The Eminence in Shadow – 15 – Riding the Wave

One thing that keeps me coming back to Eminence is that it’s just plain fun as hell watching Cid having fun. And with the Sanctuary arc all wrapped up and the Bushin Festival gearing up, he’s having a ton of fun this week in particular.

It’s also fun watching his idea of fun, which isn’t just to sign up for the festival and obliterate everyone. Nah, there’s an order to this, and he wants to build up some mystique. Gamma gives him a new face and identity for this purpose: the on-the-nose “Mundane Mann”.

Between his weak look, wan complexion, poor posture, he becomes an immediate target for stronger fighters to warn him off the festival, starting with the very polite and to-the-point Annerose, one of the favorites to win it all. She tells Cid to back out now to avoid permanent harm.

Cid asks her to kindly not judge a book by its cover, but when a much larger Quinton picks a fight, Cid exercises discipline and doesn’t show his hand. He lets the guy wail on him, which is free marketing for how unlikely a champion this Mundane Mann guy is.

Annerose asks Quinton to stop lest she step in, and apologizes to “Mundane” for letting things get so out of hand. She says it’s better for him to get his ass beat now than enter the Bushin Festival and suffer even greater pain from certain defeat.

But when Cid simply hops back up and strolls away, Annerose is confused; even after being beaten on by that guy for that long, he doesn’t seem hurt at all! It’s a subtle but very effective strategy by Cid to get Annerose thinking maybe there is something to this weakling.

Since Bushin is held in Rose’s hometown, she and Cid end up bumping into each other at a fountain, after Cid has a thorough chat with Skel regarding betting over “Tuna King” burgers. Rose reports that she, Beta (in her alias as Natsume Kafka) and Alexia have become fast friends.

She also says she has a prior engagement: her father is going to introduce her to her fiancé Perv Asshat (what a name). She’s not looking forward to it. But she’s determined to live her live as a dark knight, something she’s always wanted to be since she watched a younger cid fighting those brigands years ago. That’s right: Rose met and fell for Cid far earlier than she realizes—and she wouldn’t be the knight she is without him!

The next day, the preliminary matches begin, and Cid tags along with Skel as the latter continues to bore him with his betting strategies. Skel does end up attracting another fighter, Goldy Gilded, the Ever-Victorious Golden Dragon (Skel murders the name many times.)

Goldy tells Skel that he assesses fighters and assigns a “power level” to each of them. Cid slips away to take a dump, and moments later Mundane Mann arrives. Goldy doesn’t think much of Mundane, giving him a scant 33 versus over 1,300 for his opponent.

And yet, in the blink of an eye, Mundane’s opponent is out cold on the ground and Mundane is the winner, which means he’ll be Goldy’s next opponent. Goldy is confident, and Annerose is intrigued by what she (and likely no one else) saw—Mundane delivering a devastating double punch to the loser’s chin. All of this is just what Cid wants to create more anti-hype with a tinge of mystique.

The next morning, however, Cid’s fun looks destined to be curbed, as Skel bursts in with a newspaper article alleging that Rose stabbed her fiancé and ran off. I don’t think that’s what Cid meant when he suggested that she “relax”! I know Cid is pretty indifferent towards most people, but maybe it’s different with Rose? Will he try to track Rose down in time to make his match with Goldy?

The Eminence in Shadow – 14 – The Start of a Legend

As soon as Cid opened his right eye at the end of last week’s episode, I knew that playtime would soon be over. Nelson can send his copy of the Great Hero Olivier—heck, he can send dozens of copies—at Cid, but it doesn’t matter. He’s the motherfucking Eminence of Shadow. When Olivier draws too close, he lets her impale him, missing his vitals, then bites her neck , severing a major artery.

The other copies soon fall by Cid’s sword, until he’s stabbed in the heart (and has to move said heart to avoid serious damage) and decides to wrap this up with his Atomic overkill move, which doesn’t just destroy the Olivier copies, Nelson, the sword in the stone, the chains, and the magical core. It obliterates the entire Sanctuary, and floods the city by displacing an entire reservoir’s worth of water. Alexia, Rose and Beta can only watch in awe (and in Beta’s case, knowing pride)

The end of the Sanctuary also spells the end of Aurora, or at least the walking walking memory version of her that befriended Cid. Their goodbye scene is genuinely moving, and even if, say, Aurora’s other name is Diabolos, she hopes that one day Cid will find her—the real her—if only so they can meet and “converse” again.

In the aftermath of their singular experience, Alexia takes the initiative and asks Rose and Beta to join forces with her, for the three of them working together will accomplish more than any of them independently. Of course, she doesn’t know Beta is a high-ranking member of Shadow Garden…but that’s okay! It just means Beta has just made inroads with not one but two prominent royal families.

Time progresses, and Gamma is able to buy up a bunch of property in the Velgalta Empire where she knows petroleum deposits dwell. The seller doesn’t even know what that is, but he will—the whole world will. You could say that while Nelson and his Sanctuary ilk suppressed the world’s technology, Shadow Garden is rapidly bringing it back. We see prototype automobiles and airships in the works.

Alpha looks in on her fellow Shadows with a sense of pride and accomplishment, remembering when it was just a handful of them in a modest Japanese-style house with Cid. And now they’re all poised to turn the wheels of the world from the shadows.

