The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 17 – Stop and Smell the Tomatoes

With the sudden influx of students being sapped of their magic, Nurse Alex puts Chise to work filling gathering stones with her massive stores of it, the magical version of donating blood. Chise’s Sleigh Beggy has given and taken many things from her, and she wonders if she’s good for anything else.

Like any good teacher, Alex encourages her to search far and wide for a new skill or talent, if that’s what she wants. But then an ill student enters the infirmary, grabs Chise’s hand, and starts to drain her magic. He had woken from a dream where he saw a strange hand, and for a brief moment Chise sees it too.

Quillyn separates the possessed student from Chise, but the damage is done. Chise hasn’t lost all her magic, but has lost enough that she doesn’t have enough to share with a still severely magic-deficient Lucy, who passes out. At Elias’ urging, Quillyn drops a pile of candy bars on Chise so she can build her magic back up through calories.

Quillyn, Elias, and Chise ponder what just took place. From what she experienced, it’s possible that the book is manipulating its user to attack students. The user seems to be unwilling to kill anyone, but the attack on Chise suggests the book is growing impatient.

Chise’s magic recovers enough for Lucy eventually come to, and then Jasmine and all the other ill students suddenly wake up feeling much better. Quillyn decides to inform the entire student body of the stolen book and attacks, and the rumors start to fly.

After her exertions, Elias flags down Chise and suggests she take a day off and pick tomatoes with him. It’s a lovely scene, especially when a smiling Chise playfully tosses two tomatoes at Lucy and Seth; it’s also good to see the two have become closer. Eventually everyone else shows up to enjoy the tomatoes.

It’s a gathering and a mood Chise wants to cherish and not forget, but not everyone participated. Rian is off on his own, trying in vain to get to an increasingly reclusive Philomela (the cat dorm mother won’t let him near the girls’ dorms). As the students continue to undergo magical combat training under Fabio and Sigrid, Elias has another conversation with Alcyone.

The subject is the roles people play. As Elias is still getting used to being a person and Alcyone doesn’t consider herself a fully constructed person, needless to say it’s an interesting discussion. Just as Alex encouraged Chise earlier to expand her horizons if she wishes to, Elias encourages Alcyone not to dwell on her perceived “adequacy” and take on the role of a parent.

When we reach the month-and-a-half mark since the College was sealed, “Kevin”, whom I’m sure had lines in previous episodes but whom I just don’t remember, wants to “kill time” by searching for the attacker. Lucy tells him he’s asking to be killed full stop, and he accuses her of being the attacker and takes a shot at her family.

I thought for sure Lucy would get up and pummel the sonofabitch, but it’s Chise who drops whatever secret woodcraft she’s working on and grabs Kevin by the scruff, taking him to task for saying “things that shouldn’t be said.” Eventually everyone assembled urges Kevin to apologize, but Lucy doesn’t want an apology. Then she pummels him with a clean right hook to the chin.

Chise knows that if Kevin saw what Lucy and her have seen, he wouldn’t be so quick to thoughtlessly leap into harm’s way. In any case, I love the bond Chise and Lucy have formed, even if Lucy is pissed she jumped into her fight. I wish I could say the same of Philomela, who Chise desperately wants to help, but feels selfish for wanting that.

Veronica is the only one to visit her, and brings a sandwich, correctly presuming she hasn’t been eating well. Mela can only manage a single bite before retching and vomiting. At the moment, “everything is terrifying” for poor Mela, and that closeup of Veronica is ambiguous as hell. My first thought was she’s just being nice, but there could well be something else going on…

My Happy Marriage – 06 – That’s Not Me Anymore

Miyo comes to in a stress position, hanging from a length of rope in a storeroom. When the door opens and pours the light of the setting sun onto her face, Kaya and her mother enter, replete with ill intent. They only have one simple demand: that Miyo reject her engagement to Kudou Kiyoka so Kaya can marry him instead.

If Miyo doesn’t comply, well…Kaya and her mom don’t beat around the bush. First Miyo slashes Miyo’s new kimono with scissors. Then she holds the scissors to Miyo’s throat. But crucially, Miyo doesn’t revert to her old submissive self, even in the face of pure evil.

Even when her stepmother smacks her in the face with a fan, Miyo looks back up at her with a defiant look she has never made. I’m reminded of Kei in Classroom of the Elite going through a similar crucible and coming out firm in her resolve not to break or give in no matter what.

