In / Spectre – 20 – Paranormal Succession

Kotoko’s next case is brought to her by her parents, and the client is Otonashi Goichi, the president of a successful international hotel and hospitality chain. He ascended due to the murder by stabbing of his wife Sumi, who was detrimentally controlling the lives of their three children and about to drive the company off a fiscal cliff. The timing of her death was no accident; Goichi comes right out and informs Kotoko that he is the culprit. Kotoko’s reaction is classic Kotoko: cheerfully sardonic!

While Goichi didn’t wield the blade that killed Sumi, it was Goichi, who had cloistered himself in a mountain villa, who turned to the supernatural to solve his company and childrens’ problems. Specifically, a fox ayakashi known as a yoko came before him and offered to kill Sumi for him if he agreed to acquire and develop the next mountain over, where the yoko’s rivals lived. Within ten days, Sumi was slain by an unknown assailant, and Goichi was president.

He held up his end of the bargain, and not only did he back the company off a cliff, he shored up its finances to ensure long-term survival and success. Similarly, with the influence of their controlling mother removed, Goichi’s two sons and daughter could pursue their own life goals. His first son became a successful chef; his daughter married the man she loved (who was also successful); and his younger son became the heir apparent to the company.

Goichi waited for the consequences for turning to supernatural means to kill his wife to arrive, but the never came until recently, when he has been diagnosed with cancer and given about a year to live. Before he dies, he wants his children to know—and believe—that he was the one responsible for their mother’s death, and that what he did isn’t something that should be repeated lest they invite the wrath of the universe upon them. That’s where Kotoko comes in.

After meeting with the mountain yoko Fubuki, captured by his rivals, Kotoko works out a deal: he’ll tell her everything there is to know about his arrangement with Goichi, and she’ll use her stature in to ensure the severity of his punishment for his crimes is lessoned. From there, Goichi gave Kotoko free rein to create whatever plausible lie or web of lies is necessary to get his kids on board with the idea that he killed their mom.

After Kotoko completes her preliminary investigations, she brings Kurou up to speed, and Kurou is characteristically reluctant to be roped into this, even if he knows full well that’s what Kotoko is going to do. Over several rounds of a crane game to win a pack of naughty pens packed with fantastically adorable reactions, Kotoko lays out the basics of the plan.

It’s the classic In/Spectre move of spicing up what is otherwise a scene of exposition by having Kotoko/Kurou engage in something interesting. There’s a fair amount of suspense in whether they’ll nab the pens or not, and when they finally do, it’s because Kotoko is mad that Kurou tells her there’s nothing sexy about her…not even her paisley underwear. Rude!

When Goichi’s second son Susumu, the daughter of his first son Rion, and the husband of his daughter, Koya, are invited to a meeting with Goichi, Kotoko, and Kurou, they are tasked with coming up with their own explanations for how Goichi killed Sumi.

Kotoko, assisted by Kurou, will judge their explanations, give them a chance to amend them over the two-day-period, and will be the one who decides who has the best one based on truth and order. The winner will receive precedence in Goichi’s inheritance, so there is no small incentive for them to take this seriously.

While largely a table-setting episode, the GF/BF interactions between Kotoko and Kurou and the supernatural Succession-esque tale of corporate intrigue make it a table for a meal I’m looking forward to tucking into, especially once we get to know the three contestants.

In / Spectre – 19 – Meteorite Boy

Update: This review was initially labeled episode 18 – it has been corrected to episode 19.

Kotoko meets with Tae about the details of the case, and Tae informs her that Zenta infused a meteorite into the right arm of the wooden doll. The same meteorite that fell right in front of him when he was contemplating suicide, and seemed to improve his health, was included so that the doll would have a weapon with which to exact revenge when Zenta died.

I believe this is the first time outer space or a “cosmic” supernatural  phenomenon has come up on In/Spectre, and it’s a neat and thought-provoking thing to bring up. For all of her amassed knowledge and wisdom of Earth-based youkai, Kotoko’s guesses about their space counterparts are as good as yours or mine. She also works a virginity joke into the discussion, but Tae is not amused!

Considering the wooden doll’s extremely regular timing and route, all they need to do is set a trap. That night, Kotoko organizes the youkai into two groups on the beach and tells them not to move. Kurou is employed as the one that will block the doll’s path and get it to divert to a pre-arranged spot. This requires that Kurou die a couple of times, but he’s eventually able to grasp the future thread needed for them to capture the doll.

Note that I say capture and not kill, because Kotoko believes Zenta made the doll relatively easy to destroy on purpose. She theorizes that the doll is essentially what’s colloquially known as a voodoo doll, and any violence exacted upon it could well befall, say, the four college students in the car that killed Zenta’s grandson.