They’ll have another chance to demonstrate their power if they choose at the next tournament in Rose’s neck of the woods. Alexia’s sister will be gunning for them, while Rose appears to have contracted the Curse. There’s a lot to cover in the remaining six episodes.

Akiba Maid War – 07 – RocknPorkRolla

A week has passed since Nerula was gunned down in an alley, and Nagomi has run away from the Oinky Doink. The others, particularly Ranko, are worried about her, especially since Manami and the Maidalien war hawks aren’t finished. While Ranko is out distributing flyers, she spots a pink ninja who claims not to be Nagomi, but clearly is.

Since Nagomi insist’s she’s not Nagomi, Ranko tells this “mystery ninja” the situation: she and the Oinky Doink maids are worried about her. But if Nagomi fled out of fear to the oddly safer ninja café business, it wasn’t fear of being hurt or killed. It was fear of standing by and doing nothing while another friends of her dies.

This is a typical action movie protagonist pattern: after a great defeat, the hero withdraws, suffering a crisis of purpose. But outside forces, like Nerula’s grieving fans, conspire to bring her back to where she needs to be: at Oinky Doink, as the new kind of Akiba maid Nerula knew she could be.

But how? The ramen guy gives Nagomi the other piece of the picture to bring her around. It’s something he’s learned being in the ramen business with the reputation as someone whose ramen never changes: staying the same actually requires change. So Nagomi returns to the dojo and considers what that means.

That night, Manami and over two dozen of her henchmaids advance on Oinky Doink, outnumbering them over two-to-one. I knew Ranko and Zoya were worth ten of the average maid in fighting ability, but that’s still a lot of maids and a lot of bullets. The pig maids make use of homefield advantage and the element of surprise as much as they can, diverting and splitting up Manami’s maids.

This is the first time we see Shiipon and Yumechi in sustained action (their attack on the Sheep happening off-camera) but they handle themselves well. Even so, eventually the Maidaliens surround the Pigs, and Manami’s machine gun looks like a decisive advantage.

Ranko prepares to make a desperate charge to take Manami out or die trying (as far as she’s concerned protecting the café is worth it) but suddenly the elevator opens and a cloud of smoke gets off. Dozens of smoke bombs explode and disorient both sides. And through the smoke, Nagomin appears, prepared for battle.

With her almost preposterously hastily-acquired ninja skills, within seconds she’s disarmed Manami and claimed the machine gun for their side. Manami switches to her trademark bat, but once she’s in the pigsty, the maids of Oinky Doink and their ninja maid savoir are ready for her.

True to who she is, through the ensuing chaos, many bullets fly, but none of them from a gun held by Nagomi. Instead she uses the tools of the ninja trade, like kunai and nets, which buy her co-workers time to go on the offensive.

When the dust clears it’s just a wounded Manami and her lieutenant Miyabi, surrounded by the bodies of their fallen comrades. Miyabi gets Manami to retreat before they too are killed, but after Miyabi dresses Manami’s leg, Manami dismisses her and she departs in shame.

Nagomi shows up with Ranko as backup, and despite her sorry state Manami is still ready to throw down. But Nagomi isn’t there to fight. Nor is she there as a ninja. She’s a maid, and she reminds Manami what maids are truly all about: not dying in glorious battle, but serving their masters with moe moe kyun.

When Manami rises to shut the young whippersnapper up, Nagomi again uses her new ninja skills to lay the smackdown on Manami. Again, Nagomi demands that Manami feel the moe moe kyun, and she finally relents, deciding that pig hunting time is over.

Ranko lets Manami withdraw, and welcomes Nagomi back into the pigsty. But Manami gets a rude awakening back at Maidalien HQ. Not only did the boss Ugaki refuse to commit any more forces to this silly war, but she got all the Maidalien brass to agree to a merger with Creatureland.

Manami could not change like Nagomi did, and ends up gunned down by her former allies who are sick of her bloodlust. They want to make money, and they’ll make more if she’s dead than running around shooting people. So she meets her end in a swirling puddle of her own blood. Unfortunately for Oinky Doink, their next foe looks to be their own Creatureland masters.

This was a great step forward for Nagomi, but it wasn’t perfect. I kinda wish Manami had stuck around a bit, as small a chance as redemption for someone her would have been. Also, the animation of the raid, aside from some fun moments, was also surprisingly underwhelming, considering what I know the show is capable of from the premiere and the MMA episode.

My Stepmom’s Daughter Is My Ex – 05 – The Moon Is Beautiful

One night, before they started going out, Mizuto and Yume were in adjacent rooms on a middle school class trip. When they both looked out their windows at the full moon, Mizuto said Tsuki ga kirei desu ne, which means “The moon is beautiful, isn’t it?” but can also be an artful way of saying “I love you”. It’s a night Mizuto still hasn’t forgotten…even though it must’ve been more than what, two years ago?!

Fast-forward to the present, and Mizuto is being a big ‘ol jerk about not wanting to go shopping with Yume for Mother’s Day, even though they had plenty of fun on their date the other day. Yume convinces him to come with a fetching ” ooting” outfit, and when they’re on a crowded train and a bump causes Mizuto to pin her between the side of the car and him, she tells him not to pull away, as it will only keep happening with every bump.

