Higurashi: When They Cry – Gou – 24 (Fin) – Down With the Ship

Satoko did not predict her uncle would be reformed to the degree he was as an effect of her loops, but she’ll still use him “to his utmost potential” in her overarching goal to keep Rika right where she is: in the “birdcage”. One of the key figures in assuring that outcome is Takano Miyo.

Miyo is taken out into the rainy woods by members of the Mountain Dogs. where she is told the operation has failed and all physical evidence related to it will be destroyed, including her beloved scrapbook. She’s also given a gun with one bullet to blow her own brains out, or it will be done for her.

Miyo wakes up in her office, clearly having experienced an alternate fragment and, like Teppei, considered it more than a dream, but a warning of what will come if she continues on her set path. The orders to get rid of her in that fragment come down from Nomura, a woman in Tokyo Miyo trusted. She gets a call from Nomura shortly after waking up.

As such, the possible events she just “dreamt” are foremost on her mind when Nomura informs her of what must happen if she fails her operation, which involves infecting Tomitake with Hinamizawa Syndrome. Miyo’s dear departed grandfather’s research will be dismissed as “fanciful nonsense” and he’ll be a laughingstock.

Miyo recalls when she was much younger and served as her gramps’ assistant, only for a bunch of old guys to come in, listen to his research, and dismiss it as…fanciful nonsense. Never the less, Miyo would grow up, go into medicine, and carry on her grandfather’s life’s work. In a meta moment, one of the old dudes says he’ll recommend a publisher for her gramps, as his research could make for some entertaining fiction.

Before Satoko comes in for a routine checkup and tests, Miyo has the sudden urge to take her scrapbook out of the safe, no doubt fueled by her “dream” about it and her ending up in the mud. In it she discovers a letter to her from her gramps, imploring her to stop pursuing the research and go life a “wonderful life”.

During their tests, Miyo tells Satoko how she’s considering quitting the Irie Clinic, considering that if she stays she’ll eventually be discarded like “ingredients in soup stock”. During Rika’s dance, Satoko follows Tomitake and Miyo to Oyashiro’s storeroom, though only Miyo goes inside.

Back in the ethereal plane, Eua notes that Satoko is working towards a world where the rules of Rika’s tragedy no longer exist. Satoko intends to take on the mantle of Oyashiro-sama and punish Rika for longing to leave Hinamizawa with the curse of another virtually endless cycle of tragedy, in which Rika will “learn” that her proper place is Hinamizawa, by Satoko’s side.

When Tomitake arrives for his “prophylactic”, Miyo takes out a vial of H173, but decides not to go forward with injecting him, thus scrapping the operation on her own terms. Without Tomitake succumbing to the syndrome, the rest of the “final operation” cannot happen. Satoko uses Miyo’s reluctance in this fragment, borne from previous fragments, to steal a vial of H173 for herself.

Eua asks Satoko if she’ll really feel no guilt or remorse for resorting to such methods to achieve victory, and Satoko, made both wise and weary by her decades of looping, says none at all. After all, the world she’s working toward, in which she and Rika are together, will be devoid of tragedy, and that will be the only world that really matters.

With that final declaration, delivered with red eyes and all the fervor of a girl obsessed, the story of GOU is concluded, and the story of SOTSU is announced as a continuation of Satoko’s quest. Rika has been ready to move on with her life for some time now, but Satoko isn’t ready to let her.

She can’t accept a future in which the two of them simply drift apart, as friends sometimes naturally do. For all the pain and suffering her plan has caused and will surely continue to cause, I can’t help but pity Satoko as much as I do Rika and the other victims, and I’ll be back to see how it all turns out.

Yuru Camp△ 2 – 07 – Going Solo

Chiaki, Aoi, and Ena were a lot of fun these past two episodes, but by the end of their Lake Yamanaka trip I was ready for some Rin and Nadeshiko time, and that’s what we get here! After Ena shows Chiaki some photos from their almost-ill-fated trip, it finally happens: Rin’s little grill is used as an offertory box, as they drop a coin in and praise their mutual savior. Rin’s deadpan reply is simple and perfect: “No worshipping.”

Ena splits, enabling Nadeshiko to talk solo camping with Rin. Rin’s a little surprised someone as gregarious as Nadeshiko has taken an interest in it, but is happy to offer all the advice she can. In what seems like an intentional contrast to Chiaki mostly winging it, relying on luck, and paying the price, Nadeshiko is determined to plan her first trip The Right Way, and not bite off more than she can chew.

Rin’s insights and advice prove indispensable as Nadeshiko makes a master list of things to do. First, she tells her family she’s going solo, and Sakura quickly and clandestinely downloads a GPS app so they’ll know where she is—a move that’s as wise as Nadeshiko’s curious “What are you doing?” is hilarious.

She finds a spot that won’t be too cold that’s within walking distance of a train station (and in cellular range), checks the weather and in particular the day-to-night changes in temperature, and makes a list of things to do while she’s there so she doesn’t get bored. The big day arrives, and after sliding all of her gear onto her back with a “hup”, she’s off to Fujikawa by way of Fujinomiya.