In this way, Zenta would be able to get revenge on the entire town without dirtying his hands, since the townsfolk would technically be responsible for the college kids’ deaths. So before they can consider harming the doll, they have to capture it. That’s achieved once Kurou diverts the doll to the spot, and it falls into a concealed pit and its right arm immobilized with rope held by the two groups of youkai.

On closer inspection, Kurou finds names of the college students carved onto the doll—along with the names of townsfolk, including Tae’s. Tae posits that they can lift the curse—if there is one against everyone named—by simply scratching the names off the wood. When Kurou does so to her name first, Tae feels nothing. In the end, Kotoko was likely mistaken; the curse was strong enough to move the doll and produce electricity, but there was no “voodoo” effect.

With the matter resolved, Tae explains why she thinks Zenta carved her name on the doll. Zenta long resented her for living what looked like a happy and carefree life with all her money. Turns out she only has that money as reparations…for when her children were killed in a car accident.

Any attempts to rid herself of the excess cash resulted in even more cash coming in, whether it was a return on investment in a friend’s company, or damages paid when her husband died. One could call her both blessed and cursed.

As Kurou and Kotoko depart by car, she says it’s entirely likely Tae also contributed to the power of the wooden doll. If Zenta’s sense of resentment and revenge gave it some power, Tae’s own contemplation of death gave it more power; the power to become a threat to the town that she’d have to sacrifice herself to defeat.

Naturally, Kotoko doesn’t tell Tae the whole story, and it’s arguable if she needed to be told, as she’s probably already aware of that on some level. Kotoko then changes gears and whips out brochures, telling Kurou they should do touristy stuff. Considering the role tourism played in this case, it’s a wonderful, darkly comedic line.

In / Spectre – 18 – The Pinocchio of Port Totomizu

Ms. Tae is a woman pushing eighty who doesn’t just walk every day, she jogs. In other words, she’s a badass. When a starving orange cat showed up on her doorstep she nursed it back to health.

When the cat saw her pouring sake and spoke, asking her to give him some, revealing he was no ordinary cat, but a bakeneko. Tae is not one to get overly spooked by such an occurrence; in fact, she decided to keep the cat as both pet and drinking partner.

Tae lives in a once sleepy fishing town of Port Totomizu that suddenly got TV drama famous and started attracting huge numbers of tourists—more than its infrastructure could handle. One of the townsfolk, Zenta, was hosting his son and his family during once such tourist crush, and some inattentive college students hit his grandson, Tsubasa. There was so much traffic, Tsubasa died in the ambulance before reaching the hospital.

Zenta died of heart failure shortly thereafter, but not before finishing an odd Pinocchio-style life-size wooden doll. It is for this reason that the town’s mayor and others suspect that the recent mysterious fish kills now harming revenue and tourism are somehow Zenta’s curse, carried out not by him but by the wooden doll he left behind.

Tae says this is all a bunch of malarkey, but if the fish kills continue the town should consider bringing in someone to spiritually purify the waters. But those opinions of the mayor and co. turn out to be spot-on, as the bakeneko takes Tae to the beach below her house, which is full of yokai all concerned by the cursed wooden doll, and ready to do something about it.

Tae witnesses two of the strongest local yokai, Master Shojo (a gorilla-lke yokai) and Okani-dono (a giant crab), execute a coordinated pincer attack on the wooden doll when it appears, only for it to disable Okani and Shojo’s club with electricity. It then walks into the sea and proceeds to emit electricity that kills still more sea life. The yokai—and the town—are at an impasse. They need outside help.

Of course, we know where this is headed: the bakeneko asks Tae if she’d be kind enough to host the yokais’ “elegant yet fierce” one-eyed, one-legged Goddess of Wisdom when she comes by to assess the situation and offer a solution.

Tae assumes this goddess will be another freakshow, so she’s surprised to learn that Kotoko is a tiny, beautiful young human woman with a polite and strapping companion in Kurou. When scolded by Kotoko for revealing his existence to Tae, the bakeneko tells her if Tae told anyone else anything, they’d simply think she’d gone senile.

Of course, Tae is far from senile, and is in fact a much appreciated elder character of strength and agency. One could also say she’s more attuned to the supernatural since at her age she is closer to the afterlife than most, despite her continued vitality. But this wood golem with an electro-beam might be the trickiest problem Kotoko and Kurou have faced this season. We’ll see if they can wrap it up before they have to head back to college!

In / Spectre – 17 – Stigmatized Property

It’s been a year since Kurou’s cousin Sakuragawa Rikka went into hiding, and finding her remains a priority for him and Kotoko. When we see her, she’s cheerfully interacting with her new property manager Konno Kazuyuki and his girlfriend, Oki Marumi, having moved to her new apartment just a week ago.

Rikka’s trip to the horse races is interrupted by an unannounced cameo by Truck-kun, smacking her head-on and sending her flying thirty meters. A mother tells Kazuyuki and Marumi that she saved her son from getting hit. Marumi calls an ambulance while Kazuyuki checks on Rikka…and is surprised to find her completely uninjured. Rikka even jokes about it being like a TV drama.