The two settle on a bouquet of carnations, which is a pretty standard go-to Mother’s Day gift. But their mom is so happy to receive them that she runs away in tears. As we know, these are good kids, and making their mom/stepmom happy makes them happy. Mizuto may put out Ayanokouji vibes, but he’s nothing like that sociopath!

That evening, Yume notices the door at the end of the hall is open a crack – a beam of the setting sun gleams through, lighting motes of dust in the air. She finds Mizuto inside, praying to his mother’s shrine. Mizuto’s mom died when he was very small, such that her shrine photo is is only visual link to her.

Not only aware this is no time for sniping but genuinely wanting to support Mizuto during a lonely moment, she cuddles up next to him, like a “big sister” should. That’s when Mizuto says that since their parents are newlyweds, they should give them a night alone sometime. That of course means the two of them would have to spend the night…somewhere else.

Yume turns all sorts of shades of pink and red as Mizuto runs by what’s possible and not possible, even admitting to looking into love hotel rates. But since they both know that might just be taking things a bit far considering their history, Mizuto instead asks Kawanami if he can spend the night at his place.

Yume, in turn, can stay at Minami’s…because Minami and Kawanami are not only childhood friends as we all suspected, but also next-door neighbors. Due to that prodigious amount of time so close to one another, they’re basically more siblings than Yume and Mizuto.

Kawanami has a little fun with the paper-thin walls by acting like Mizuto is talking about Yume’s boobs (causing her to attack the wall), while Mizuto gets payback by reading Kawanami’s elementary school report on wanting to be a police officer so he can marry Minami (causing her to attack the wall).

Kawanami and Minami’s easy, lived-in rapport carries over when they both independently pick the same family restaurant to take Mizuto and Yume to dinner. Kawanami and Minami each know exactly what the other is going to order, while the two even have a shared laugh at the stebsiblings’ expense when they both show they have no idea about soda fountain protocol.

After dinner, Minami gets all cuddly with Mizuto about tutoring her in Japanese, but Mizuto shuts her down by declaring that Yume is the far more appropriate choice for a tutor since she “works so hard” for her grades while he puts in very little effort.

Later that night, Kawanami is bored that Mizuto is just studying, so he texts Minami, which again seems like a common occurrence. They may say they have nothing to do with each other, but they’re fooling absolutely no one—including themselves.

Kawanami and Miniami are so in sync they even fall asleep at the same time, while Mizuto and Yume go out on their respective balconies to admire a full moon. When Mizuto hears Yume on the other side he peeks over to find her in cute frog jammies Minami “made” her wear.

Then Yume says “Tsuki ga kirei desu ne”, confirming she too remembers that night of the school trip when he dropped that “pretentious come-on”.  That said, she basically admits that was when she started liking him. Mizuto says there’s no point in telling him that now, but it’s clear he was happy she remembered that night as vividly as he did.

They both ponder whether all the time Kawanami and Minami have spent together “means” anything, being so close together for so long. As for the two of them, Mizuto believes it isn’t likely their folks will split up, so they’re “stuck as stepsiblings until the end of time.” While he tries to make that sound like the same “hell” Kawanami claims living beside Minami to be, both of them are vastly overstating their torment.

Made in Abyss – S2 04 – Finding Their Treasure

No sooner does Reg come face to face with Princess Faputa than she jumps on top of him, and he sees that she’s not as, shall we say, abstract as most of the other Hollows, but rather is much more like Nanachi. Flashes of memories of Faputa run by in his head, but he can’t remember anything. Not only does Faputa know Reg, she knows him as “Reg”, even though that’s the same name Riko gave him a long way up ago.

More to the point, she considers him her Reg. She pierces his navel and threatens to look down his trousers, but Reg manages to slip away. She asks if he plans to “live in the same time as the ‘human child'”, even though he’ll remain when they die, and Reg doesn’t hesitate: he’ll stay with them till the bitter end.

Meanwhile, as Nanachi is touring the market, Majikaja explains how the village of Iruburu knows everyone’s desires—”signals of the soul”. When Nanachi says they value Mitty, Riko, and Reg most, Majikaja lets on that Mitty is actually here, in the villlage, and also name-drops Vueko’s friend Belaf.

While Faputa came on a bit too strong for Reg’s taste, the fact remains they’re sure to meet again, and soon. After all, she has the answers he’s always dreamed of knowing about where he came from, who created him and why, and who he was back then. That said, seeing how Faputa treated him, he wonders if learning too much would change who he is, and he likes who he is.

When Riko finally gets over the worst of the runs, she calls out for Reg and Nanachi, whom we both know have become engrossed in other things and in their distractedness left her alone and unprotected. It doesn’t take long for Riko to get jumped by a gang of Hollow ne’r-do-wells who once again squeeze Meinya too hard, and threaten to squeeze her too.

Needless to say, my heart fell into my feet once all those slithering appendages ensnared Riko. Thank goodness, then, for the rehabilitated Maaa, who springs to the rescue, saving Meinya and Riko, then escaping the cave when the Balancing envelops the bad actors. Having had her fill of handsy Hollows, she prepares to head into town with Meinya, but then invites Maaa to join her, having proven they’ve got her back.