Rin, who also has the weekend off, decides to take a solo trip of her own, this time heading to Lake Amehata in picturesque Hayakawa, first stopping at a super-cozy home café in Akasawa for mamemochi and amazake (with barley tea on the house).

Nadeshiko reports via photo of her arrival in Fujinomiya, and after praying at the temple there for a safe and fun solo camping trip, she stays the growling of her stomach as she passes restaurants on the way to the yakisoba place her sister recommended.

Sakura, who is also getting her sister’s photo updates, is driving … somewhere. Where precisely, we’re not told, but it looks for all the world like she’s trailing Nadeshiko like an overprotective parent, even though that seems like overkill. Nadeshiko even senses she’s being followed and looks behind her several times.

Rin leaves Akasawa and visits the Giant Cedar of Yushima. All the gorgeous scenery she rides and walks through really gives you the warm exciting feeling of exploring new and unfamiliar places. And then, as she pulls into a café near the Lake Narada Hot Springs, the Sakura mystery is solved, with Rin finding her car parked in the lot.

As Rin spots Sakura and starts to follow her, Nadeshiko finally gets a spot in the yakisoba place, and once seated, she quickly learns she’d better shout out her order when requested or she’ll be passed up. Trusting in her fellow orderers, she gets a gomoku shigure-yaki, a thoroughly rib-sticking local specialty of okonomiyaki and Fujinomiya yakisoba.

Due to the set up, we’re able to watch along with Nadeshiko every step of the way as her food comes together, and the opposite is true as well: the cook is able to see Nadeshiko’s patented “This is Super Tasty” Face. She snaps a pic for Rin, who is viewing it just as Sakura walks up to her.

Her “cover” blown, Rin decides to have some tea with Sakura, and while initially finds their silence awkward due to Nadeshiko not being there, Sakura is always ready to talk Moped Stories, the show Rin watched with the others during Christmas Camping. Rin also learns that Sakura is a fellow solo-er, taking a drive once a month or so to places featured on travel shows.

When talk turns to Nadeshiko, Rin can tell Sakura is worried, but right on cue Nadeshiko texts both of them a photo of her superbly round and jolly face standing outside the Tomato Food Market, where she’ll shop for dinner supplies before heading to the campsite.

Sakura heads to the hot spring, Rin continues on to her campsite, and Nadeshiko arrives in Fujikawa. She’s only a 5.5km (around 3.4 miles) walk from the “Fujikawa Healthy Greenspace Campsite”, the fictional version of Nodayama Health Ryokuchi Park. Thanks to the physical conditioning her sister forced upon her, it should indeed be a walk in the park!

TONIKAWA: Over the Moon For You – 03 – Not Your Usual Bath Episode

Tsukasa is impressed to find Nasa has a fully-stocked fridge, but her opinion goes down a peg when she learns he cooks only for optimal nutrition and minimal waste, and after exhaustive research determined the only thing he should ever make is hot pot!

She remedies that monotony by using the same ingredients to whip up an eclectic feast that shows her hubby that cooking can and should be as much art as science. Nasa even references Food Wars while watching his wife work her culinary magic!

After breakfast, it’s time to hit the bathhouse, but Nasa’s taste in toiletries (i.e. the bare necessities) again fall short, necessitating a quick stop to the store for skin toner, serum, and lotion. Nasa is amazed at the complexity of a woman’s skin grooming routine, as it explains both why her skin is so beautiful and why she smells so nice.

The extra characters dam finally opens this week as we’re introduced first to Kaname, who despite being a year younger than Tsukasa practically runs the family bathhouse with her sister (who is Nasa’s age). Naturally, someone who’s known Nasa for years is shocked that he’s suddenly married, but even more upset that he hasn’t properly proposed, or bought Tsukasa a ring, or planned a ceremony!

When Nasa brings up the fact all of those things are wasteful and inefficient, Kaname, wise beyond her years, responds that’s irrelevant. No one will hold him to account if he doesn’t make those gestures, but he still has a primary responsibility to make his wife happy however he can.

Nasa assures Kaname he’ll do just that, because, and he proclaims this loud enough for all to hear, he loves Tsukasa. She comes back to grab the toiletries from him just as he’s saying this, and while she tells him it’s embarrassing, it also makes her happy. Her delivery and face are enough to make both Nasa and Kaname blush!

Once in the bath, Nasa is soon further teasted by Kaname, who for some reason has to clean the part of the bath where he is. She overheard his childhish monologue about this being a “bath episode”, but thankfully that’s not what he or we get. Sure, Kaname gets a good look at Nasa, but that’s nothing new; they go way back.

While there are subtle shots of legs and cleavage, the fan service is kept to a minimum, and instead Tsukasa is introduced to Kaname’s older sister Aya, who is gorgeous but easily mistaken and confused, and has a low opinion of herself, as she repeatedly promises to kill herself for walking in on Tsukasa’s bath.

She ultimately offers to make up for it by washing Tsukasa’s back, during which time she likens her skin to “silk” before questioning why the secretion of a worm is appropriate compliment, then goes too far in the other direction by saying her skin is like “an IPhone X,” which I’ll just say is a really good joke!