She thanks Kazuyuki and Marumi with a six-pack of beer, and they invite her for drinks and a light dinner. Turns out the apartment Rikka has moved into has a dark recent history, as the last three tenants committed suicide within three months of moving in. Rikka offers explanations for the first two when she hears the circumstances: an overworked office drone had a nervous breakdown, and a spurned young woman couldn’t get over a bad breakup.

The third tenant is the strangest, as it was the boyfriend of the woman that was dumped. Rikka understandably isn’t concerned by whatever conditions the apartment might serve up—like Kurou, she’s effectively invulnerable. When asked why she moved in, she tells them the story of her beloved cousin and his truly awful girlfriend, and is determined to break them up before she hurts him.

Rikka suddenly leaves late in the night, again thanking Kazuyuki for his kindness and leaving him her key and some cash for his trouble. The next day, just a hair too late, Kotoko and Kurou arrive. Initially, the couple sees the doll-like Kotoko and wonder how she could be so awful, but then she makes joke about Kurou drinking sake out of her crotch, and then they get it (to be fair, Kurou started it by calling her hairy).

Kotoko’s visit had been foretold by Rikka, since she knew Kotoko is looking for her, hence the need to skedaddle. And sure enough, Kotoko offers logical explanations for all three suicides. The third, which was the one that vexed Kazuyuki and Marumi the most, was simply a matter of the ex-boyfriend moving in to confirm that something about the apartment led to his ex’s suicide. When nothing happened, he became consumed by grief for his role in her death.

She surmises that may also have left no note as a small kindness to his own family, so they could explain his death to the apartment. Once Kotoko and Kurou leave, Kazuyuki and Marumi are satisfied by the explanations. Kazuyuki also thought that while Kotoko may be somewhat awful, he could tell Kurou cared a great deal for her. Marumi says that may be the case for now, but Rikka was concerned about their future together.

On their walk home, Kurou asks Kotoko if she told the pure truth, and she says she instead did exactly what was necessary: tell a believable story with the available info she had that could put Kazuyuki and Marumi at ease. She is also certain there are no supernatural beings in the apartment, as they’d be just as scared of Rikka as they are of Kurou.

That brings us back to a chat between Kotoko and Rikka a year ago when Rikka was staying at Kotoko’s house. Rikka asked what she fears, and Kotoko simply made a joke about a rakugo routine. When Kotoko wonders if Rikka told Kazuyuki and Marumi that she was some kind of awful woman, Kurou tells her that could be the impression some people get of her, considering she doesn’t seem to fear anything.

Kotoko says there actually is something she fears, but when Kurou asks, she simply gives him another Rakugo joke. But as fireworks start to explode in the sky above them and Kurou lifts her up for a better view, Kotoko’s eyes shimmer. I imagine the thing Kotoko fears most is losing Kurou, but is too proud to get serious and say so.

Instead, not knowing what the future holds for either of them, and Rikka still out of pocket, she tells Kurou that relationships between a man and woman tend to go better with a secret or two, then brings his lips to hers for a romantic kiss.

As with the Yuki-onna story, Kotoko and Kurou don’t show up until later, but with Rikka involved in this new “case”, they’re a lot more involved, since Rikka rejects them as a couple. Kazuyuki and Marumi are a nice realistic couple with a cozy, lived-in relationship. This season has shown that the more time we spend getting to know the folks Kotoko interacts with on her travels, the more fun and compelling those interactions are.

In / Spectre – 16 – Honeymoon Period

Kotoko tells Masayuki and Yuki-onna that she knows precisely who the culprit is, and furthermore, that the police aren’t really seriously suspecting him at the moment, which explains why they haven’t been hounding him of late.

The reason? Evidence indicates that the victim Mahiru didn’t have any of her effects taken, and there’s every indication that she and the murderer had time to converse. In that time, she would have surely warned the murderer about the formal accusation she’d written up beforehand.

After all, Mahiru wasn’t trying to be killed, and would do everything she could to avoid that outcome. And if Masayuki killed Mahiru, he would have taken steps to obscure her identity and/or the location of her body. And the cops already all but ruled Masayuki out as a serious suspect after he was wishy-washy about his alibi, and unprepared to defend himself from the facts they’d collected thus far.

As for why it looked like Mahiru was trying to write Masayuki’s name on her hand? That was written by the true murderer after killing her. Before Kotoko says the name of the murder—Iizuka Nagisa—the name already pops up in Masayuki’s name as the only possible culprit.

Iizuka was the only one who sided with him when he was forced out of his company. She loved him, and murdered Mahiru and framed Masayuki so that he’d have no choice but to go to her for support. Sure enough, as Kotoko discuss this, Iizuka calls Masayuki, but he doesn’t answer.