She squeezes herself into a very hip and popular Hollow restaurant, orders something a Hollow with a mouth is eating, and proceeds to get something she was not expecting. The proprietor tells her it’s spicy roasted testicles, and after a beat or two Riko realizes the Hollow spoke in her language. She’s not the only one there who can, either; sitting near the end of the bar is a towering, venerable-looking Hollow called…Wazukyan.

So, we’ve got Irumyuui becoming Faputa, Wazukyan becoming…that thing, and when Majikaja leads Nanachi to where Belaf is, we learn he’s become a kind of armored serpent-dragon thingy. Of course, Nanachi isn’t there to see Belaf. They’re there to see Mitty, who is stuffed rather ceremoniously in a decorative pot and seems as pleased to see Nanachi as those dead red eyes can relay.

As Nanachi drinks in their reunion, Vueko’s voiceover comes in, saying that once someone finds “their treasure”, their value “transitions” and their journey ends. For Nanachi, that treasure is Mitty. For Reg, it’s recovering his forgotten past. For Riko, it’s finding her mother and/or the ultimate journey’s end—the bottom of the Abyss.

Then we see that Vueko has hardly changed at all, other than growing longer hair, ditching clothes, and wading for who knows how many years in the very black mass of goo that goes about doing Balancings. We’re sure to see more of Vueko’s pre-goo experiences, but for now the past and present have officially merged.

P.S. “Those Everyday Feels”, the track that played when the Layers of the Abyss were first introduced and accompanied the first season’s Next Episode cards, makes a comeback this week. It’s one of the simplest but most stirring of Kevin Penkin’s tracks, and also one of my faves.

Magia Record – 22 (Final Season E01) – Collect, Transform, Manifest, Despair

Magia Record’s final season begins where it all began: with the Hospital Girls Satomi Touka, Hiiragi Nemu, and Tamaki Ui. Ui’s big sister Iroha would always visit the three, and they all led a happy, if sheltered and delicate life. They even created uwasa together, but as places that would soothe hearts, not corrupt them.

Then Ui took a turn for the worse, and Kyuubey was ready to pounce on Iroha’s desperation. When Ui was near death, Iroha made a hasty deal that would save her little sister. In exchange, she became a magical girl. At the time, it didn’t matter. If it meant saving Ui, Iroha would do anything.

The three girls took notice of Iroha’s changed behavior and far less frequent visits. Being innately curious, they decided to follow her when she suddenly rushed out on them, and were horrified by what they saw: Iroha battling and ultimately defeating a witch, but clearly suffering a great deal in the process.

Having ensnared Iroha in his little web, Kyuubey decides to try to recruit the three girls, saying he can give them the power to save Iroha. But instead of hastily taking the deal, Touka, Nemu, and Ui science the shit of of this, doing in-depth research and determining the precise wishes that will maximize their ability to do the most good for the most people.

Kyuubey is right that he never lies, but is quite content to mislead, omit, or create misunderstandings his victims will regret far too late. He may have never encountered a trio of such inquisitive would-be victims as these three, peppering him with so many questions they get a far clearer picture of what’s really going on than any of the emotionally compromised girls he turned Magical over the years.

The conclusion the girls come to at the end of their research is to essentially steal Kyuubey’s powers of collection, transformation, and manifestation. They become magical girls, but rather than being on their own and having to make gradual or uneasy alliances, they’re a cohesive unit right from the beginning, setting up an automated corruption purification system on a grand scale.

This ingenious system goes swimmingly for all of five minutes until Ui’s collection power collects too much corruption too fast for the others’ abilities to keep up with. She is transformed into a witch—the first artificial witch—which attracts the attention of another magical girl: Alina Grey, who accepts the role of muscle for the nascent Wings of Magius.

As for poor Ui, Nemu manages to salvage her damaged soul and places it into the only suitable vessel: the deadified Kyuubey, thus bringing about Lil’ Kyuubey. Now we know why the little fella liked Iroha so much; it’s Ui in there!

As for why Touka is so indifferent to Ui’s loss, it’s not because she let power get to her head, but because by placing her soul into Kyuubey, Ui’s existence was erased from the world. Erased from pictures, name tags, and memories. But Nemu remembers.

Thus concludes a thoroughly heartbreaking demonstration of how Kyuubey’s manipulation corrupts even most intelligent and resourceful girls who only want to do as much good as they can, and to help the big sister they loved so dearly. It’s a dark and tragic story, but again, it’s only the beginning. Maybe the ending will be brighter.

Love of Kill – 05 – A Pest On Land and Sea

Hou takes Chateau hostage and sticks her in the back of a car with a bomb, but as soon as she spots the bomb, she’s able to escape the car before it explodes. Despite being only about ten feet from the explosion the most she suffers is some glass in her leg, which I’d call a win.

Song wins his duel with Hou, but it’s not much of a fight, as the main issue is that Hou’s “nerves are fried”, which means it just takes a couple of minutes for his body to realize its riddle with bullets. In those minutes, Song manages to get himself pretty torn up, but he too doesn’t succumb to his wounds until he’s seen Chateau out of the burning warehouse and into his car.

