No. 6 5

Okay, so Nezumi’s an actor, but because he’s so pretty, he plays female roles, of course. Against his wishes, Shion goes to see him perform Shakespeare. Meanwhile, in No. 5, Safu is visiting a museum with her classmates when both she and Nezumi are hit by a strange “wind”, start to hear singing, and then pass out into a dream state.

Safu wakes up in hospital, while Nezumi is carried home by Shion, who then tells him about the parasite bee attacks. Nezumi teaches him how to dance for some reason, the lovebirds kill some time dancing, and then Shion touches Nezumi’s neck, surprising him, as he didn’t have time to dodge. Perhaps Shion’s new hair and tats lent him some powers?

The Safu and Nezumi connection threw me off a bit, especially when he said it had nothing to do with bees. What exactly is going on is still something that mostly escapes me, and aside from the shared dizzy spell and the suspicion next week Nezumi and Shion may be eskimo kissing, this episode felt too much like a holding pattern, even stalling.

Rating: 2.5

No. 6 2

First of all, yowza, this episode contained (courtesy of Safu) probably the most forward proposal for sex I’ve heard in an anime since Mezzo Forte, which was at least part-porn. Second of all, good grief, four frikkin’ years have gone by! We never see the consequences of Shion harboring Nezumi in realtime, only his recollection of it. Basically, his life is ruined; he and his mom are kicked out of No.6 and he’s reduced to working as a park supervisor in “lost town”, far from glittering Chronos.

It was definitely gutsy to let so much time pass. Safu’s role still seems unclear to me, as Shion only sees her as a friend, and she’s leaving for No.5 to study abroad for still another two years. Meanwhile, Lost Town is just as authoritarian as No.6, and when Shion speaks out of turn regarding a mysterious and gruesome death, the government locks him up for malcontentedness.

Fortunately, Nezumi has been watching him from afar, and rescues him in the nick of time. They run into the woods and eventually make it outside the walls of the city to “the real world”, a bleak, sickly, dystopian urban growth sticking to the outside of the wall. It would seem Shion’s journey has just begun. Oh yeah, and what the heck was up with those neck bees? Rating: 3.5