This defiance and strength was always there within Miyo, but meeting someone as good and kind as Kiyoka unlocked that power in her, the power that allowed her to  value herself as he does, and to hope that he’ll come for her. And come he does: when the Saimori doors are shut, he blasts through with his lightning. When both Miyo’s father and an increasingly unhinged Minoru attack him, he blasts through them.

Even when a desperate Minoru creates a maelstrom of fire that begins to burn the Saimori house, Kudou Kiyoka, confirmed as the strongest gift-user of his time, takes off the kid gloves and knocks Minoru out with a giant bolt of lightning. As Kouji says, it’s like an adult fighting an angry kid. Minoru never had a chance, which begs the question: shouldn’t he have known that?

Kaya has resorted to trying to choke Miyo into agreeing to cancel her engagement to Kiyoka, but Miyo doesn’t waver, even for a second: she’ll be Kiyoka’s fiancée until she breathes her last. Thankfully, that’s not today, as Kiyoka arrives and catches Kaya and her mother in the act of brutally torturing Miyo. When she realizes he came for her after all, Miyo declares she’s glad she fought, before passing out.

After her mom looks outside to see their palatial home in flames (thanks entirely to Minoru), Kaya tries a feeble last-ditch attempt to convince Kiyoka that she is better suited to be his wife, saying Miyo isn’t even fit to be a proper servant. Kiyoka doesn’t lay a hand on her, but shuts her up with both his words and his icy gaze, assuring her he wouldn’t marry her even if the heavens commanded it.

While unconscious, Miyo meets her mother, who mentions a “power” she has within herself. Miyo isn’t sure what that is, but this confirms that she’s by no means ungifted. It’s just that her gift is either incredibly rare, or entirely unique.

We see a grizzled old man give a younger underling his approval to begin an “operation” to prevent the “accumulation of power”—i.e. a Kudou marrying an Usaba—so the threat to Miyo is far from over, but it’s over for now.

When she wakes up to find a relieved Kiyoka and Yurie by her side, Miyo is again glad she didn’t give up in the face of evil. The old her would have surrendered to the storm, but now she’s someone who can weather it, and come out the other end herself.

Heavenly Delusion – 07 – In Your Head

We spend this week totally away Tokio’s side of this story, and since last week the gears turning in my head have be believing we’re dealing with two different timelines. If Tokio and Kona are Maru’s parents, then “Heaven” is a facility that was running just before the Collapse.

This also supports the theory that “Heaven’s” children were the experiments that led to the creation of the Man-Eaters/Hiruko, which caused the Collapse, and why Maru has the power to kill them. Mind you I’ve not read any of the source material, so we’ll see how right or wrong I am!

What’s great about Heavenly Delusion is that the theorizing is fun, but not vital. I’m fine to let mysteries to unravel in their own time, and in the meantime we have this beautiful story of the found family/rom-com duo of  Kiruko and Maru roving the gorgeously rendered ruins of civilization.

This week the pair put their two brain cells together to make a sign advertising their Hiruko-killin’ services, and the show pulls of a nifty bit of misdirection. We’re led for a moment to believe they’re about to be captured by Immortal Order, but they’re actually scooped up by a group zealously opposed to IO, called Liviuman.

Led by the charismatic Mizuhashi, it is an organization that opposes IO’s efforts to replace human bodies with machines and achieve immortality. Mizuhashi herself was the victim of a forced amputation of her leg, and while wandering the facility, encountered a human being chopped in pieces yet still somehow alive enough to beg her to kill them.

That’s some haunting, Mitty-ass shit right there, and sent shivers down my spine, because my mind immediately went to Dr. Usami, the doctor who put Haruki’s brain into his sister’s body (evidence of which is clear when Kiruko is bathing and her hair is back, revealing their head scar). He’s still up to his old tricks.

Kiruko is obviously naked when they’re bathing, and Maru notes that “she” seems “less coolheaded” than usual, like the Haruki in “her” is coming out. Kiruko hops out of the hot bath, stands before Maru in their birthday suit, and declares that they’ve “always” been Haruki in their head. Maru gets in the bath after them, chastened…but also turned on.