Chateau may be extremely irritated by this guy most of the time, but she still follows a code that won’t allow her to let the man who saved her life bleed out. Thanks to her co-worker Jim (who is the actual most irritating character in the show—like, why no mouth, and why does he talk like that?), she gets him to a mob doctor who stitches him back together.

Chateau sits by his bed and “sleeps”, giving him a chance to slip out. It’s a cute little exchange. The next day she wakes up from a recurring dream where a man, whose hair kind of looks like Song’s covers her face to keep her from seeing his. Then her phone rings that horrible incessant ring, and it’s Song, announcing he’s going on a trip.

It happens to be the same trip Chateau goes on with her boss and Jim after she once again begs his forgiveness for getting into trouble during her suspension. That suspension is apparently suspended for the mission on the megaliner Artemisia, where their job will be to pose as tourist while protecting a VIP.

Along with Chateau and Song, there’s a third assassin aboard: your bog-standard childish happy-go-lucky murderer type. I mean, since he reminds me of Souma Momiji he’s at least a little more interesting than Hou, whose most distinctive feature was his dumb face tattoo. More interesting still will be whatever hijinx Song and Chateau get up to, and how they’ll team up to thwart this kid.

Mieruko-chan – 05 – Of Moms and Manjuu

Mieruko-chan sticks to two main stories, one in which Niguredou Yuria is finally introduced as a third character who can see ghosts and ghouls—more clearly than the old fortune-teller but less clearly than Miko. As we’ve seen on the margins of past episodes, she’s been watching Miko, convinced she can see what she sees.

The thing is, Mieruko is still committed to not disclosing that she can see them, especially when a much larger and spookier ghoul is in the gym storage room that Yuria can’t even see. Her solution for not discussing it is to use a signature submission move of her favorite wrestler, Badger: a serpent drop. It’s not surprising Yuria thinks Miko is threatening her in the nurse’s office later, but it’s just a bit of miscommunication.

Meanwhile, Miko is now seeing so much that others can’t that sometimes she can’t tell ghouls from humans, as she mistakes a tiny, ancient, but very much still alive granny on some steps. She carries the lady to her house, where her daughter proceeds to thank her by going in the house to grab some manjuu. That’s when a creepy business suit-wearing ghoul approaches Miko and she just wants to leave.

The thing is, the ghoul keeps repeating the same four-digit number, which Miko finally types into her smartphone and shows the old lady. Suddenly, like a switch flipped, the granny, whose daughter said had serious dementia, is lucid again. She uses the code to open her safe, use the comb within her departed husband gave her to put her hair up, and prepares to make some pork miso soup.

The granny invites Miko to join them, but seeing what amounts to a mother-daughter reunion (with the ghoul of the father thanking Miko before shambling off), Miko is eager to get home to her family. She makes sure to text her mom she’s on the way home, and when her mom sends a goofy sticker back, Miko can’t help but smile.

Once again, in a very real and meaningful way, Miko’s ability has allowed her to help improve the lives of others. Even if it wasn’t entirely intentional, she helped that lady home and typed that code into her phone. Yuria may want to be a spiritualist, but Miko seems to already be a kind of saint—an individual performing unexplainable deeds for the betterment of others.

Sonny Boy – 11 – Excelsior

I would have been content with episode 8 being Peak Sonny Boy, but I knew it probably had at least one more ten or Lister in it. So we come to the Achingly sad, joyful, empty, bursting, whimsical, utilitarian, lonely, warm, humdrum and epic episode yet. It begins with two humans, a dog, and three cats celebrating the life of Nozomi—the episode confirming what I’d feared without using words (though the explicit words come later).

After preparing the funeral venue with the kind of mirth Nozomi would have totally gotten down with, the sun eventually goes down, no one comes to mourn her, and Mizuho and Nagara set her shrine into the sea to be carried away to parts unknown. Mizuho starts to cry, but Nagara is both too awkward to comfort her and a steady emotional rock sitting beside her.

When live takes away a Nozomi in This World, it gives you a Rajdhani, and while I missed Nozomi more than I thought I could miss a fictional character, it’s to Sonny Boys credit that it softens the blow by bringing back the smartest and one of the kindest and most empathetic characters in the show. He’s been on his own for over 2,000 years, but he’s still Rajdhani. You could say he’s mellowed out a bit.

Mizuho, Nagara, Rajdhani embark upon the most ambitious project to date: Project Robinson, an Apollo-like program with just the three of them, Yamabiko and Nyamazon as the people involved (meanwhile Apollo involved 400,000 people, or more than the population of Iceland). Robinson is Mizuho and Nagara’s ticket out of This World and back to their own, where they figure about two years have passed, but they’re ready to go home anyway…because it’s home.

As work progresses on the Vehicle Assembly Building (an exact copy of the one in Florida), Rajdhani regales both Mizuho and Nagara with some of his more memorable travels to far-flung worlds. In one, a guy refused to accept reality and became trapped in a world of his own embellishment, starting with the depiction of the one he loved.

In another, the entire population of students ate neither plants nor animals but simply fasted—something you can do when you can’t starve—until challenged by a meat-eating devil. And then there was an inventor who invented “death”—or at least as close to death in the world they came from as you can get in This World—which is pretty similar.

The inventor who invented “death” had become “Buddha-like” in Rajdhani’s words, a “well-adjusted person” who was content with what was in front of him. And yet, that was the literal end of his life, for even the most complacent or enlightened humans still age and die.