Nasa dreams of when he was laid out on the pavement bleeding to death in the cold when he suddenly wakes up in a massage chair to the cold feeling of a bottle of milk on his cheek, put there by his wife. Then Tsukasa watches Nasa and Aya interact, and witnesses the blatantly easy chemistry and bonhomie between the two.

Aya, for her part, isn’t aware they’re married; she just knows they’re “family”, but Tsukasa understandably gets a little self-conscious, as despite her quirks Aya is a true beauty. When she mentions Aya’s looks, Nasa proceeds to gush about Aya. He noticed the change in mood, which he chalks up to the fact he and Tsukasa just walked past a church where a wedding is taking place.

Because of this, when Tsukasa comes right out and says it would be nice if “he called her pretty”, he mistakes it as being in the context of being a bridge in a wedding gown at a ceremony. That means Tsukasa doesn’t understand his response—that he needs to think about it, and even runs off to do some research and “make the impossible possible!”

It’s the first misunderstanding between the two, and yet nothing that should cause bad vibes going into next week. Instead, there will be bigger fish to fry, as a straw-blonde girl in a huge limo has found Tsukasa, someone she’s apparently been seeking. Marriage is all about balance, so after Tsukasa met Nasa’s people it’s only fair for him to meet Tsukasa’s!

The Millionaire Detective – Balance: UNLIMITED – 11 (Fin) – The New Boss

“Final Boss” Shigemaru leads Daisuke and Haru on a wild goose chase to the bowels of the Kanbe summer home. There, they not only find the allodium lab and his father’s research data, but a secret underground tube train that shoots them all the way back to Daisuke’s house, where Shigemaru is waiting for them. That is, until Daisuke remarks that his father was left-handed and this guy is right-handed, and the gig is up.

“Shigemaru” removes his mask to reveal he was an imposter all this time. Grandma Kikuko sics the guy on Haru while she and Diasuke discuss the future of the world over a cup of tea. Gran considers Allodium too dangerous to allow in any other hands but the Kanbes; it’s why she had Daisuke’s mother killed and Shigemaru framed. Haru eventually brings down the imposter, but not before he gets a bullet in the thigh.

Haru’s victory, and the fact the imposter was not given orders to kill him, end up mattering quite a bit. Daisuke is ready to transfer the Allodium research to scientists around the world, but hesitates in the powerful presence of his grandmother. Haru ends up making the choice to transfer the data for him, but by pressing the button on accident as a result of slumping over Suzue’s control panel.

This was never about Daisuke defeating the final boss, or even taking his rightful place on the throne of the Kanbe Empire, but making that Empire his own. To that end, he rejected generations of secrecy and lets the spread of Allodium information take place…then arrests his granny.

Weeks pass, Haru recovers, but turns down a return to the First Division, citing he can be a detective and dish out justice no matter where he is. He and Daisuke then proceed to do just that, tracking down all criminal activity regarding Allodium and stopping it in its tracks, with the help of HEUSC and Daisuke’s Unlimited Balance (The Second Division misfits also get full access to HEUSC, and of course use it for silly things like porn and sweets). On Daisuke and Haru’s particular mission, Suzue is on a well-deserved vacation.

In a nice bit of series symmetry, Daisuke’s brash, expensive actions end up blowing up part of the Manhattan Bridge, and Haru, even wearing one of those ASV suits, finds himself hanging on a ledge. Last time Daisuke let him fall because he neither trusted nor thought he needed Haru. Now the two are partners and pals, so Daisuke offers his hand…only to playfully pull it back, letting Haru fall in the drink once again. Same action, completely different motivations.

Blending James Bond and Batman billionaire tech and backstory with procedural detective stories and a uniquely Japanese keiretsu element made for a sleek and entertaining eleven episodes. If you’re into any or all of those and love a good rich family drama mystery full of bodacious crime-fighting toys, Fugou Keiji is a solid viewing choice.

Season Average: 8.55

Oregairu 3 – 06 – If There Is a Choice, Something Must Be Chosen

This week is an episode full of conscious and unconscious choices, in which one of two things must be chosen—and the other rejected. The first is when Hikki buys drinks and Iroha must choose between his favorite coffee and red bean soup. Last week Iroha had gone over in her head what she wanted Hikki to take “responsibility” for her the same way he was with Yukino.

Here he does so, but only so far as apologizing for getting her caught up in everything. That said, Iroha doesn’t consider her prom duties a burden; she wants to send Hikki, Yukino, Yui and all her other senpai off properly and not have any regrets. Of course, if she doesn’t want to regret not letting Hikki know her true feelings about him—despite the possibility of rejection—she’ll have to act soon.

Komachi gives Hikki the next choice, between two seemingly identical bowls of stew/hotpot. After dinner he asks her about all the various events her school is doing to celebrate her graduation from middle school. Her mention of a friends-only class trip activates his Big Bro alarm, but like many things it’s all a part of his sister growing up

When he reveals his school is having a prom, Komachi is super-excited for him, even flashing her fang. Telling his sister that a prom is definitely happening basically seals Hikki’s fate, and he knows it: even if he has no idea if a prom will actually happen or what his plan for countering Yukino will be, the goal is in place, and he’s staking everything on that result.

