Summary
The thing Saki’s parents left for her is a Minoshiro. A real one – it’s
mechanical. A letter from Saki’s mom explains that there’s an ancient weapon
called the Psycho Buster. It was originally developed to kill Power users, and
since it lets the user kill without using their own abilities, it won’t trigger
the Death of Shame. To retrieve it, however, they have to go to a polluted
wasteland even the Monster Rats consider cursed – Tokyo.
After leaving Thatchring village, Inui collapsed from exhaustion, but
was saved by none other than Kiroumaru. Saki and Satoru ask to see him, and are
horrified to find him chained in a dank prison cell. They ask for his help,
since he is an enemy of Yakomaru as well. More importantly, he’s been to Tokyo
before. He assures them it’s not as polluted as the rumors make it out to be,
but still dangerous – he lost a third of his men during the expedition.
In a submarine, Saki, Satoru, Inui, and Kiroumaru manage to outrun the
Monster Rats and Ogre and arrive in Tokyo Bay. Kiroumaru advises them not to
land until daybreak – at nighttime there’s a monster that lurks near the shore.
The next day, amidst the desert pocked by ruined buildings Tokyo’s
become, they activate the Minoshiro. As soon as it locates the Psycho Buster they
spot a bird out at sea and realize they’ve been followed. With no choice, they
head into the underground.
It’s stiflingly hot, the floor a mass of bugs and their feces. As they
travel they wonder about the nature of the weapon. The Minoshiro helpfully
chimes in. Created in America during the last days of the old civilization, it’s
a modified form of anthrax, highly contagious but engineered to be rendered
inert a year or two after use. The trick, therefore, will be getting the Ogre
to breathe the powder.
Kiroumaru realizes they’re being followed, the breeze from openings in
the roof carrying their scent behind them. There are seven pursuers – five
soldiers, the Ogre, and Yakomaru himself. As they hurry on, Saki wonders how
Maria and Mamoru’s daughter became an Ogre. The cause is an extremely rare
random mutation, but this is too convenient to be luck. She wonders if it’s
even an Ogre at all, a proposition Satoru firmly dismisses. Then he’s attacked
from above by a giant slug, identified by the Minoshiro as a bloodsucker. They
kill it, Inui dispatching those still clinging to the roof above them.
Hearing a bell through the walls, Kiroumaru deduces that their pursuers
have split up. Inui finds an underground river, and Kiroumaru confirms they’ll
need to travel up it to get to their destination. He suggests they split up
themselves, him and Satoru going to lead the pursuers on a false trail while
Inui and Saki retrieve the submarine.
Inui has suspicions. The Kiroumaru he knows would’ve bailed after a single
casualty, so if he stayed until a third of his men were dead he must’ve had a
good reason, but he won’t say what it is. As they retrieve the submarine, Inui
reminds Saki that Kiroumaru warned them about a monster lurking at the coast.
The Minoshiro says the most dangerous creature in the area is the Devil Worm,
and they wonder why Kiroumaru didn’t tell them the specifics. Sure enough, a
Devil Worm attacks the submarine, but Inui kills it.
As they travel up the river, Saki starts to hear Shun’s voice. She
still doesn’t remember his name or what happened to him, but he assures her
they’re always together. She wonders if she can defeat the Ogre. He says she’s
mistaken – it’s not an Ogre. Then Inui shakes her back to awareness.
They reach the opening where they spotted the river, but Satoru and
Kiroumaru aren’t there. Inui insists they can’t waste any more time and have to
hope the others are just hiding and unable to move. They reach a wall in the
passage and have to continue on foot, using their Power to create air pockets.
Another Devil Worm attacks, and Inui sacrifices himself to kill it.
Saki finds an opening and wanders through the root and moss infested
remains of a research facility, finally finding the phial containing the Psycho
Buster in a wall safe. Daylight filtering through a crack in the wall leads her
outside. Her memories suddenly return just before she runs into Shun. He no
longer wears a mask.
Thoughts
This probably should’ve been tenser and/or more exciting than it was. A
race against time through a hell on Earth of human making (literally, since
it’s implied that the excess Power leaking out through the Sacred Barrier is
warping Tokyo according to the human perception of it). But this supposed hell
on Earth just has a bunch of vaguely weird monsters, none so dangerous a little
fire doesn’t handle them one way or another. I mean, yeah, I’d be pretty
grossed out at having to walk on a carpet of bug shit too, especially if I was
like Saki and co. and lacked some heavy-duty rubber boots, and some of the
bigger monsters like the Devil Worm would be pretty freaky in reality, but as a
viewer there’s nothing especially strange or scary about them. As for Inui, we
didn’t exactly know him enough to care, and if you haven’t noticed that people
who are close to or just spend some time around Saki tend to die, you haven’t
been paying attention. She’s even lost her parents (well, we don’t know that
for sure, but really, what are the odds they’re still alive?), and since I’m
still not holding my breath for Satoru’s survival, it looks like she’s
literally going to end up losing everyone who was close to her. Ouch. Yeah,
whatever else can be said, that still sucks.
Basically, these two episodes had the same concern behind as last time,
in that the plot has gone in a very typical direction. Then, it was ‘the bad
guy has an evil plan to take over the world,’ now it’s ‘race to beat the bad
guys to the McGuffin.’ Assuming that letting the good guys lead them to it
wasn’t part of the plan all along, because really, does anyone watching this still trust Kiroumaru by now? It’s very
standard stuff that isn’t essential to the series’ more interesting ideas about
human nature, the costs of creating safe, stable societies, and the dangers of
superhuman powers. Like I said last time, Yakomaru’s plan has still has at
least some applicability, given the universality of these themes, but the
search for the Psycho Buster feels a bit less so, apart from the dangers it
poses to all Power users. It’s one of
those cases the solution could just as easily destroy those it’s supposed to
save.
Granted, it’s not like I’m about to stop watching. There’re two
episodes left, so there’s plenty of time to bring things together and wrap them
up satisfactorily. Also, Shun’s back, which should hopefully prove interesting.
At the very least, that’s definitely an unusual revelation about the Ogre. It’s
clearly not a Karmic Demon, since it never causes anything that makes it look
like the characters had some bad acid, so if it’s not an Ogre, then what is it?
For a while there, back when we first realized just how much of a
villain Yakomaru was, I was wondering why I ever thought Shun was going to be
the villain (probably because he was the most powerful character we’d come
across up to then). Now that he’s back, however, I’ve been starting to wonder
whether he might actually be somehow responsible for what’s going on. I suppose
it remains to be seen whether he’s Saki’s guardian angel or the real mastermind
behind everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment