Karen's Anime Blog

This was a really well-directed episode; practically every shot was cinematic, and the facial expressions showed a lot of nuance. It was a bit of a retread though– we already knew that Azuma’s mother is terrible and this episode spends a lot of time showing us that she was even worse than we thought. If it wasn’t for Marina’s dad being an absolute zero of a human being, Azuma’s mom would win the Worst Takopi Parent Award…hell, maybe she still should win, I can’t decide. Let’s just say it’s a field with a lot of very strong competition.

We start with Azuma, Shizuka and Takopi (as Marina) hanging out. Azuma sees on his phone that Marina’s body has been found, so no more playing Marina-dress-up for Takopi. The class is shocked to hear that Marina is dead, and the police start questioning the students. I’m a little curious how this would work in reality; would the students’ parents need to be present for the police to question them? Because here it just looks like the police are interviewing them in small groups. Questioning obviously leads to Shizuka’s door, and frankly, the police should take her into protective custody just by virtue of what the inside of her house looks like. We don’t see the conversation between Shizuka and the police, which would be very interesting, but it’s all part of this show’s strategy of keeping Shizuka distant from us.

We can’t see Shizuka’s eyes, so we don’t know how she’s feeling about the body being found. Takopi, who appears very little in this episode, is freaked out enough for both of them.

Over the course of the episode, we see Azuma’s guilt begin to affect him, while Shizuka’s mental state remains mysterious. Azuma is so bothered by the murder that he fails a test, leading to another encounter with the Pancakes of Punishment– this time, it’s even worse, because his mother claims to have given up on him. So now he can eat the pancakes, because his mother has just essentially told him that she doesn’t love him anymore. How could anyone be so cruel to their own child? I don’t get it. Like I can even understand when your kid has driven you up the wall and you spank them in a moment of frustration; it’s horrible, but it happens, even to otherwise good parents. But to be this cold-blooded about it, essentially torturing your child as part of an ongoing program to make them into something they’re not, is just completely alien to me. Yet this part rings true because some parents do treat their children this way.

Enjoy the pancakes, you underachieving disappointment since birth! Psychological beatings will continue until morale improves.

Then we get Shizuka doing something absolutely shocking: she wants Azuma to take the bloodstained Happy Camera– the murder weapon– and take the fall for the murder. This is why Shizuka is such a mystery to us in episodes 3 and 4, so this event hits like a freight train. We simply don’t know what’s going on in her head and whether she feels guilt, or if she is even fully cognizant of what she’s doing. I’ve seen some comments that all the kids are reflections of their parents and Shizuka’s mother is an escort, so she knows how to manipulate men; an interesting idea, but unless Shizuka’s mother is bringing men home (which we haven’t seen any indication of), Shizuka hasn’t learned from her directly. Yet kissing Azuma on the playground does indicate that she knows what she’s doing.

For Azuma, even though he didn’t murder Marina, the guilt of being involved in the cover-up is destroying him, and he feels like he needs to be punished. In perhaps the only show of proper familial love in this show, Azuma’s older brother Junja notices that his little brother is in pain and offers to help. Ultimately, Azuma does go to the police, though it’s clear the police don’t think he actually murdered Marina; the truth will likely never come out. How could it? The actual murderer is a pink alien that only a select few people can even see or hear.

At first glance, the scene with Junja isn’t that significant, because Azuma had already decided to turn himself in at that point, but I think it’s ultimately very important. Looking at the extreme long term, I think Azuma is going to come out of this alright, by which I mean he will be able to live a normal life as an adult. He has Junja’s unconditional love, despite his mother’s best efforts to tear the two of them apart, and being placed in a youth facility will at least get him away from his abusive parent. The police know he didn’t really murder Marina, so I have to imagine that’s going to effect how he’s treated by the system. Maybe I’m grasping at straws to find the positives here, but I think his life hasn’t been totally ruined.

Shizuka though? Shizuka, who seemingly has no cognizance of what she’s done and is betting her entire happiness on her (dead) dog being alive? I don’t see a good outcome for Shizuka. Either she continues living and becomes more of a monster, like Marina was, or she tries to kill herself again and this time, Takopi doesn’t stop her; perhaps he wouldn’t even want to stop her, at this point.

“I bury my enemies and eat ice cream like a boss. Ready to hit Tokyo?”

Huh, anime is fun, right? All giant robots and magical girls huh? Forgive me while I eat a whole bag of cookies and cry for the next fortnight straight.