Kotoko reveals that she didn’t deduce this from the mere facts of the case as they stand, but from the eyewitness ghosts who were at the scene of the crime when it occurred. They identified a woman that matched Iizuka’s description. If that’s “cheating”, Masayuki can hardly complain, as the information Kotoko gathered from the ghosts categorically clears his name.

With Masayuki’s name sure to be cleared and only a matter of time before Mahiru is arrested, Kotoko gives him and Yuki-onna her blessing—as long as they use protection! Kurou shows up shortly thereafter, terrifying Yuki-onna (as he tends to do). Kotoko then tells Masayuki and Yuki-onna to get lost and bone already, since they’re now in “the optimal mood.” Yuki-onna  scoops Masayuki up and flies them back home.

While riding a flying yokai home, Kotoko and Kurou talk about the case a bit more. Kotoko explains further how Mahiru had overplayed her hand. She wanted a suspected Masayuki in the palm of her hand, but ultimately didn’t go any further lest the consequences of framing him cause him distress. The two conclude that Masayuki has and may well continue to have horrible luck with women.

Even Yuki-onna, who has been good to and for him thus far, is still a thoroughly volatile yokai who could one day freeze him to death for a slight real or imagined. Kurou likens Masayuki’s plight with his own, not just where his ex and Rikka are concerned but with Kotoko. Kotoko is not amused by this remark!

In / Spectre – 15 – So Generous, It’s Creepy

This episode was an emotional roller coaster! It begins by rewinding from Yuki-onna’s request to Kotoko to the police detectives questioning Masayuki. Their reasons for suspecting him of murdering his ex-wife are numerous: Mahiru left a note accusing him should she die suspiciously; the beginning of his name scrawled on her hand; and camera footage of Masayuki with a woman that looks just like her.

The police have reasonable cause to suspect, but not arrest Masayuki, and his failure to definitively state he had no alibi doesn’t help his case. But what choice does he have? He can’t tell the police he was having tempura and drinks with a yuki-onna on the night of Mahiru’s murder. Why, they’d think he was nuts…even though it’s the truth! Days pass and the police don’t bother Masayuki again, but it’s still looknig bad.

Then Yuki-onna, who was present in rabbit form for the entire talk with the police, asks him if she looks like his ex-wife, and he admits that she does, so it was Yuki-onna in the camera photo. Hers was the face of the one person in his life who didn’t betray him, but he admits he felt bad for marrying for whom he was otherwise unsuited.

Masayuki decides he’ll head out and try to find the real culprit, but Yuki-onna tells him to wait, and when he keeps going with a full head of steam,. she freezes him in his tracks—literally! 

Yuki-onna correctly diagnoses this as Masayuki being impatient and restless and wanting to prove his innocence at any cost, but with no leads and nothing to go on, the best move is to stay put, eat some food, get some rest. Then she remembers that her Ladyship, the Goddess of Wisdom, is just the person to solve this case, so she reaches out to her.

Yuki-onna flies Masayuki deep into the mountains to a cave where Kotoko is waiting. Rather than her going right into the particulars of the case, Masayuki gets a better taste of who Kotoko is, namely someone still quintessentially human despite her status as a goddess to supernatural beings near and far. That’s because Kotoko is upset that Kurou blew her off and she had to get cold pork cutlet from the local konbini.

I was so happy to see my favorite goddess of wisdom meeting my new favorite human-yokai couple, about to dish out the solution to their problems. But that’s where the roller coaster starts hurtling down to the earth, as Kotoko points out that not only does Yuki-onna’s wishy-washy sense of human time make her a poor alibi, but Masayuki might have capitalized on that poor sense to manipulate her into trusting him implicitly.

With Yuki-onna’s unwavering trust, Masayuki could kill his ex-wife one night, have tempura with Yuki-onna, and say they were doing the latter on the night of the murder, thus making him look innocent in her eyes and persecuted by the police. He could even convince her to kill the business partners who betrayed him.

Kotoko is so precise (as always) in laying out this theory that it even had me questioning if Masayuki really did have such a diabolical plot in motion, and had pulled the wool over Yuki-onna’s eyes with food, drink, and companionship. But you know who didn’t suspect Masayuki, even after hearing all this? Yuki-onna herself. She prostrates herself, says Masayuki has a truly kind heart, and demands that her Ladyship reconsider her stance.

Kotoko responds to Yuki-onna’s display by making it clear she’s all too aware that Masayuki isn’t the culprit, and that everything she uttered about otherwise was a lie. Among the reasons she trusts Masayuki? He’s been refusing Yuki-onna’s sexual advances! If he’d wanted to gain her trust quickly, he’d have swept her off her feet.

While Kotoko’s theory of Masayuki being a yokai-manipulating criminal mastermind was harsh and at times cruel, it was still crucial for her to say what she said, so she could enlighten Masayuki to the fact that Yuki-onna trusted him so much, she was even willing to defy her goddess for his sake.