Remember Yuigahama Yui? Coral hair, burnt-orange eyes, could pass as one of the Quintessential Quintuplets…and former member of the Hikki-Yukino-Yui love triangle? Well she makes a triumphant return here after not appearing last week, while Yukino is the one to sit this one out. Things start out pretty awkward, but improve when Hikki immediately asks if she’s okay over yesterday.

She lies that it is, and since he only saw a small fraction of the tears she shed, he lets it be. He then brings her up to speed. Yui assumes that he’ll be working with Yukino a lot more from this point on, meaning they’ll be seeing less of each other, so she’s shocked that things took a completely different direction, and his plan is to compete with Yukino.

Hikki doesn’t ask, but Yui declares she’d like to help him out. With no other staff or budget he can hardly refuse, so off they go to a family restaurant. There, Yui serving Hikki salad and watching him turn up his nose at a tomato like an 8-year-old, she can’t help but rest her head in her hands and gaze in pure joy.

Before eating, Hikki explains the general concept of their alternate prom plan: they’ll be proposing a prom that is even more objectionable than Yukino and Iroha’s, but still legitimate and serious enough that the PTA is forced to make a choice. He cleverly likens it to choosing between regular ice cream and “light” ice cream with half-calories.

Straddling the line between serious and undesirable will be tough, especially with no money, time, or manpower. On the last front, Hikki and Yui reach out to their friends, and while neither Saki nor Saika can help out (Saki is on team Yukino, but Hikki has her bashful blessing, while Saika is busy with tennis), they do manage to score Zaimokuza, who is his usual delightfully chuunibyou-inflicted self.

Before Hikki makes his proposal, Saika asks him what he wants, so they’re all on the same page. Saika seems heartened to see that Hikki knows exactly what he wants to get out of this: making Yukino’s prom a reality by creating a less acceptable one to give hers cover. Hikki says this while Yui holds his hand for support.

From there, Hikki and Yui head to an internet cafe, but due to the time of day, their selection of a “pairs” office suite, and the prom-themed movie Yui watches, it has the distinct aura of an illicit trip to a love hotel. As when she smiled at Hikki being picky at the restaurant, Yui savors every moment she has with Hikki here, and doesn’t their time there to end.

Because they have privacy, she even decides to be a little more assertive and pretend to fall asleep on Hikki’s shoulder. Whether he knows she’s faking or not, he covers her with a scarf and keeps his shoulder still so as not to wake her. In her head, as the tears well up again, she prays/begs anyone who will listen: give her just a little more time like this.

In a heartbreaking, poetic closing inner monologue, she promises she won’t hope for anything to happen, and that one day she’ll be able to stop the tears and along with Yukino help “bring this relationship to its proper end”, whether it ends for good or changes into something else. But mostly, for now, she just doesn’t want what she has right here and now to end.

Hikki may feel like he’s in a good place and has a way forward, and Yukino may feel the same, but lost in the middle is poor Yui, who is having the hardest time reckoning with impending change.

Elfen Lied – 10 – The Man Behind the Glass

Kouta and Yuka turn out to be fine; they left the bedroom before Lucy got up to leave. She and Nana prepare to fight, but Mayu comes between them more than once, and very nearly gets killed for trying to be the peacemaker. Mayu’s pleas remind Lucy of Kouta’s in the past, and she reverts to Nyu once more. Thanks to Mayu’s decency and diplomacy, Nana is welcomed to the dinner table.

From there we’re sent back to the past, when Kurama is first recruited out of college by his friend Professor Kazukawa. They managed to capture a young but murderous Diclonius and have commenced horrifically cruel experiments to test the strength of her Vectors. Kurama is initially not okay with this, but Kazukawa impresses on him how dangerous and unable to coexist with humans they are.

Kurama comes around when the Diclonius Three escapes and goes on a bloody rampage, and very nearly kills him before Kazukawa shoots her in the head with an armor-piercing round, killing her. After committing more than ten infanticides Kurama stops seeing them as simply humans with horns and starts seeing them as an enemy and a blight to be wiped out without mercy or humanity.

Poetic justice strikes when his own daughter is born with horns; he later realizes that Three infected him when she touched him with her Vectors. He aims to kill her like all the others, but his wife, not far removed from major surgery, fights for her daughter’s life with all the strength she has left. She ends up dying of blood loss in the nursery, but not before convincing Kurama to spare their child’s life.

Nana may not be Kurama’s daughter, but she was a proxy for the sliver of fatherly love he had left, which enabled him to free her. That hardly makes the horrible things done to Nana that resulted in her ending up a bloody naked mess (and having dreams about “naked crucifixion”) any less horrific. But on one side of him is Kazukawa, whose word is law, and on the other is the truth that Dicloniï seem to inevitably end up uncontrollable murder machines.

Needless to say, he should have never set foot in that god-forsaken facility. It’s sad that just before Shirakawa begins to unleash Kurama’s biological daughter, Number 35—the “most dangerous” Diclonius, sporting twenty-six visible Vectors—Nyu and Nana are happy as clams with Kouta, Yuka, and Mayu. (A bit of trivia: Akira was designated Number 28, so 35 is seven higher.)