This World is inhumanly, inhumanely static, which means there comes a point when existence…well, isn’t necessarily a curse, but simply doesn’t matter. Rajdhani admits that he feels like he’s being drained away by time. He calls life “an endless exercise in vain effort”, yet it’s that very meaninglessness that makes every moment in life so precious and brilliant, because each one of those moments is the only one that was, is, or will ever be.

That brings us to a flashback on the beach with Nagara and Nozomi, before her ill-fated trip to War. He’s showing her an earlier version of Project Robinson, which he’d been working on in Rajdhani’s absence. Nozomi ponders the ramifications of suddenly returning home after two years, how they may be different people than who they were, and how she may even be dead.

But one thing Nozomi the Compass knows for sure: the first thing she’ll do when she’s back in their “original” world (that doesn’t involve eating something) will be to seek Nagara out and re-befriend him without delay. It’s after remembering this moment with Nozomi, who promised they’d be friends in any world, that Nagara finally breaks down. And even after over 2,000 years of absorbing knowledge and wisdom, Rajdhani still can’t do anything but sit next to him…and that’s okay.

The completed heart of Project Robinson is revealed as the Saturn V rocket that propelled human beings to the moon, something that remains such a staggeringly awesome achievement, especially considering how long ago it happened. The Saturn V is perhaps the most awesome thing humanity has ever built, and it worked…more than once, is something of a miracle.

And while there were certainly political considerations to be made—the Soviets beat the U.S. to space, so apparently the U.S. had to beat them to the moon—so much labor was put into a mission of pure peaceful exploration and discovery. That the fruit of all that labor brought science closer to the cusp of the unknowable and infinite that our simple carbon-based bi-pedal species had ever come before or since.

It was a simply glorious achievement that makes me misty eyed just thinking about it…so it’s especially fun to see three high schoolers pull if off with a dog and three cats. The Robinson rocket is a 363-foot-tall metaphor for spreading one’s tender, untested new wings and leaving the nest, which is what Mizuho does by leaving her three cats behind. They can’t come back with her to where she belongs, but that’s okay. They did their job. She’ll be okay on her own.

Well, not entirely on her own; she has Nagara. And for an episode in which he mourned the loss of his first friend Nozomi, he smiled and laughed more in this episode than any previous ones. He wouldn’t be the person he is without Nozomi, which is why on the spaceflight up into the infinite, near the boundary between This World and That, he still has a compass watch with arrows that never move, representing Nozomi’s inspiring, indomitable will.

We don’t know what awaits Nagara and Mizuho on the other side any more than they do, but that’s entirely okay. I haven’t had the slightest idea what Sonny Boy will throw our way from one week to the next; I highly doubt it will try for predictable, obvious, or boring in its (assumed) finale next week.

As Rajdhani said, Nothing matters in This World…but once in a while, cool things do happen. Sonny Boy shows us that experiencing those cool things alongside people you love can make what shouldn’t matter…matter.

RABUJOI WORLD HERITAGE LIST

To Your Eternity – 14 – Hail to the Chief

Fushi finds himself ensnared by the mysterious Tonari, who pushes him into a arena battle royale before he even knows what a battle royale entails. Once he realizes it’s kill or be killed, he decides not to kill, and since he can’t be killed, he ends up winning when the last non-immortal fighter standing passes out from a hangover.

Fushi wins the adoration of the crowd, as well as an entourage in Tonari and her young friends. In the episode’s very expository second act, Tonari and the others explain The Way Things Are on this prison island now essentially run by the convicts. The island burns through chiefs, but Tonari sees potential in an “eternal” chief to bring some kind of stability and dignity to her home.

Fushi is mostly disgusted by this island full of death and enslavement, and wants nothing to do with Tonari and her pals who he says aren’t “normal” if they can laugh, smile, and joke in such a place. He asks the Creator to take him to Pioran, but the Creator won’t do anything for him that won’t help him grow.

The creator tells Fushi that a plain fact of living with mortal humans is that sometimes they’ll choose how and when to die, as Gugu did, and as the arena combatants do. Fushi can already be said to have caused the deaths of many humans so far, so what’s a few more who have already chosen to die? As for one life he wasn’t able to take—Hayase of Yanome—she’s on the island, and marks her quarry in the night by licking his face.

The day of the second round of the arena tournament, Fushi has little interest in participating despite Tonari’s prodding. He turns into his dog form, accidentally kills a mole, then becomes the mole so he can dig underground. But he’s snatched up by an owl and dropped right in the middle of Tonari’s posse.

Forced into a one-on-one battle, Fushi tries to intimidate his opponent, but as the Creator told him, that opponent has already decided on only one of two paths: victory or death. Neither becoming a wolf-dog or a flame-spitting Gugu has any effect. That’s when Fushi suddenly remembers Parona, transforms into her (despite her still being alive, as far as we know), and is amazed at how light and nimble he’s become.

He’s able to defeat his opponent and move on to the third round. The crowd goes while, and Hayase licks her chops in preparation for a confrontation in the near future. Whatever Hayase’s intentions, Fushi is about to be tested like never before, as the Nokkers have surely followed him to this island. They’ll either take more of his memories and forms, or he’ll reclaim the ones they stole.