The next day, Kiruko and Maru agree to take care of the Hiruko rumored to be located on Immortal Order’s premises. Mizuhashi rallies Liviuman and stages a big loud protest as a diversion, allowing our duo to slip into a well-lit parking lot—a curiosity in a world with no power grid.

As for Hirukos, they find none that are moving, and instead find several small, white growths that appear to be dormant. Maru uses his touch to kill them for real, one after the other, until Kiruko locates the “big boss”. I agree with them that it’s almost more annoying that they aren’t moving, but it’s also far creepier.

When the boss’ face lights up, other Hirukos suddenly spring forth from inside the floor, walls, and ceiling, exhibiting an ability they haven’t seen before. The Kiru-Beam has no effect on the swarming monsters and runs out of juice. Kiruko is set upon by one, then two, then five of the little blighters.

Then, the unthinkable happens. One of the Hirukos grabs hold of her harm with its blade-filled mouth and bites down hard. Her arm is chomped off; then one of her feet. Maru is several yards away, similarly overwhelmed. Kiruko can’t do anything.

Fearing this might be the end, Kiruko calls out for Robin to help before passing out. But then they comes to…with Maru kissing them. He’s doing so to snap Kiruko out of what was apparently a hallucination; the boss Hiruko hypnotized her into thinking Hirukos were everywhere and making them shoot at nothing.

If Maru wasn’t there—and immune to the hypnosis—Kiruko might’ve been toast for real. That said, they still don’t let Maru sneak another kiss—one was enough, and they acknowledge it was necessary to snap them out of their trance. But goddamn was that nightmarish and stressful. I honestly didn’t know if Kiruko was actually being horribly maimed before our eyes.

With all the dormant Hiruko killed, Kiruko and Maru start to hear the approaching footsteps of fine black wingtips. A man in a well-fitting black suit, lavender tie, and eyepatch appears, holding a gun and inspecting the dead Hiruko. He then turns to the duo, and his gun clacks as he does.

That said, he doesn’t pull the gun on them. Instead, he asks them if they can kill something else for him. Kiruko says sure, if they can, and depending on what exactly he wants. She also mentions she’s looking for Dr. Usami, and the much younger man than she knew says that he’s Dr. Usami.

Clearly, the not-good-at-all doctor’s research on immortality has borne some fruiton on a personal level. We’ll have to wait until next week to learn the unspeakable but inevitable human cost, and if we’re actually dealing with a post-“Heaven” scenario in which Maru is the son of that facility’s residents.

Vinland Saga S2 – 16 – Casting Their Lots

Einar is on the move again, with Thorfinn following him. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, just that he knows he can help Arnheid. Maybe with violence, maybe with something else, but he can’t live with himself knowing she and her unborn child could be in danger.

When they arrive at Sverkel’s house, Arnheid is doing her regular daily chores, but it doesn’t take long for Thorfinn to realize Snake and two of his men are watching from within. Arnheid is bait for Gardar, whom Snake believes is still on the run.

Saco Mayumi puts on a powerhouse of a dramatic performance as Arnheid, trapped between her lowly station as a slave, her love for her husband, her yearning to return to their blissful past, and a wish to bring her child into a better, happier world. She truly looks and sounds like she’s carrying the world on her shoulders.

When our boys draw in close, Arnheid admits to freeing Gardar’s bonds. In the moment, she was still dreaming of a possible life with her family: her, Gardar, and her new child. When she says this and weeps bitter tears, Einar makes up his mind. If she wants Gardar to escape, she’ll have to escape with him, and he’ll help them.

Thorfinn closes ranks and agrees to help too. For Einar, it’s the only choice. For Thorfinn, it’s choosing to abandon his life of pacifism before it began, but to help his friends. Awake in his bed, Sverkel tells Snake he’s not one of those people who believe “inferior” people are destined to becomes slaves; it’s just a matter of luck. Einar, Arnheid and Gardar were incredibly unlucky.

Snake’s not in the mood for the old man’s philosophizing. Gardar killed five of his men, he must die, period. He says he can’t sit there, holding his sword, crying himself to sleep about his unavenged men. Sverkel then says she should put his sword down; his land and farm is Snake’s if he wants it, as thanks for reading the bible to him.

Snake declines the offer. He isn’t interested in working the land or growing anything. There’s a lot we still don’t know about Snake, aside from the fact he’s not Norse and has a very unusual sword. He’s also extremely sharp, so I was almost surprised when he and both his men rode after Einar in a cloak, believing him to be a fleeing Gardar.