I can’t imagine we’re headed for anything resembling a happy ending here, so I’ll take the happy, peaceful moments in this and future episodes where I can get them.

HenSuki – 10 – No Looking Away

Thanks to the photo of him rummaging through her underwear, Keiki is suddenly Yuika’s willing and attentive slave…and Sayuki is hurt to see her master brought so low, especially knowing it’s due to treachery. Still, Yuika manages to maximize her time with him, dressing him up in a butler outfit of her own design, then using him as a porter during a shopping spree.

After shopping, Yuika takes a bath, but screams when she sees a spider, making Keiki come running to her rescue. Yuika sentences him to death for seeing her naked, but quickly softens when, after she steps on his head, his stroking of her head reminds her of her late grandma. After she trips onto her bed, Keiki discovers she stole a pair of his boxers, so just like that, the blackmailing ceases.

As Keiki and Shouma lament another summer without girlfriends (clearly due to their lack of effort and nothing else) the focus shifts to Nanjou Mao, who first uses Keiki as a model for her boyfriend in a shoujo one-shot she’s working on, then proposes he become her “boyfriend” for research purposes…if he’s not dating anyone else.

Considering how strong she comes on and all the blushing, I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually does like him, though like him with his whole Cinderella investigation, or Shouma with his lolicon, she’s simply hiding from the truth; in her case, behind manga-related excuses. After a recharging hug and sniff, Ayano even proposes she and Keiki start dating, but he respectfully declines. As I said, if he doesn’t have a girlfriend this summer, it’s all his stinkin’ fault.

Perhaps, with a photo taken by Koharu on the day he received a love letter from Cinderella, he’ll finally crack the case open and learn which one of the girls in his life gave him her underwear…or if it’s someone new entirely.

My Girlfriend Is ShoBitch – 03

Honestly, one of the worst things about ShoBitch is its title: it should actually be called Watashi no Kanojo wa Totemo Iidesu. (ほんとに私の彼女はとてもいいです。or My Girlfriend is Really Nice). Because Akiho is not a bitch! She just goes way beyond what is decent in normal daily conversation when it comes to analyzing her boyfriend’s sexual preferences.

Now we learn the reason she is the way she is: her mother Fuyumi gave her this “education.” Haruka learns this rather quickly upon meeting Akiho’s mom, while Akiho’s dad is essentially…Haruka, grown up. You can kinda see in his eyes that it’s been a lot of work living with Fuyumi, but the fact that every other aspect of her is perfect (like their daughter), he has no cause to complain.

In fact, Fuymi is almost too dutiful, to the point of making her husband feel like there’s no way he deserves someone so good. Then he remembers: not everyone could put up with all the innuendo…not to mention imbue their daughter with an almost identical attitude towards…that kinda stuff.

The day of Akiho and Haruka’s first date arrives, and Akiho predictably over-analyzes and over-prepares, to the point of deciding that 30 degrees is the ideal amount of head tilt to maximize her attractiveness to her man, which…yeah, Haruka doesn’t care about your head angle, especially when you’ve got such a cute outfit for the date!

Haruka runs into a bit of bad luck when across from him and Akiho is a real-life pervert with what looks like a blow-up doll-kinda thing(?), and Akiho takes comprehensive notes on both that and the movie they go to see, which is far raunchier than Haruka thought it would be.

That being said, Haruka, like Akiho’s father, is built for this kind of relationship, able to take any and all strange comments and requests, and only gently steer her back in the right direction of things veer off too far. Just being with her for the day made him happy, but that only makes Haruka feel bad for letting her research dominate the date.

Haruka says it’s no biggie; they can just go see the cherry blossoms on Sunday. The thought of another date so soon fills Akiho with joy, but she goes right back into her pattern of over-preparation, and she’s so anxious about the day she becomes sleep-deprived and even gets a fever.

After a trip to the (very inappropriate) nurse’s office and her mother picks her up, Akiho vows to get better for Sunday, and Haruka, not getting his hopes up, is shocked to discover on the day of their date her fever has disappeared. Let’s call it an efficient immune system, shall we?

Alas, most of the cherry blossoms already fell before they got there. Akiho is crestfallen, but again, Haruka reiterates that it’s no big deal (not a lot is  big deal to him, unless she’s on her knees before him in the school hall, speaking in a tone of voice that could be easily misinterpreted).

They can always come back next year, he tells her. Insinuating they’ll be together an entire year from now is awfully bold, but I don’t currently see anything getting in their way. I mean, look how happy Akiho is to hear that!

Speaking of ‘getting in the way’, I was glad none of the other girls in Haruka’s circle made an appearance this week; after the last episode I needed a break, and the show shines best when the lead couple is on screen. It was also neat to meet Akiho’s parents—It was essentially like looking into Akiho and Haruka’s future.

Occultic;Nine – 01 (First Impressions)

The Gist: We are introduced to nine strange individuals linked in some fashion by the occult affiliate blog of high school student Gamon Yuuta, whose operation is staffed by his platonic friend Narusaka Ryouka and fortune-telling idol Aikawa Miyuu. His research leads to him finding a scalped corpse in the office of “paranormal scientist” Prof. Hashigami.