To Your Eternity – 13 – Acquiring Something Invisible

Less than a week after Fushi left Booze Man’s home and his found family, he wears a variety of facial expressions, wrestles with his grief, and questions his purpose. He even summons the Creator and puts the question to him, and obviously the Creator has an answer: Move Forward. Become Stronger. Defeat the Enemy.

This isn’t because Fushi was created to be a perfect weapon. It is because he is a mechanism placed on this world to collect and preserve information. If the world is destroyed by the Nokkers before he can do that, it would be an immeasurable loss. Fushi, having spent so long as a human, is understandably rebellious towards his “absentee dad.”

The Creator says at some point he’ll be gone, while Fushi will remain, so he’d better figure out how to deal with the Nokkers on his own in preparation for that time. Shortly afterwards, Fushi encounters Pioran once again, who left Booze Man, Rean and Shin to be Fushi’s “walking stick.” She knows the dangers they face, but “living on the edge” has more appeal to her than a quiet life.

Fushi is initially reluctant to have Pioran accompany him on his journey, but he soon re-warms up to her, as likely so many people have. They go to a town where she has a feast, and all the while Fushi is worried about the Nokkers following him and causing more harm. He realizes his Creator meant for him to bump into Pioran, knowing he couldn’t help but want to protect her.

When Pioran catches Fushi talking to no one she can see, she eventually coaxes him into telling her about the Creator. Pioran takes the information in stride, just as an old lady like her takes everything in stride, as she must. Then one day, she spots some ripe fruit in the trees, and tells Fushi to change into March…and Fushi doesn’t know who she’s talking about.

Pioran thus learns that the Enemy has stolen his memories of March along with her form—a second death, when you’ve been forgotten by everyone still alive. It’s the antithesis of what he was created to do: to collect information so it is never forgotten.

Fushi and Pioran’s travels eventually take them to a busy port full of seedy individuals. A cheerful girl guides them aboard a ship that turns out to be run by human traffickers. Fushi and Pioran are separated by gender and are sailed to Jananda Island to be processed.

Fushi’s brand heals almost instantly, however, so when a guard notices, the same girl who lured him and Pioran aboard the ship rescues him, successfully claiming to the guard that a mistake was made. Fushi goes with her, but eventually stops her to ask where Pioran is; she tells him he shouldn’t bother; there’s no getting her back from those people.

Fushi insists and tries to climb a massive sheer stone wall using conjured spears, but ends up slipping, falling, and dying. As his smashed head reassembles, the girl who doomed then helped him watches along with her four young friends, who are simultaneously grossed out and greatly impressed.

The green-eyed girl tells the newly-healedFushi that there is a “realistic” way to free Pioran, and it’s to fight in the Arena. For Jananda Island is a Prison Island, where any and all favors are never given, only taken. It’s a new arc, with a new collection of immediately lovable characters who will surely meet their untimely and heartbreaking demise by the arc’s end. Hopefully we’ll have some good times with them before then!

To Your Eternity – 12 – Crushmore

Don’t let the punny review title mislead you; this episode did indeed crush me emotionally, just as it emotionally crushed Fushi and Rean and physically crushed poor Big Gugu. From the moment the outcropping balcony crumbled from beneath him, I knew this would probably be the final act of the Gugu Arc.

It’s funny how when I first met Gugu and later Rean that I couldn’t imagine becoming as attached to them as I did March and Parona…but here we are. Such is the power of To Your Eternity’s straightforward yet compelling storytelling and beautiful character development.

Proving he is and always has been a good orb thingy and friend to humanity (heck, for four years he was a human), it only takes a moment after he is warned by his Creator to transform into his Giant Bear form in order to buy Rean’s party guests time to escape the crumbling mansion.

Also, in what is a nice touch, Gugu is rescued by a group of people brought by Rean, including her own husband-to-be. But not before one of the Nokker’s weird flesh tentacles sticks itself into his armpit and does…something, and whatever it is it can’t be good.

No sooner is Gugu saved than he runs into the wrecked mansion where Fushi is still holding on for the sake of Rean’s injured parents, who Gugu snatches up and takes to safety. Rean wants the boy she loves to stay with her from that point on, but Gugu breaks free from her grip; he has a brother to help, and Fushi, now back in his original younger Snow Boy form, is happy for the help.

That’s because he has no idea how to beat the Nokker this time. His creator didn’t bother him when he was determined to live as a human, but that turned out to be a two-sided coin: Fushi wasn’t ready for the Nokker’s new tricks, and the delay nin dealing with said Nokker costs him dearly.

At first, even Gugu’s new flamethrower mask can’t penetrate the Nokker’s stone armor, but with some help from March!Fushi and a steady supply of conjured spears, he’s able to open a crack in the armor large enough to shoot his booze flames, shocking the Nokker.

Unfortunately, he only made the Nokker mad, because it returns as a stone Giant Bear arm, plucks March!Fushi from the rubble, and squashes him like a bug, stealing the March form from Fushi once again. Just as the Nokker is about to crush Gugu, Rean leaps out of nowhere to push them both out of the way, paying him back for the now two times he did the same to save her.