His absence allows Thorfinn to get Gardar out from under Sverkel’s bed (he helped Arnheid when she asked) and into a cart, where the three of them will head to the border where Snake and his men can’t easily operate. But Snake eventually realizes “Gardar” was running too fast, and returned to the house, not on his horse but on foot. There, he gives Thorfinn an ultimatum: give up Gardar, or die.

Having already cast his lot with both Arnheid and Einar, Thorfinn can’t turn back now. The only way he will be able to get everyone out of this is with violence, something he was once—and still is—extremely good at. Askeladd appears beside him and places his fist on his shoulder.

He tells Thorfinn that it’s okay to fight if it’s to help people who matter to you. As long as he understands that Snake probably has a good reason to fight too…likely beyond the money Ketil is paying him.

Snake advances, and even unarmed, Thorfinn is able to knock him back and dodge his incredibly quick and complex sword swing. Askeladd then scoffs at Thorfinn, telling him he’s not going to survive a fight against Snake if he’s “half-asleep.”

If he’s in this, he’s gotta be in this all the way. So he puts up his dukes, as if he were holding his twin daggers. Snake realizes what the stance is about, and prepares for a fight. This is for all the marbles.

Spy x Family – 16 – The Taste of Family

This episode opens with a dead-serious face, as Yor can barely hide her assassin’s glare from her family when she arrives home late. She definitely can’t hide all the cuts on her hands, which at first I thought might be from a particularly unpleasant client. Anya sees the future through Bond: her mama crying. Alone in her room Yor laments that she could lose her family if this doesn’t succeed. So what’s ‘this’?

I really should have known from all the hand cuts that the mission had nothing to do with assassination, but secret cooking lessons from Camilla, who grudingly agrees to coach Yor when her husband Dominic blurts out at work that she’s a great cook. The bloody bag Yor was carrying was just crushed tomatoes. It’s a great heavy buildup that made you breathe a sigh of relief whenever you figure out everything will be fine.

Dominic invites Yuri to help be the taste tester, but also possibly to preserve his own life. The “smoking, oozing purple/black poison food made by the terrible chef” is an anime cliché that’s been around longer than Truck-kun, and Spy x Family leans into the disgusto-factor of her eldritch creations. It also wisely shows that Yuri’s usual way of eating his sister’s food—while vomiting part of it up—and not keeling over shows that she’s had a poor judge of taste all this time.

Yuri should be commended for basically building up a tolerance and even a love of his sister’s cooking (though part of it is the last thing he wants is for her to be unhappy, or contribute to it in any way). When Camilla suggests they think back to what kind of food the Briar siblings’ mom made, they remember a red southern stew with a fried egg. Yor starts again under Camilla’s close watch, and hey-presto, she’s able to make her first edible, tasty dish!

When Yor returns home in a much better mood, Loid and Anya are understandably worried about her handling the dinner duties. But she sticks to the recipe for her mom’s stew, and after a tentative taste, they discover it’s a really good, soothing flavor. Yor is so happy her family is acknowledging her cooking, she cries tears of joy, not sorrow, into her hands—the very future Bond foresaw.

The final gag is that the dessert she improvise does send her family to the floor. But with about a third of the runtime left, the episode doesn’t let Yor’s cooking epiphany overstay its welcome, but shifts to … Franky’s love life? Ugh…fine, I guess. Turns out Franky is as bad with women as he is good with intelligence gathering. He asks Loid to help him determine the best way to talk to Monica, the pretty woman at the cigar shop.

After Franky demonstrates stalker tendencies with the wealth of intel on Monica and scoffing at Loid’s elaborate conversational flow charts, Loid dresses as Monica, a bit that doesn’t really get any play. Similarly, we don’t get to see Franky being shot down, only the aftermath and Loid buying him a commiseratory drink. It’s a very lightweight segment, but after the excitement of the Mister Dog Trilogy I understand the need for a downshift.

Attack on Titan – 84 – Kumbaya

While lying awake in bed, Jean envisions a comfortable future in “that prime spot in the interior.” He has a wife, a kid, and all the fancy liquor he can sip. He can have it all if he simply “stays put”, does what Floch says, and allows Eren to commit global genocide unchallenged. In other words, he has to give up on being a Scout.