Why You Should Watch: Whatever else you want to say about O9, it looks the business, with richly detailed, lived-in locales and retro-ish character animation a la Gundam Recon in G. The color palette is diverse and the soundtrack is above average.

Why You Shouldn’t Watch: This is going to be a longer list, unfortunately. O9 just didn’t…click for me. It could be the pace: there is a lot going on in the early going and with nine main characters to quickly introduce and a ton of extraneous conversation, I found it hard to keep up or care. And it doesn’t really matter how good a show looks or sounds if you can’t find a way in.

I wasn’t clear on why Yuuta’s buddy Ryo-tas has such a ridiculously large bust, or why the two of them, and the guy who runs their hangout, were trying so very hard to be weird and kooky. Oigakkosan brought this up with Drifters, but I think it’s even more of a problem here: idiosyncrasy is a delicate tool, and it’s used more as a sledgehammer than a scalpel here.

The rapid-fire banter, inner monologue, and flashes of people’s names all contributed to an over-caffeinated presentation lacking any kind of anchoring element. Everyone is talking about the “Occult”, but only in the most general terms. Kamisama no Memo-cho, Occult Academy, even Persona all featured far stronger opening salvos.

And more than half of the titular nine characters left no impression on me whatsoever, though they’ll surely play larger roles later. The one who left the strongest – Gamon Yuuta – left a negative one; he’s just plain not a likable protagonist. It’s just that with all the shows already out, O9 didn’t quite do enough to make me want to stick around for later.

Shimoneta – 05

Shimoneta does not hold back (no pun intended) on the continuing unfortunate results of Anna’s accidental first arousal by Okuma; she is absolutely out of control from start to finish, frightening due to the strength of her convictions (read: delusions), yet also a profoundly tragic figure; a walking, talking, drooling example of everything wrong with her mother’s hardline stance against sex education.

Her mother has kept her bottled up all this time, and now the flood gates are open. Yet so ignorant is she to the basic biology of sex, Anna refers to her discharge as “love nectar”, first mixing it in the dough for cookies made specially for Okuma, then trying to get him to drink it straight from a  bottle where she’s been collecting it. Anna’s complete inability to cope with her lust has turned her into a dribbling, chain link fence-cutting psycho.

All the while, Anna is apparently lucid enough to keep this erratic behavior secret from her mother, who either trusts her daughter enough not to stick her nose in her business (pretty hypocritical, considering how evasive X Prohibition will be to the rest of the Japanese youths) or she’s simply too busy with the PR campaign to bother noticing Anna melt down.

Public Morals begins a crackdown on the school specifically to dissuade students from storming Yotsuga Forest where the porn stash is believed to be located. Yet Ayame goes anyway, willing to storm the place on her own, no matter the consequences, as a matter of principle, and in hopes she’ll inspire others.

Her suicide mission is interrupted by the cavalry: Fuwa Hyouka found Otome’s lewd drawings Okuma dropped in her lab when Anna was chasing him, and she distributed them to the student body, which came to the forest en masse. She uses all the boys as a diversion against the morality cops, and sends the girls in.

Sophia’s rally at her daughter’s school is ruined, so Anna goes to the forest and locates both Blue Snow and Okuma (who is in a light disguise). Ayame orders Okuma to save himself, but even when he lands smack-dab in the Cave of Porn, he decides he’s not going to let Anna unmask and punish Blue Snow. He probably realizes the ideal life he imagined with Anna isn’t going to happen.

He emerges wearing woman’s lingerie, and the sight of his package is enough to make Anna hysterical, as they used to say in olden times. Unaware it’s Okuma behind the pantymask, she’s so ashamed of her body reacting so intensely to another man, she literally jumps off a cliff and flies away, leaving a love nectar rainbow in her wake. That’s right, a love nectar rainbow. I sure didn’t see that coming!

Even SOX are rendered bewildered and speechless, but at the end of the day, they successfully got all of their fellow students to storm the forest, and scored a huge haul of fresh and diverse porn with which Otome can be inspired to create an ever-richer catalogue of illustrations for distribution. They even manage to switch the signatures from other schools with those illustrations, and Sophia makes the mistake of holding one up without looking at it first while on a live nationwide broadcast with no tape delay.

It’s a huge coup for SOX, who were on the cusp of being wiped out, because the scandal essentially stops the X Prohibition Law in its tracks, as well as gets Sophia in trouble. Thinks are looking good for the ero-terrorists, but more challenges lie ahead, one of which is named Anna Nishikinomiya.

Shimoneta – 04

At first, Anna seems to be processing her “experience” with Okuma last week by clamping down on school indecency, tightening her grip on public morality as her mother prepares to make a speech at her school on her “final solution” for nipping lewdness in the bud and preserving the purity of Japan’s youth, saving them from their own base urges. Anna is also straight-up avoiding Okuma, making him think she despises him now.

With a vote on the X Prohibition Law looming, Ayame briefs her SOX team of Okuma and Otome on their next mission, which is to storm a forest where hardcore porn is known to be located (the forest was once the property of a famous pornographer) with a mass of “cherry” boys and girls from school, overwhelming the authorities with numbers. SOX is not the only dirty terror group, but one of several all working to free Japan from the shackles of artificial sexual repression.