By underscoring the courage Yuki-onna demonstrated for him, Kotoko hopes Masayuki will make the effort to regain some of his own courage. Even if this criminal investigation is all tied up with a neat bow and he gets off scot-free (as he should), Kotoko suspects that won’t be the end of Masayuki’s troubles.

A new start is in order. Masayuki owns up to being terrified of interacting with people—that lack of interaction is why he doesn’t have a human alibi—and tenderly gathers Yuki-onna’s cold white hand into his to thank her for going to bat for him. As for the true culprit of his ex-wife’s murder? Naturally, Kotoko already knows that too!

In / Spectre – 14 – Youkai Alibi

In/Spectre can really spin a good yarn. This week we meet Muroi Masayuki, who is pushed off a mountain by his best friend. As he lays contemplating his imminent death, a spunky yuki-onna (Yuuki Aoi) pays him a visit. She’s not there to kill him, though she does think long and hard about it when he knocks her looks!

Yuki-onna subverts Masayuki’s idea of her kind by building an conjuring an igloo around him so he’ll last the night, then flying him down the mountain in a princess carry, all for half of the cash he’s carrying. Once back in town, he’s able to walk in on his former friend lying about what happened and finger him for attempted murder.

Eleven years pass, and Masayuki moves back to the town by the mountain where he met the Yuki-onna. As luck would have it, he doesn’t need to search far for her, as she’s enjoying soft serve in human form. When he tells her about the time he met a yuki-onna she’s initially furious he broke his vow of silence, but he’s sure she’s the same person, so he technically isn’t.

Masayuki is coming off a divorce from a woman who cheated on him and tried to kill him, as well as the hostile takeover of his company by another former friend. Understandably distrustful of future human interactions, he sought her out. Yuki-onna is eminently interested in human food and drink (and cars!), so he agrees to buy her booze and cook for her at his bachelor pad.

An adorable, mutually beneficial friendship ensues. The connection to the In/Spectre we know finally comes when Yuki-onna speaks glowingly about her lady and Goddess of Wisdom, Kotoko. Yuki-onna cleared befriending Masayuki with Kotoko, and even got approval for sexual relations with him should things go that way (as long as they use protection!)

The good vibes suddenly sour when detectives come to Masayuki’s door to inform him that his ex-wife has been murdered, but that’s where Kotoko comes in. Yuki-onna reports that she knows for a fact Masayuki wasn’t the culprit because she was with him at the time of the murder. The problem is she can’t go to the cops and Masayuki can’t say the source of his alibi is a yokai.

It looks to be a fascinating case, and one that has a lot more resonance now that I’ve come to know and become quite fond both Yuki-onna and Masayuki. They make a surpassingly cute and charming couple whose playful banter and cozy chemistry rivals Kotoko and Kurou, and if anyone can get this out of this legal dilemma, it’s the Goddess of Wisdom.

In / Spectre – 13 – Things That Go Thump in the Night

When In/Spectre last aired, I said I’d hope we’d get more of the adorable duo of Kotoko and Kurou as they investigate and resolve more supernatural cases. Thirty-three months later here we are. There’s a lot of expository dialogue between a ghost and two youkai that bring us back up to speed on what this show is about, and Kotoko and Kuro’s abilities.

This is the same old In/Spectre, which means it is absolutely packed with scenes of people doing nothing but sitting or standing and talking. If that was fine with you in the first season, it will be fine here, as it is with me. There are three things that makes this not only tolerable but enjoyable for me, and that’s Kotoko’s magnetic charm, Kitou Akari’s firm yet affable voice, and Manabe Akihiro’s beautiful accompanying score.

The spook-of-the-week initially seems to be artificial, Kotoko tells the ghost and youkai discussing it that the scary thumping in the night wasn’t a supernatural phenomenon, but the sounds of an escaped monitor lizard illegally owned by the building manager. The truth is that an ancien cursed sumo doll was making the sounds.

Kotoko not only works out a deal with the manager that gets Kurou a cheap new place for them to live, but she and Kurou take the doll out to the isolated woods. There, she instructs Kurou to fight with the four-armed, horned sumo demon that manifests. This doesn’t go well at first, with Kurou suffering a number of gruesome deaths.

Of course thanks to eating of both mermaid and kudan flesh, Kurou is immortal and can see and choose the future. In between death and revival, the future he picks involves basically pinning the sumo down, exposing his back and enabling Kotoko to stab him through the throat with her cane.

It’s a victory, but not an ideal one for Kurou, who had hoped Kotoko could have been kept out of harm’s way. But Kotoko remains steadfastly unafraid of dangerous situations, and knew she could score an easy blow against a being that would not attack her due to her goddess status.

All of the various supernatural beings that dwell in the woods come out not just to gaze upon their kawaii Goddess of Wisdom, but thank her for dealing with the sumo doll. They all still consider Kurou a terrifying monster, but as long as he’s by Kotoko’s side and she’s vouching for him, they’ll accept him.

