Xebek\’s Blog

Aono confronts Matsuri at the train yard about her still being around, trying to stop her so she can have Yorito to herself and we find out the past between Mayuko and Takeshi.

Impressions:

Wow, this episode was great. I loved the whole Mayuko and Takeshi story. I thought going into this episode that the most interesting part would just be the battle between Matsuri and Aono, and then Yorito closing in on the battle. I thought he may see the battle and learn that Aono is a Yaka, but it didn’t really go that way. The fight wasn’t bad, but really the high point for me had to be the story behind Mayuko and Takeshi. I hadn’t quite made my guess on the exact story, but it was something along the lines of he was her brother or friend. Although the possibility of that was always there, the fact that they focused on it and showed it here really helped. It’s made me feel for the characters so much more. I never really viewed Takeshi as an evil person. Hell, Aono is acting more evil then he is right now (that’s not to say she is evil, she has her motivation and so on) I think that this episode not only explained the story behind Mayuko and Takeshi, it made them much more interesting and human characters…even if Mayuko isnt’ human.

A LOT of the mysterious and confusion has vanished from the facts that have arisen in this episode. That’s not to say that there is no mystery at all or that the end is completely predictable, but a lot of it has been cleared up. There isn’t so much mystery left, just suspense. It’s still relatively unknown and exciting as to what happens next, but you not constantly trying to understand stuff going on. We know a Yaka is born after a person dies for some reason. We know Takeshi and Mayuko’s story, and the facts given make certain (although it was pretty much shown already) that Aono became a Yaka after trying to kill herself after something happened in the past to some version, ancestor or incarnation of Yorito. What I’m wondering about still is if Matsuri is some kind of original Yaka. She’s never seen the sky, but you would think if she was a normal Yaka and died at the age of her physical appearance, that she would have seen it before she died. I’m also curious as to who told Mayuko about her being a Yaka. Was Matsuri involved back then and did Matsuri actually MAKE her or at least Aono a Yaka? There’s still some mystery but a lot of the clouds around the relationships involving Takeshi and Mayuko has cleared up some other stuff.

Takeshi seems to know a way, and he seems to be pretty sure of himself, that he can turn a Yaka normal. It seems they need to kill one Yaka with that special blade to make another one human. First off it raises the question of how Takeshi found all this out, and what’s so special about the blade. Not only is it needed apparently to do the deed, but it’s immune to Yaka powers. This raises the question of what will happen in the final episode perhaps of who will die, if anyone, to make whom human, if anyone. There are still several possibilities. I’d be able to live more with Mayuko staying a Yaka since they resolved her relationship with Takeshi, although it’s still a little sad. The only way I see her returning normal is if Aono or Matsuri also do.

On a bit of an unrelated, unimportant fact. I found it very very strange that Aono’s powers turned into something from R.O.D. Not that I don’t like that anime, in fact I think that the control of paper like that is one of the most creative and cool powers there is, but it doesn’t really fit with the other powers they showed of Aono being able to possess stuff. She possessed the origami frog to lead Matsuri it seemed. Although that could have just been her manipulating it, it seemed like she had more control of it then she did when she was attacking with paper. We know for sure she possessed Yorito. It just seems a bit odd that they’ve shown those two powers, which seem very different.