Anna’s mom ends up surprising Ayame by announcing the student vote for X Prohibition will take place the same time control will be lifted from the porn forest. She also unveils the future of oppression: heavy-duty chastity belts that prevent any fooling around in that area by either sex, further closing off that crucial part of the human anatomy to youth a a crucial time in their development. The image is somewhat humorous, but the idea behind it is truly chilling.

Ayame is pissed off about her plan becoming far more difficult, but she still thinks she can convince the student body to storm the forest IF she can get Otome out of her artistic funk. To do that, Ayame exploits Okuma’s new stalker, who has stuffed his mailbox with love letters and left puddles of saliva on his patio, by putting a note telling her to come in, all while Otome hides in his closet and observes.

Okuma is convinced nothing will happen and Otome will see nothing interesting, but he ends up about as wrong as it is humanly possible to be, as his stalker turns out to be Anna, who is extremely sex-crazed despite having no idea what sex is. She enters Okuma’s apartment, tears his and her clothes off, mounts him, and starts licking him. All she knows is that this feels good, so it must be good, and right, and pure.

Clearly having no idea the note on Okuma’s door would be so successful, Ayame walks in on this spectacle, and Anna basically grabs her clothes and runs out in embarrassment, yet still in a kind of trance in which she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what she’s doing. Why would she? Her parents never told her about this kind of stuff. Yet the burning in her loins cannot be denied.

It took an accidental kiss during a stalker dust-up, but Okuma’s beloved angel Anna has well and truly broken out of her shell. Her ignorance is such that rather than admit her harsher enforcement measures at school constitute gross hypocrisy considering how she’s been behaving on the side vis-a-vis Okuma, she absolves herself by proclaiming that “love is justice”, and that the more she doles out on others, the more love she’s able to give to Okuma.

Absent any kind of proper education on romance or sex, Anna is quite literally making it up as she goes along. Even more troubling, her authority and pedigree are such that few can dare challenge her improvisatory philosophy. She’s suddenly become quite the hedonist, but she’s playing with porn-burning fire.

Most surprisingly, Anna put her money where dirty-talking Ayame’s mouth is, taking debauchery to levels that make Blue Snow herself blush. Or in baseball terms (Hi Preston!), Ayame has been shouting slogans from the stands, but it’s Anna who rounded second base and slid into third, naked and drooling.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete – 12 (Fin)

With the overarching objective of saving Kaori successfully and satisfyingly (if tragically in terms of the cost of Yui) achieved, I had no idea where the show would go in its final act. I’d argue in its post-main-plot-resolution state it was just as successful and satisfying.

The odd feelings of deja vu and of some kind of ‘absence’ in the astronomy club and in its members’ lives don’t simply go away. On the contrary, the feelings get even stronger for Sou, who is constantly reminded every time he sees something or somewhere that Yui had once been in another timeline. Also, there are lots of coincidences like everyone who had Uchihama Syndrome suddenly waking up…at once.

That makes sense (in the science of the show), because she came back a lot, and because the human brain is a quantum turing machine (again, in the show), it is capable of retaining information it recorded in other timelines. But still, for now, that ‘temporal residue’ manifests faint echoes or mirages. Enough to get Sou thinking, but not about anything concrete.

For her part, Kaori seems to be alright after Sou rejected her the previous day. She comes right out and says she feels like she can move forward now, which obviously wasn’t the case when buses kept killing her. Sou’s recollection of the rejection, particularly the reason, are hazy to him (he did hit his head, after all).

Kaori insists he said he only sees them as childhood friends, which suggests that he didn’t say he couldn’t love her because he already loved Yui…because Yui didn’t exist anymore. And yet…he keeps being reminded that someone existed at some point; most strongly when he finds an old mannequin where he had found a naked Yui so many times ‘before.’

Surprisingly, we head back to the future where an old, worn Sou and a weary Airi continue to look over a comatose Kaori. Here, they’re resolved to the fact that Yui may have failed in her final attempt, though even if she succeeded, the universe they live in wouldn’t necessarily vanish, but continue along in parallel to the one she created by saving Kaori.

When Airi wonders out loud whether Sou only ever saw Yui as a tool, and sent her to the past knowing she would disappear if she succeeded, you can feel her own bitterness and impatience with Sou, as she’s the living, breathing, non-artificial woman right in front of him with whom he could have found happiness had he only let go of the past and let himself.

The day of the festival arrives, and their planetarium cafe finally goes off without a hitch. But yet again, being there gazing at the stars and hearing the same things he said about them to Yui both in the past and future, Sou starts to get deja vu again and cries, but about exactly what he still isn’t sure.

He even gets a flash of the night he and Yui gazed at the stars alone, only there’s nothing but a dark cloud where she sat. Compare that to Kaori becoming the most visible person at the school and named Miss Uchihama, and it’s as if the fates of Yui and Kaori were reversed.

Then the school pop idol Karin comes by the club room to regale them of her experience on stage, when for one moment she saw the friend she thought she had but no one else had remembered. Karin, like the club members, had clearly formed a deep enough bond that her brain retained memories and even imagery of Yui even after she vanished.