Jean meets secretly with Hange and Mikasa prior to the botched execution of Yelena and Onyankopon that results in the three being eaten by the Cart, so we already know he’ll choose to stop Eren. This week we learn why he made that decision. First, Hange’s three simple but powerful words—genocide is wrong. Second, Hange makes him feel the eyes of all his fellow scouts who have fallen. He won’t forsake them. He tells Hange, simply, I’m forever a scout.

Fast-forward to the big meet-up of the Paradis and Marleyan Eldians (and Magath), and while last week there was a distinct super-heroic feeling to this eclectic band being brought together, it looks decidedly shakier this week, once they all, ya know, have to sit around a fire together.

The sparks start flying when Magath and Jean argue over who started this fight, at which point Hange, stirring the stew, says none of them should be talking about a past they weren’t present for.

Then Annie asks Mikasa if, when trying to convince Eren fails, would she really be able to hurt or kill him in order to stop him. When Mikasa bears arms, Annie responds with her needle ring, ready to transform. They end up cooling down then partaking in the hot stew.

Meanwhile, the reason Yelena is alive is so she can tell Magath and the others where Eren is. She won’t tell them, but she’s happy to stir the shit by going over how many people everyone assembled there has killed, and more importantly, what they did to each other.l

Honestly, why Hange didn’t insist on Yelena being gagged in such a volatile situation is beyond me. Yelena doesn’t spare anyone, getting it “all out in the open”. What sets Jean off is when she mentions Marco, and how Reiner and Annie took away his ODM gear so he’d get eaten by a titan.

It’s not that fact, but when Reiner adds that he killed the titan that ate Marco, and begs Jean not to forgive him, than Jean basically beats him to a pulp. When Gabi gets between them, she gets kicked, but she and Falco still beg Jean to help them save their families.

At dawn, after he’s calmed down, Jean wakes Gabi and Falco up, saying that he’ll help them. There’s a crispness and clarity to the look of the morning that suggests a great many things were burned away in that campfire, or at least set aside to the point where they can all work together towards a shared goal: stopping Eren’s genocide.

Unfortunately, before they reach the port where Azumabito Kiyomi says there’s an airship for them to board, Pieck reports that the port is already under Jaegerist occupation, and Lady Azumabito is among Floch’s hostages. The Stop Eren faction is off to a rocky start.

Mieruko-chan – 10 – One More Time

The show delivers one of its creepiest scenes yet without showing a single ghost or ghoul…just creepy-ass Toono Zen, cracking open the door of his pitch-black apartment surrounded by crows, accepting some leftovers from a kindly lady with some suspicious blood on his hand. He retreats back inside when talk turns to the recent maiming of cats in the neighborhood.

How such a guy was able to get a job subbing at a girl’s high school is beyond me, but a lot of the class finds him hot. Naturally, this doesn’t include Miko, who now has to constantly see those tortured cat ghouls writhe around Toono, who looks on the surface like he’s not aware of their presence, but at the same time could simply be hiding the fact he’s aware of them…just as Miko tries to do.

One side-effect of their new substitute teacher and his ghoulish kitty entourage started out as a joke, but is now starting to become worrying: Hana just can’t stop eating. She even inadvertently bails Miko out of a very sticky situation with Toono and the ghouls when they to to the nurse’s office. Yulia sees them go in, and immediately correctly diagnoses the problem: Hana’s aura is being drained by the spirits surrounding Toono.

That Yulia knows this could prove crucial to Miko and Hana in the days ahead, but there are two problems: Hana has no idea what Yulia is talking about, Miko does know but is still apprehensive about talking about it, and Yulia thinks Miko is out to get her. To Miko’s point, ghouls can pop up anywhere at anytime; there’s no safe time or place to talk about them, as evidenced in a “peaceful” park where one cute kid transforms into a ghoul and has to be destroyed by Miko’s guardian spirits.

But that marks the second of three times they’ve helped Miko; the third time will be their last, adding one more lump in her throat. The episode is bookended by two students accidentally interrupting their teacher Toono’s seemingly nightly cat-hunting mission. Here I thought the show was going to try to humanize him a bit at some point, but nope, looks like he’s pure evil.