As for me, I’ve long since accepted that this is one of the talkier anime out there, and that more often then not that’s an asset and not a liability. And with all the reintroduction out of the way, next week’s dialogue will be less about what we already know and more about what we don’t.

Call of the Night – 01 (First Impressions) – Carpe Noctem

Now that’s what I’m freakin’ talkin’ about! Call of the Night is a pitch-perfect vampire rom-com from start to finish with a keen understanding of how to set tone and atmosphere, and the entire episode takes place over a single night—one of my favorite settings, being a night owl myself.

The infrequent scenes from Yamori Kou’s ordinary middle school life are shot relatively normally, but the light (and indeed, normalness) of those scenes feels oppressive, while the sprawling, shimmering night feels like a release. Kou doesn’t get things like “crushes” and “confessions”, but this place? This time? He gets it.

Surfing the web for remedies to his insomnia, many bring up booze as a surefire way to eventually lose consciousness, so he walks up to a very brightly-lit beer vending machine, and just as he’s making his selection, a sinister figure wreathed in shadow sidles up to him, questioning his legal age to purchase alcohol.

But the girl is only playing around; she has no intention of snitching. Indeed, she tags along with Kou as his night continues, passing by three older dudes who took the advice of the internet and got rek’d. Kou is awed by how she can so casually high-five strangers, but that’s what the night is all about: it’s a time of freedom; of casting off inhibitions and living.

When Kou is starting to feel a little tired, the quirky lilac-haired girl invites him up to her place, a sparse studio with a futon on the floor. The girl disrobes—as in, removes her robe, not all her clothes—but reveals, well, a revealing crop top, which catches the romance-averse Kou off-guard and makes him wonder what this girl’s intentions are.

She tells him: there’s nothing in the world wrong with two people simply sleeping in the same bed together. Even though the weird girl remains very much awake and basically stares at him the whole time, Kou can’t help but feel far more relaxed with her beside him than no one at all.

Kou is also good at pretending to be asleep; so good that the girl assumes he is, the light suddenly changes from deep purplish blue to warmer fuchsia, she bares her fangs and sinks them into Kou’s neck. For those not paying attention, yes: this chick is a vampire.

If a series is going to spend so much time at night, it had better know what to do with light, shadow, and color, and boy does Call of the Night ever know. Some scenes even reminded me of Fantasia. When Kou wakes up with blood on his neck, her fib about a giant mosquito doesn’t hold water (or blood).

That said, he keeps his head as the girl causally admits what she is, though he wonders why he hasn’t become a vampire. Here’s where the two find they share something in common, besides a love of the night: while some vampires go around making a whole mess of offspring, she’d…rather not. Just like Kou would rather not participate in all the junior high drama.

Perhaps it’s because she feels as comfortable around him as he does around her, the girl lets slip a truth about vampires: one way to become one is to have your blood sucked by a vampire you’re in love with. One thing I love about this girl is that she can get just as frazzled talking about this stuff as Kou.

She redirects the conversation to ask him how his first night “taking a step outside the norm” felt, out here in the place furthest he can hope to get from the things he thinks are a pain. He asks her formally to let him fall in love with her, but she promises nothing. She’ll just keep sucking his blood; if he wants to fall for her, he can go right ahead.

Now that they’re in agreement, they exchange names—her’s is Nanakusa Nazuna—and she resolves to “infuse more night” into him and his blood, which she maintains tastes best at night, just before going to bed. To that end, Nazuna kicks him off the roof of her high-rise apartment building…only to catch him in the blink of an eye long before he hits the pavement.

Thence, Nazuna princess carries Kou on aerial tour of the late night cityscape, flipping him upside down for an even more unique perspective. As he simply sits there in her arms in quiet but intense awe at what’s happening, Nazuna seems to take a great deal of pleasure from it as well.

And that’s the key to this: for as traditionally horny as vampires are depicted and as revealing as Nazuna’s garb is, this is a surprisingly sweet and innocent love story in the works. It’s about two outsiders in their happy place, staying up late and embracing the freedom of the night. With this banger of a premiere, the summer season has finally kicked off in earnest!

Summertime Render – 07 – Tools of the Trade

Deciding to tentatively trust Shinpe, Hizuru and Nezu fill him in on some details about the Shadows. For one thing, if you destroy a Shadow, like Hizuru just did with Alan’s, the Shadow can’t come back, and you can never be copied again. Hizuru’s brother was killed by one fourteen years ago, but a part of him lives on…as the second of her two personalities. When she puts her hair up, Ryuunosuke comes out.

That means it’s game time. The Kobayakawa’s are her target. Her old friend welcomes her in warmly, but Ryuunosuke takes a sledgehammer to her face. Then the monsters show their faces, and while her parents are relative pushovers, Shiori proves to be the toughest of the three. Ryuunosuke has to stab himself with chopsticks to injure her, but she manages to dodge fatal sledge strikes and slithers out a window.