As Fushi comes to in Snow Boy form, he realizes he is feeling pain, but it’s not his own, it’s Gugu’s. Whether due to their familial bond, the Nokker’s armpit injection, or both, Fushi can feel what Gugu feels…and it’s not good. Gugu’s broad back and trunk-like arms are the only things keeping untold amounts of rubble from crushing Rean to death.

It’s a situation that ironically and heartbreakingly traps the two in what is physically a very romantic and intimate position. Gugu takes the time to reassure Rean, even as blood starts to drip from his open mask. She sits up to kiss his face. He tells her he loves her. Then he dies, but we don’t see the moment it happens. Instead, we know it to be true for a fact because Fushi transforms into him.

Despite being distraught over losing his brother and best friend, Fushi wastes no time using his new Gugu form to fight the Nokker, blasting it repeatedly with flames and eventually getting it to leap into the ocean to chase him, where it eventually self-destructs, leaving only the weak, squishy core to slither away into the depths.

Fushi’s Creator appears to tell him which way the Nokker went, and tells him to go after it. He doesn’t, and once again the Creator doesn’t force him to do anything, though he does ask if it’s really already for the Nokker to make off with “a part of him”. Right now that doesn’t matter to Fushi, who has already lost a part of himself in Gugu, who died saving Rean’s life one more time.

In a scene reminiscent of Adult March after she died, Gugu finds that his face has healed and he has reunited with everyone: Booze Man, Pioran, Rean, Shin…but wonders where Fushi is. That’s when the illusion crumbles. After his soul spends a little while longer with a distraught Fushi, telling him he has no regrets, Rean runs back to the Booze Man’s house as soon as she’s healed from her injuries.

Fushi panics, not wanting to appear as the younger Fushi before Rean, but with his March form stolen by the Nokker the only other human form he can assume is Gugu. Rean mistakes him for the real thing and tells him she loves him. After they share a hug, and Fushi wonders Why am I me? Rean asks where Fushi is, and Gugu!Fushi tells her he died.

Booze Man, who already knew Fushi would be taking his leave in order to protect them from his enemies, prepares some food and money for him, and while Rean is told Gugu is only “going shopping”, a part of her surely realizes this is the last time she’ll see him, as much as she doesn’t want that to be so. So she’s glad when he refuses to take her ring back from her, as he tells her to keep it so she’ll always remember him.

A little later, Rean’s father finds her lying out in the field of purple flowers she and Gugu promised to pick together. She tells her father she won’t be getting married, because she’s in love with someone. That someone isn’t around anymore, but she’s sure Fushi is with him.

GODDAMN TEARJERKER™ CERTIFIED

To Your Eternity – 11 – The Life Platonic with Steve Gugu

It’s been four years. Gugu is now hu-huge, while Fushi has aged, since he hasn’t changed form since Gugu saved him from the Nokkers. Rean still comes by often, teaching Fushi needlecrafts while asking him about Gugu on the regular. Fushi has been around humans long enough to know the blindingly obvious: Gugu and Rean like each other.

The problem is, Rean is betrothed to someone she’s never met, and shortly after her sixteenth birthday (which is coming up soon) she’ll be married off. Also, while larger in frame Gugu, remains as bashful than ever about that kind of thing. Also, his brother shows up out of the blue. Gugu isn’t interested in reconciliation; he has a new family now, so he asks his bro, who is at least doing well, to buzz off.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see him again, but he was a delivery vessel for The Ring, as in the ring Rean gave to Gugu for finding her lost dog. That Gugu’s brother returned it to him means he was the boy she met in the market. She runs out to where Gugu is just sleeping in a pile of purple potatoes, stares at him longingly.

After trying to fit the ring on his chunky fingers, she wakes him up, then tells him now’s his chance to make a move. She also asks if he’s really okay with her being married off, considering how he loves her and all. Thing is, Gugu doesn’t remember his offhand confession four years ago because he was so drunk on Booze Man’s stomach hooch.

Rean is hurt by his lack of remembering, but is still looking forward to seeing him and Fushi at her birthday party. Her house is freakin’ palatial, while most of the guests are snobs and pricks. Even so, Rean is happy to see them and that’s all that matters!

Gugu and Fushi stopped by the market on the way to Rean’s, and Gugu purchased a purple dream bellflower, which happens to be the same flower Rean was holding when she had her accident. Everyone gives Gugu the stinkeye for traumatizing the birthday girl, but they have it all wrong.

Rather, Rean comes to a stunning revelation: since the only time she saw such flowers was when she had that accident, it must mean Gugu was the one who pushed her and saved her life. But before she can go to him, she’s introduced to her future husband, and forced to chat with him for an inordinate amount of time, pretending to enjoy herself.

Once that’s all done with, she rushes back to Gugu, who happens to be standing out on a balcony overlooking the sea. She drops a number of other details from that fateful day and confirms that it was Gugu who saved her at the cost of his face. That he felt worse about the wound she incurred than what happened to him only makes her blush more.

She seems poised to tell Gugu she likes him, but the balcony cruelly and almost comically separates and falls off the cliff. Gugu once again pushes Rean to safety while taking the fall himself. Hopefully that helmet will keep him safe, because as the Creator reports to Fushi back at the buffet, the Nokkers are back, and they’re going to kill Gugu if Fushi doesn’t stop them.