The forces of evil seem to be amassing around Miko, Hana, and Yulia. With only one guardian intervention left to count on, it may be time for Miko to drop her guard and converse with Yulia about ways to protect themselves from the coming scourge…and prevent Hana from gorging herself.

Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut – 09 – A Softening of Thorns

Not-Russia’s head honcho doesn’t like how the not-Americans are progressing with their space program, and the Chief promises they’ll have a human in space by Spring. That human will be one of three people: Mikhail, Roza…and Lev. As you’d expect, Lev is over the moon about getting one step closer to it, while Mikhail is more reserved and Roza downright cold, telling him his “tongue is honey” and his “heart is ice.”

While wishing Mikhail and Roza would be more friendly, Lev mostly just wants to give Irina the good news, driving home the fact he cares for her a great deal. She, in turn, can’t hide how much Irina cares for Lev, as Anya mentions to him that she even threw a pine cone on the ice to make a wish. Irina, not to mention Lev and Anya, have a lot of fun faces this week as the highly procedural show lets its hair down a bit.

We also see how much Irina and Anya have grown as friends, with the latter giving the former a full progress report on the three final candidates. Mikhail and the “White Rose” Roza are still running first and second, and Irina can’t help but tip her hat at the nickname, as Roza is certainly full of thorns. Later, after running out of her dungeon due to embarrassment over Lev, Irina asks Anya if she’s been useful and still has value. The sweet and empathetic Anya naturally reassures her with both words and a hug.

Roza’s position as Number Two among the candidates suddenly goes up in flames when she loses control during a high-speed skydive. She spins out of control, unable to move, but Lev catches up to her, steadies her, and pulls her cord. It means Lev has to pull his cord a few seconds late and ends up landing in a forest, but he saved Roza’s life, and later Roza makes no bones about knowing that.

When Roza asks Lev why he saved her, Lev simply said he moved on his own to save a pal. There was no why, only that bond he feels, which has been one-sided up to this point. Roza thanks him by smiling, buying him a soda water, and apologizing for all the nasty things she’s said both to him and Irina, who she calls by name for the first time. The face turn seems sudden but only until you remember she really thought she was going to die. I for one am delighted they found another note for Roza besides prickly bitter xenophobe!

As for Miss Luminesk, who has always been a kaleidoscopic symphony of notes, she and Anya happen to walk by while Lev and Roza seem to be enjoying each other’s company, sparking a degree of jealousy. She’s almost assassinated in the street by a car, whose driver is swiftly executed by Nataliya, who proves she’s as much Irina’s bodyguard as her dorm mother.

Laika was never going to “dispose” of its titular protagonist, but there was always the possibility she and Lev would be separated by powers outside their control. Irina puts on a brave face regarding her choice to relocate to he capital to aid in space research, because it means not being close enough to Lev to hang out whenever they want.

Still, Lev is happy the government he could take or leave is finally seeing the value in Irina, and wishes her well. Anya also arranges for the two to have one last, first date together on Armed Forces Day. Irina’s face upon seeing Lev arrive bang on time is worth a thousand bittersweet words.

Mieruko-chan – 09 – The Joy of Being Able to React

The arrival of Toono Zen as her substitute homeroom teacher is an extremely vexing proposition for Miko. There are an inordinate number of intense cat-demons constantly surrounding the guy, who doesn’t seem to notice. At least he doesn’t seem to remember her from the stray cat encounter, while Hana can’t quite place the guy and Miko encourages her to believe she’s mistaking him for someone else.

Still, Zen’s demon hangers-on creep out Miko to the point she retreats to the bathroom, only to encounter another gigantic ghoul who climbs out of the toilet in her stall. Miko uses the fact there’s no TP to retreat, only to find Yulia eating her lunch in the stall next door. Mind you, Miko is only alone because Hana went to buy bread to eat after she ate her regular lunch.

Miko is of the mind that no one should have to eat their lunch in a bathroom stall, so invites Yulia to join her and Hana outside. Yet when she spots their teacher once again walking down the halls, Miko’s eyes suddenly fill with tears, concerning both Hana and Yulia.

The bulk of the remainder of the episode consists of a test of courage in the form of a haunted house set up by the local donut concern; if customers can brave the house and get their card stamped, they’ll receive 20 free donuts. Hana is an incurable scaredy-cat, but Miko simply loves the opportunity to be able to react to scary things by screaming. The fact that she smiles as she screams is particularly disturbing to Yulia!

Miko ends up seeing a real ghoul among all of the haunted house monsters, but she’s still able to react because the ghoul can’t be sure who she’s reacting to: the genuine article, or the artifice of the haunted house. When all’s said and done the three friends end up going through the ringer but coming out of it closer than ever…not to mention 20 donuts richer!

Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut – 08 – Wait and See

Irina returns to headquarters not to more scorn and racism, but an actual standing ovation—albeit a somewhat forced and stilted one. As forced by the chief as the applause might be, it’s still applause directed at Irina, something she likely never imagined she’d ever experience when she volunteered to do this.

The downside to both Irina’s success and Lev’s role in that success is that it becomes the impetus that separates them just when they were feeling closer to one another than ever. Lev is promoted to full candidate and joins the others for the final tests to select the first human cosmonaut. One would think his knee injury would put him out of the running, literally, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

As for Irina, her long expected post-launch “disposal” is postponed indefinitely. While the narrator suggests that someone might try to cause an “accident”, that’s made harder by the fact Anya makes it her mission to be Irina’s friend in Lev’s place. She takes her out for a festive night on the town, wearing traditional dress and performing the ritual of tossing pine cones into the water to grant your wishes.

It would seem Irina got her wish, which wasn’t at all “Love Live the Motherland”, but nothing more than another opportunity to be with Lev. When they meet for the first time in the new year, he’s prepared a spread and presents her with a bouquet. Irina questions the “point” of all this, all the while smiling with glee. So far it looks like these two crazy kids are going to be just fine, but as Lev says, it’s very much still a “wait and see” situation.

Mieruko-chan – 08 – Let Sleeping Moths Lie

While shopping with Kyousuke for a birthday gift for their mom, Miko comes across a very cute dress and decides to try it on, since she and her mom are pretty much the same size. Unfortunately, a ghoulish store rep who says “It looks great on you!” kinda ruins the mood…not to mention Miko wears the dress out of the store, basically nixing it as a gift for mom.

While she and Kyousuke find another gift, the trip home is less than stress-free, thanks to a spectral axe murderer walking down the subway car, swinging its axe right into peoples’ heads. Miko has every right to be scared about what the axe might do to someone like her who can see them.

Thankfully, the axe only hurts other ghouls, and goes right through her head without incident. We don’t see Miko and Kyousuke giving their mom the gift of couple mugs. Rather, we watch as their mom makes two cups of tea with them: one for her, and one for her dearly departed husband.

The balance between creepy/gross/spooky/sinister ghosts and benevolent ones continues when Miko and Hana see off their pregnant homeroom teacher, learning that the child she’s carrying is her second try. This explains the odd white specter that’s so interested in the teacher’s belly: it’s the ghost of her dead child.

This was one of the best and most powerful segments of Mieruko-chan to date, because it once again subverts expectations. At first I thought the ghost was a threat like Miko did. But when we see how it interacts with his mother’s hand, it’s as if we and Miko can see the healing love emanate from her. I was well and truly choked up.

Contrast that with just regular choking due to one of the grosser ghouls Miko has come across. With a dozen slithery three-nostriled tusks leaking snot and some unsettling googly eyes, this particular specimen is not the first ghost Miko decides to face “head-on”. Perhaps she’ll face a less gross one later. For now, Miko joins Senpai’s Futaba as a Fall 2021 character who is partial to canned oshiruko.

The final segment brings back two very different cat people. First, Miko and Hana’s substitute homeroom teacher is Toono Zen, the guy Miko wouldn’t let adopt the stray kitten. Between those nasty demonic cats surrounding him and his blood red eyes, I wonder if he has “the sight” like Miko and Yulia, and knows that Miko can see too?

Whatever his deal, homeroom is not going to be pleasant for Miko for the foreseeable future. As for the tough yakuza-looking guy, he takes his time finding just the right cat food and cake to celebrate his late wife’s life, their anniversary, and the lives of their two beautiful white cats, who continue to watch over his new fuzzy companion as benevolent spirits. Mieruko-chan continues to spook me out and melt my heart.

Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut – 07 – Borscht or Bust

The day of launch has arrived, and Irina dons her proper Zirnitran uniform, but meets one-on-one with the Chief, who has survived countless small heart attacks to get to this point. Due to the risk of the UK monitoring her transmissions once in orbit, Irina is told to read the script of a cooking show to communicate her condition. If everything’s A-OK, she’ll read about borscht. If not, a cheeseburger.