Nezu is ready for her outside with “Plan B”—a nailgun—but he’s unable to get three consecutive nails into her Shadow, which is key to pinning her down. Shinpei proves to be an indispensable member of the party by tackling Shiroi when she tries to give them the slip. Nezu pins her, and Kugimiya Rie gets to chew some scenery as Evil Shiori until Ryuunosuke has had enough and finishes her off.

Later, Ryuu tells Shinpei that he’s not the author of the two, but he does come out when his sister is forced to deal with things she doesn’t like: interviews, meetings, and killin’ Shadows. Hizuru regains control by punching herself in the face. Shinpei now has one quirky ally, but you can’t say she—or rather they—aren’t capable.

The next task is to try to deal with Shadow Mio, whom Shinpei knows will stand outside his house at 9. When he heads in, for a moment he thinks Shadow Mio is already there, but it’s just regular Mio, trying and failing to cook for him. It’s a pretty great fakeout.

I was almost yelling at Shinpei to not let Mio out of his sight, but thankfully the episode had a different cliffhanger in mind: that of the Ushio variety, as she suddenly appears with a growling tummy when he starts sautéing some onions. We know Ushio is a Shadow—Shiori admits to killing the original—but we also know that she acts just like Ushio without a hint of malice, so her arrival isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Summertime Render – 06 – The Kobayakawas Were Dead to Begin With

Much of the episode’s first half takes place through the eyes of Nagumo Ryuunosuke, AKA Minakata Hizuru. When she watches Mio send herself and Shin into the sea, and wonders if this “Shin” is Ajiro Shinpei. She attends the funeral, meets old friends, and we learn she frequented the Kofune diner as a middle schooler, before Shinpei was taken in by Alan. She was also friends with Shiori’s mother Asako, whom she learns is a Shadow when her shadow moves to avoid Hizuru’s feet.

Hizuru can’t trust anyone on this island…anyone, that is, except Nezu, whom she seems to trust implicitly. Not only does she invert herself in his presence, she even cries. She uses Nezu as a sounding board, reporting that the entire Kobayakawa family has been killed and replaced by Shadows, and that Ushio drowned because a Shadow attacked her. There’s a Shadow that can make other Shadows, and it’s been busy. How Hizuru and Nezu intend to end its free reign remains to be seen.

That brings us to Shinpei, who tries to act normally, but still warns Shiori about Shadows, inviting the suspicion of her parents. In one of the creepier moments in an episode full of creepy moments (what with all the body-snatching) and ant creates and ant-sized hole as it crawls across Shiroi’s parents’ shadows. Then Alan gives Shinpei a note written in a seemingly indecipherable code…unless you happen to be a fan of Nagumi-sensei’s work.

We see Shadow Mio create a Shadow Alan, who tries to replace the real Alan when he goes to the bathroom. However, Hizuru is already waiting for it, and smashes Shadow Alan’s shadow with a sledgehammer, thus destroying it. But it’s a hollow victory; so many lives have been taken already, and so many more hang in the balance. Hizuru and Nezu wont’ be enough … especially if neither of them can travel through time.

Enter Shinpei, who cracks the code and calls the number for Hizuru’s second phone, which she gave to Nezu. Nezu makes sure Shinpei isn’t a Shadow by getting him to stand in a certain place, then shoots his shadow with his sniper rifle. Once that’s settled, he takes him to Hizuru, and Shinpei immediately asks for Nagumo-sensei’s autograph.

Of course, Hizuru knows for a fact that no one but Nezu knows that she’s Nagumi-sensei, which means the only way Shinpei knows is because he’s lived July 22nd before, likely multiple times. When she tells Shinpei this, he can’t help but tear up in relief: somebody knows and believeswhat’s happening to him. Someone who can help him save Mio and the island.

Summertime Render – 05 – Now She Rises

The bespectacled lady with the shotgun manages to save Shinpei’s life (and her own) not by shooting Shadow Mio, but by shooting her shadow, which is its true form. Shadow Mio glitches out, allowing the lady to set his broken arm, introduce herself as Nagumo Ryuunosuke—the same name as a novelist Shin reads—and deliver some exposition.

Basically, Nagumo lifts most of the mystery of how the shadows operate: they scan humans with light, absorb their information, and feed on human data. The two of them are only survived by staying out of sight, and can discern even a shadow that’s a really good actor by stepping on their shadow, which will cause said shadow to move on its own.

Nagumo was sent to this island to save Shinpei, and seems to be doing it out of obligation for her sister. But after what happens when the two ascend the steps to the shrine grounds, Shin might just wish Nagumo had let Shadow Mio kill him. The shadows have amassed and have made a mountain of corpses out of the festival goers. Shin arrives just in time to watch both Toki and Sou get stabbed in the back of the skull.

