- Episode 4: Scene 04: The Rain, Ring, and Girl
Through various coincidences we met. And little by little, our courage bound our hearts together.
This episode both ends this small arc full of introductions and yakuza, and also sets up for a bigger conflict by revealing some information about some of our more mysterious characters and introducing us to the real antagonists.
Continuing on from the events of episode three, Murasaki’s father vows to save her and insists on going alone. Meanwhile, Rinka and Azuma have already stormed the criminal organization’s hideout. Rinka shows off some pretty awesome Kali moves, despite being injured. She learned it from her ex-cop father (that explains some things…sorry for thinking you were shady, Rindou!). They encounter Kobushi and the samurai dude, but instead of a fight, Kobushi takes the opportunity to steal the mystical block that can capture and store the glowing fish and then disappear.
Rinka and Azuma find the unconscious Murasaki, but before they can rescue her, Hotokeda literally bursts through the wall from his shower to stop them. I don’t know what shocked me more: the fact that Hotokeda spends the rest of his screen time this episode naked, or that absolutely nobody reacts like anything’s wrong with that. Azuma and Rinka are first outmatched by Hotokeda’s psychokinetic barrier and inhumanly large proportions, but then Peggy comes to the rescue by emitting a supernatural shark that takes Hotokeda’s glowing fish. Who knew the penguin would have the best power against espers?
At the same time, another masked guy in armor tries to stop Kobushi from making off with the fish rock. Rindou happens by and saves her, earning her admiration. Just as armored guy #2 is about to start a fight with Rindou, Hotokeda and the others fall from the sky, having been teleported by Azuma. Hotokeda lands squarely on the armored guy just as Murasaki’s dad shows up late to the party at the hideout. You tried, man. You tried.
Outside, the samurai guy returns and we find out Hotokeda was just a steppingstone to a bigger plot (not surprising). Samurai guy removes his mask to reveal Minami underneath, shocking Azuma. She spouts some stuff about changing the world before a monstrous gigantic apparition appears and releases snakes to take the fish rock back from Kobushi. They promptly disappear afterwards, leaving Azuma confused and shaken.
Back to a more peaceful setting, Rinka, her dad, and Kobushi are all temporarily staying at the bar owner’s home. Through some connections, Rindou finds out the details of Azuma’s childhood: the death of parents, leaving him alone in a country at civil war. Kobushi does a little digging herself and finds out Azuma was adopted by Minami’s father, making him and Minami adoptive siblings. It’s up to Rinka to find him, then, and stop him from pathetically walking around in the rain while being sad. And she does. Some really nice imagery happens right when they meet too, with the clouds clearing to shine some light on them. It’s a good use of symbolic weather!
After deciding to help each other out, Azuma finally reminds Rinka of when they first met. She beat up some thugs who were messing with him even though everyone else just ignored it. Rinka really is a person fit to become a hero–even before her esper powers or Azuma urging her to help people, she’s been going against bad guys all this time.
The rest of the episode returns the focus to Murasaki, who has cut her hair short and revealed that she gained the esper power of psychometry. After her father reacts negatively to Rinka and Azuma as espers, Murasaki decides not to live at her house, citing that “I don’t want to go home to a house that treats such people as monsters!” Later, we get a beautiful sequence when Murasaki’s dad comes to drop off some of her stuff and gives her her dead mother’s ring. Using her psychometry, she gets to see the heartwarming memories of her mother and father after she was born. Afterward, there’s just enough time at the very end of the episode to leave us with a cliffhanger: the Professor appears and wants to start negotiations.
Wow, they really fit a lot into just this one episode! Not only do we finally meet the Professor from the first episode, but we also find out Azuma’s first encounter with Rinka and his relationship to Minami, what turned Kobushi to side with Rinka, and even what prompts Murasaki to cut her hair. All of these things move the story forward closer to the current plot (in episode one) and makes me worry way less that it would take forever before we got there. I think it’s a great move to tie all the characters together so deeply with the bonds they’re forming now and the ones formed even farther back. So it was the other way around the whole time; it was Rinka who inspired Azuma to take on the hero mantle, not him who pulled her into doing hero work. And Minami is also connected to Azuma–something I would not have thought of–and may explain why Minami had such strong feelings against Rinka in the first episode. I can’t wait to see how we move towards the chaos from here!
Notes:
- While it makes sense story-wise that the samurai was Minami all along, I still don’t get why the samurai guy is taller than Kobushi when Minami is shorter than Rinka.
- I’m getting a strong vibe that Kobushi had/has a troubled family life. She never met her parents and was raised by her grandmother, but she claims to understand how tough the world is. She believes family ties are strong and obviously yearns for a home where she’s cherished. She also jumps straight into a sisterly role and gets attached to others quickly.
- If he’s not supposed to ever leave her behind, where is Azuma in the first episode????
- I didn’t think psychometry could be used comedically, but it can.
- That’s what’s missing from this anime! Mothers! Nobody has a mom!
Always Sometimes Never 