In hindsight, Lev’s arrest was a naked attempt to build up tension and drama before the launch, as his detainment doesn’t even last through the launch. He is freed by Natalia, who discovered that Franz sabotaged the centrifuge in order to kill Irina, thus ending the Chief’s career. Lev is not only freed but gets to be one of the last people Irina sees before her flight to the heavens.

Since this is the first time they’ve attempted this with a person, there’s no guarantee this will be a two-way trip…except for the fact this is just the seventh episode and the titular character is exceedingly unlikely to perish here and now. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel a combined feeling of awe and dread—the same thing I’ve felt before watching any real-world spaceflight.

Everything goes according to plan at first, but other than a brief shot of Irina on video that soon fizzles out, the entire flight is from the perspective of Lev and the team in the control room. Lev’s crippling sense of helplessness is palpable when they lose contact, and for a few moments, he feels like perhaps Irina really is gone…and really feels that loss.

Thankfully, once communication is restored, Irina recites the recipe for borscht, delighting Lev the flight team down on earth and adding some welcome whimsy to what had been a strictly by-the-book launch procedure, as she rattles off the cooking instructions as her capsule dances above Earth’s night side. She even manages to get her feelings through to Lev by reciting her own recipe: for the odd Zirnitran drink he loves.

While the political officers in the control room really want to blow her up, both when she goes off script and when there’s a chance the capsule could land outside Zirnitran borders. But they don’t blow it up. That said, it’s a mad dash to the remote wintry landscape where the capsule landed, and Lev leads the way on his motorcycle.

While he’s thrown from that cycle when he hits an ice sheet, he only suffers a skinned knee, and gets right back in the saddle in search of Irina and her parachute. He finds it, which…is pretty lucky! But that’s fine; just as this show knows we don’t want Irina to die, it also knows we want to see the pair cuddle under the parachute in mutual relief and affection for each other.

The world may never know who Irina was or the feat she achieved, but it doesn’t matter: she knows, and the human lad knows too. That’s more than enough for both of them.

Mieruko-chan – 07 – Tunnel Visions (of Horror)

Things are only getting spookier for Miko, and it’s largely Hana’s fault! When Hana’s photo gets a lot of likes on Instagram (666, to be exact) she believes it’s her calling to be a photographer, and buys a Polaroid to take more. Yulia, waiting for an opening to exact her revenge on Miko for humiliating her/choking her out, eggs Hana on by suggesting a bus trip to the mountains for some prime photo spots.

Yulia’s motivations aside, this is the first time in a long time, maybe ever, she’s gone on a trip with friends. That said, she sticks to her mission, getting Hana to enter a tunnel known to be haunted so Miko will have no choice but to admit she also sees ghosts, and deal with them. Of course, at first it’s normal stuff that gets Hana spooked: the darkness and a sudden drop of water falling on the back of her neck.

When Miko trips in the dark, then dusts off her hands, Yulia believes her rival is setting up some kind of supernatural barrier. Because of the discrepancy between the types of ghosts Yulia and Miko can see, Miko’s gestures seem to coincide with the ghosts Yulia can see shriveling up and vanishing, as if Miko exorcised them. But Yulia can’t bigger and much more horrifying monster that is devouring the ones she can see.

Yulia makes things worse by trying to get Miko to admit she can see the ghosts too, totally unaware the biggest and baddest instantly reacts to the sensation that the humans can see them. Miko has been operating under the assumption that this is, as Egon once said, “very bad”. The monster prepares to swoop down on the three girls, but is stopped and defeated by the shrine spirits, who once again protect Miko.

Hana takes Miko and Yulia’s defeated, exhausted expressions on the ride home as shared disappointment in not getting to the end of the tunnel to the photo spot. So she gathers the two close for a selfie. That ends up making Yulia’s day, as it’s established her belief in ghosts cause other classmates to ostracize her, but she’s finally found new friends.

As for Miko, she’s just trying not to overthink why some spirits protect her while others want to kill her, Hana, and now Yulia, or what one of the ones protecting her meant by “three times”. But as the preview says, things are going to get spookier before they become less spooky, so Miko will likely need all the spectral allies she can get!