When Nagumo shoots Shadow Sou’s arms off before he can kill the real Mio (who was being shielded by the real Sou, which, after hearing his confession and rejecting him…goddamn) but the “lead” shadow, a four-armed humanoid made of black goo, instantly copies her form and her shotgun and shoots back. Nagumo avoids the killshot, but is still gravely wounded.

The lead shadow reaches out with a stretchy arm and restrains Shin, noticing that he bears the eye of the shadows’ “mother”, enabling him to control time. But while Shin possesses the power to reset the game here and now at the moment of his defeat, what if the boss (in this case, the lead shadow) is not only aware that there’s a reset button, but that it’s attached to a console he can simply cut the power to?

We learn that the pile of corpses, and indeed every living soul on the island that is gradually swallowed up by waves of black and blue ooze, are all an offering, a meal for the shadows’ mother, Haine. A scientist at the Hishigata Clinic observes what’s happening and concludes that Haine managed to awaken by devouring a thousand human lives. Something tells me that’s just an appetizer, as shadows can reach out into the water…

The bottom line is, everything is super fuckity-fuck-fucked in this go-around. It’s a wash; by far the worst of the bad endings Shin has experienced so far, and reminds me of the things-can-and-will-always-get-worse progression of Subaru’s loops in Re:Zero. But the option to reset still exists, in the form of the dying Nagumo’s last shotgun shell.

Ushio, who it’s clear is unique among shadows in not being evil or wanting any part of helping Haine rise, punches the lead shadow in the fact, giving Nagumo time to shoot Shin in the head. She promises to save him next time no matter what if he finds her and tells her his name.

In the interstitial plane between the previous loop and a new one, Ushio can now see and hear Ushio clearly. She embraces him from behind and warns him to be careful, for his ability to reset has a limit. Shin figures out what that is soon after resetting: his start point keeps moving further forward in time, locking what came before in stone.

In this loop he has three days, but if he fails too many times, he won’t have the time he needs to save everyone, if he can, and will eventually reset to a time after everything is fucked. Meanwhile, we learn Shadow Ushio (if that’s what she even is) washes up the same day he arrives, meaning she could theoretically go to her own funeral, Huck Finn-style.

Summertime Render – 04 – Ushio Deux

Last week Shinpei encountered Ushio on the beach, dramatically backlit by the festival fireworks. But it’s only this week that she says anything, and actually tackles Shinpei. Nagase Anna has such a refreshing voice that’s perfect for Ushio: crisp, clear, and full of exuberance.

Considering his previous encounters with doppelgangers of people he knows, Shin is understandably weary, as this Ushio must be a shadow. But she’s different from the others. For one thing, she’s not evil. For another, she doesn’t know she’s a shadow (or what a shadow is). As far as she’s concerned, she’s just Ushio. She wished for Shin to return, and he did, so she wastes no time confessing to him.

Shin still doesn’t fully trust this Ushio, but she’s talking and acting so much like Ushio, it’s a complete trip. When she runs off and joins the festival—still in her swimsuit—he chases her down, takes her to a quiet storage area and insists she stay put, lest someone see her and wig out. Incidentally, the only person we see spot her is Shadow Mio.

Shinpei gets back to the gang in time to join Tokiko in witnesseing Seidou totally crashing and burning in his sudden confession to Mio. Tokiko knows full well who Mio really loves, and that her brother is doomed to fail. Mio friendzones Seidou so fast his head spins.

That’s when he’s comforted…not by Shin or Toki, but but someone wearing a magical girl mask. Everyone instantly recognizes Ushio’s voice, and thus she’s found out even faster than Seidou was rejected by Mio. But when Mio sees Ushio, she naturally wigs out…because this Ushio is a monster…or is she?

For the moment, no; Ushio remains a compelling enigma: a shadow somehow gone wrong. When Shin first takes hold of her, I assumed he was going to scold her or lead her back to her hiding spot. But then he grabs her so hard it hurts her, and even causes her to bleed, and that’s when the shoe drops: this isn’t Shinpei.

But wait, when Shin returned, Mio said the code word and he gave the right response, right? Right; but as we see, Shin is jumped by Shadow Mio on his way back to his friends, and Shadow Shin updates his memories. Not only does he know his code with Mio, but now the shadows know he’s experiencing time loops. Shadow Shin’s solution to that? Don’t kill him…at least not until “everything is done”.

Shadow Mio obeys Shadow Shin, who heads to Shin’s friends. Regular Shin may be badly hurt, but even when Mio breaks his arm, he keeps trying to crawl to the real Mio to keep his promise to protect her. Shadow Mio is about to break his leg as well when her head is blown off by two shotgun blasts from none other than the woman on the Ferry.

The engaging mystery of “New Ushio” and her lived-in rapport with Shin combined with the added suspense and peril of the evil shadows and one hell of a switcheroo return Summertime Render to rare rating air.