You know, for a hot second this episode had me really scared about the fate of Zakuro’s sister. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about it for long because we meet her and two other members of the ‘underground’ shortly after.
As we may recall from last episode, Kaikoku stormed the 51st floor of 13th avenue with every intention of attacking Paca. He was knocked out with some drugs and brought to the white room. He wakes up with Paca there, telling him that he is condemned to stay there until everyone else raises the view count to the goal.
Which is how it’s worked in the past from everything that Paca’s told us in the past. However, he runs into one issue. Akatsuki and everyone refusing to continue playing the game without him. Which continues to make me question what exactly Akatsuki and Yuzu’s connection to this game is.
In particular, when Paca sets the game to retrieve Kaikoku from the white room by dumping them with a nearly impossible to solve milk puzzle. It was a direct taunt to Yuzu, who’s specialty is puzzle games. He says something about ‘to remind her of her place’ and now i’m just most confused about where they stand in all of this then before.
So while the crew outside works hard to solve the puzzle and rescue their friend. Kaikoku discovers a secret passageway under the white room that leads him to some back tunnels and runs him into three people. Nanami, Chihiro and Sakura. Sakura being, yes, the same Sakura that Zakuro has been searching for this entire time. They’ve been living down here in secret, gathering information. We learn a few important things from these members of the the underground.
1. The name 13th avenue doesn’t mean that there are 12 other avenues. Instead, the number updates every time a game occurs and a new group of people are brought in.
2. People and helicopters do come and go, delivering things like food. They’re just done in secret while the participants are busy playing games and Paca can sneak it by without them being noticed.
3. This takes place on an island, so that finally disspells the idea that they were taken away to another world. Which, raises a lot of questions actually. Like, how did they get a bunch of giant animals. Then again, i could make a few theories about this involving the fact that Yuzu is a genius that experiments with plants and poisons for fun. If she’s as deeply connected to all of this as i think she is.
So, Kaikoku spends some time with Sakura as she goes to rummage for parts from radio’s. She seems very hands on, she also seems a lot more shy and soft spoken then her twin. They explore together and eventually come to a place with some water and Sakura talks about how someone once saw a mermaid there. A pale mermaid, like a ghost.
It’s then that Kai feels a thing of hair around his ankles.
So uh, yeah, a mermaid is coming next episode…maybe? We’ll see how that pans out.
The group outside all bands together to encourage Yuzu and hopefully solve the puzzle to get the code to unlock the white room. However, if they unlock it and go in now. They’ll be met with an empty room, will they be allowed to go in and explore and perhaps find the underground themselves? Can Akatsuki and Yuzu be trusted for such a thing?
I feel like a few things were answered this episode but those answers just gave me like fifty new questions.