That same ability to retain is echoed in a car ride (MAZDA FD RX-7 FTW!!!) in the future with Airi and Sou, who tells her that even if Kaori was saved and Yui never needed to be created by Sou, the memories and emotions still within past Sou’s head will ultimately lead him to create Yui anyway, but for a different reason; one that really capitalizes on the whole ‘chicken or egg’ nature of the show.

Sou won’t be able to stop picking at that mental scab, and when the time comes, he’ll create Yui because he wants to see her again.

Then, after a worrisome delay, the effects of Yui’s actions reveal themselves in future Sou’s timeline, and Kaori finally wakes up, her mind no longer trapped behind a causality roadblock.

The resulting passionate reunion and hug is a real showstopper, and yet I noted Sou’s words well: “You came way too late, dummy!” I wouldn’t be shocked if at this point, even this Sou’s love for Yui outstrips whatever romantic feelings he had for Kaori.

That’s not to discount his elation at Kaori waking up, but he isn’t elated because the love of his life woke up; she isn’t that anymore, nor was she ever. He’s elated because his beloved childhood friend woke up, without whom he had been just as lost as she was.

His true love, meanwhile, has yet to be born. It’s a little weird to think that Sou was the creator of his own true love, because that’s a kind of situation ripe for the assignment of sinister undertones in a lot of fiction, be it literary or visual. But if ever there was a case of ‘good playing God’, this is it.

Let’s not forget that Yui couldn’t have been made without some of the information from Kaori’s brain. It’s as if Sou would have been able to fall for the person Kaori is, if only she were someone else. Yui was that someone else.

As the box beside the computer in the club room glows once more, I have more questions, like ‘if Yui is coming back, how did that happen without a comatose Kaori?’…but the time for questions has ended, and I’m satisfied with the answers I did get, plus the ones to questions I didn’t even ask. This show was a nice bit of light sci-fi romance that I don’t regret sticking with.

Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete – 11

Yui is in a predicament. She was sent to the past to save Kaori’s life, but it wasn’t as simple as keeping her away from the runaway bus. Now she’s finally cracked it, and Sou simply won’t leave her alone.

And then there’s the slightly more pressing matter of…her existence. I’m not sure Future Sou and Airi told Yui, but if she’s successful in saving Kaori, Sou will have never had to create her, so she will cease to exist. That’s not really ideal, because after all this time she’s fallen for Sou and can’t deny part of her wants to be with him.

Whether or not Sou and the others recall even a faint glimmer of having known Yui before she entered their lives (from the previous times she went back and ended up naked in his arms), on this, perhaps the last time she can come back, Yui finally stumbles on the answer to saving Kaori: by having Sou give her a straight answer.

With no other ideas, Yui decides to facilitate that course of events. She can no longer afford to be subtle or clever (and in any case that never worked before) so she just comes out and tells Sou that Kaori will confess to him tomorrow, and that he has to give her an answer. The thing is, after how Yui has acted the last few days, Sou takes this in a much different way than Yui intended. It’s almost a case of unintended reverse psychology.

Kaori reacts the same way when Yui is equally upfront in insisting she harbors no romantic feelings whatsoever for Sou. Kaori isn’t buying what Yui is selling, even if Yui didn’t have possess fragments of Kaori’s memories and personality that come through in her behavior and demeanor.

Kaori can tell Yui’s lying…because she is lying. But Kaori will still confess. No matter what happens, she can’t move forward the way things are. This is also literally true, as every time Sou hasn’t answered Kaori, she’s ended up dead shortly thereafter.

Things go almost like clockwork on the fateful day, but only in where people are, and when. In terms of what’s said to who, things go far differently than Yui imagined. Despite her feelings for Sou, she never imagined his straight answer to Kaori would be a rejection. After all, they grew up together. Kaori has had so much more time with him! Surely he must return those feelings! Well, he doesn’t…and ironically, it’s thanks to Yui.

This time Kaori stays at school while Sou chases once more after Yui, who had done her best to say her goodbyes, both to her friends and to the town. But so flags her down just as the bus arrives. It crashes as before, but Yui and Sou avoid it and survive. The loop has been broken.

It’s here where Sou tells Yui he rejected Kaori…because he really loves her. Yui returns his confession with her own, plus a kiss (get out of the street, lovebirds!), but she knows this is the end for her. Her mission is complete, so she was never created, and she disappears. Put simply, this is time-trippy romantic tragedy done right.

It’s not the somewhat silly kind of ‘vanishing in his arms’ disappearance either, though she does go a bit translucent. Rather, time continues as if she had never been there. Well, almost. The astronomy club finds Sou at the crash site, and everyone thinks very hard about whether everyone is really accounted for. Furthermore, Sou puts his hands to his lips, where a Yui that never was just kissed him.

In every physical form, Yui is gone, or rather never existed…even in the group photo, BTTF-style. But somewhere in the hearts and minds of the others, particularly Sou, a part of her still seems to linger. An absence is felt, even if they know not why. Was Sou’s rejection of Kaori negated? Is Yui well and truly gone? Have we really seen the last of her?

I honestly have no idea what’s going to happen in next week’s finale. I kinda like that!