K Episode 3: Good or Evil

Summary

Mikoto is taken into custody willingly, with Munakata warning him about the effects of over-using his Sanctum. Munakata then discusses the various possibilities of restraining Mikoto without him having to watch over him personally. Kusanagi of HOMRA manages to avoid telling the rest of the Reds the true intentions Mikoto has behind getting captured, and back at Shiro’s apartment Kuroh comes to a truce with Shiro, agreeing to evaluate his goodness as a person before making a decision.

Impression

Quite a lot of info dumping happened today (or rather, yesterday) and there was a lot of clearing up over some of the stuff that happened in Episode 1 between the groups of psychics. Those groups have very distinct allegiances with their king and are presumably hostile to everyone else – and are called clans, serving under one of the seven kings. The kings themselves embody natural laws and I think are a pretty strong force in controlling the country, if Scepter 4, the Blues, are able to control the Prime Minister to that kind of extent. Of course, I feel less bad knowing he’d probably be corrupt or not doing his job properly even if the psychics had no control over him. On the other side of the spectrum we have the Strains, which are people who have psychic powers naturally without getting them from a king. I think Neko is one of these types – or perhaps not, since she’s a shape-shifter as well and may be a different being altogether. Strains are most likely more powerful than your average psychic, if only because their powers are natural and not manually gifted.

So anyway, you have the Reds, HOMRA, who pretty much symbolise violence, which is why I was so surprised at Mikoto not fighting it out with Munakata and being taken into custody completely willingly. I have no idea what his motivations are – what Kusanagi told the punk was a lie according to Anna, even though it could be true that Mikoto only did it to keep the Blue King off the back of the Reds. He seemed really down and not like his confident self back in Ep 1, who easily used his Sanctum, the Sword of Damocles. Apparently he’s reaching his limit with the ability and it’ll literally fall if he keeps using it, which will create a crater in the ground killing loads of people. I don’t even know whether the Reds can be considered antagonists for now given that both them and the Blues are doing shady stuff (and perhaps the other clans as well). Factions don’t seem to be constant either, and you have people like Fushimi betraying the Blues and turning to the Red clan to achieve his own ends.  There was also something about a missing gun dealer, which I didn’t quite grasp fully though it’s related to the whole Totsuka incident.

We’re mainly seeing them as the opposing force because they’re out for Shiro’s blood, with him apparently having killed Totsuka, their late clan member. It was interesting to know that their clan bonds for each other were that deep, and that they care enough about each other to exact complete revenge against the person who committed the murder. They’re confirmed to have faked the video, but singling out someone like Shiro in the first place may still mean that he had a hand in Totsuka’s murder, and just doesn’t remember it. Either way, Shiro claiming to try to go and reason with the Reds like he did with Kuroh is unlikely to succeed, because they mostly let their fists do the talking. Imo I have no idea whether Shiro has a separate personalty within himself, but if he does, and he did commit the crime, it was a very big mistake to kill a Red like that.

It’s been a long week, and I think I’m a bit too wiped out to write much more. I’ll leave you with a fangirling Kuroh over his tape recorder, and the notion that for now at least, he’s on Shiro’s side and can protect him and Neko. I still cannot unsee Neko drawing over Kuroh’s closed eyelids, TROLOLOL xD