopes that if pain and wounds were divided evenly and everyone could feel the pain of others, it could lead to peace in a battle-ridden world. The six she’s assembled are the first step. Notably, it doesn’t seem like she’s a part of this union.

The other five subjects take off, unwilling or unable to comprehend what Sonozaki has told them. But when Niko suggests she’s just having a weird dream, and Tenga threatens to grope her, she smacks him with all her might, and all six subjects feel the sting of her strike, including Niko herself. After a couple more tests, it’s clear: they are now sharing their pain. This is no dream. “All for one and one for all” is their new motto.

Not only that, but Agata is feeling pain now, something a girl in the very red cold open told him would come to pass one day. That day has arrived, now that he and the other five have the Kizuna System within them, making them…KIZNAIVERS.

The combo of Trigger and Okada Mari is an auspicious one, it’s fun to hear Boom Boom Satellites score an OP again (their OP in Xam’d is still one of my favorites), and the cast is stacked with talent.

Brisk, funky,stylish, and full of beautiful lighting, settings, and animations, Kiznaiver is a top Spring pick out of the gate, and may well bump a couple shows off my list going forward.