The hunt is up, the morn is bright and grey,
The fields are fragrant and the woods are green:
Uncouple here and let us make a bay
Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity;
And, being so, shall have like want of pity.
– Titus Andronicus
Impression
Well…damn. I’m speechless. I had a feeling that something big was going to happen when the whole arc so far was quickly summarized at the beginning of the episode, but never did I expect that this much shit was going to hit the fan at such speed, with most of it falling on unexpected people. The MWPSB actually caught on a lot faster to Oryo Rikako largely because of Shinya’s help – his observant skills and continued pursuing of the past Specimen Case is what led to his easy pointing out of the differences before and after the time-skip – and even without that, I was surprised that Touma Kouzaburo was still the MWPSB’s target if the lead on the past case was never solved. Clearly, his methods were to select certain people and murder them somewhat as a form of punishment for them – the politician who kept spouting his bullshit of not remembering ended up badly mutilated, with the hippocampus crudely removed and placed…elsewhere. There’s some sort of a message in each one and the location of their display, while with Rikako, there’s no deeper meaning behind her plastination, with the girls’ bodies not horribly disfigured. Well, I suppose they are, but there’s no blood or graphic violence in the way that Touma displayed his victims’ bodies.
About Rikako’s beliefs – I don’t know whether I fully grasp her reasoning behind her “art”. She claims that the old-style traditional policies of chastity and grace in the ideal female is preserved in the school, and so they are shipped out as “products”, being refined, sheltered maidens that are ready for marriage. To reform that, she brings out the “inner beauty” in them through murder, dismemberment, body preservation then public display? Not quite following you there Rikako-chan…but however her twisted mind justified it, what was more alarming was her Crime Coefficient of 472, which is one of the highest numbers we’ve seen on the show so far. With tightened security in the academy, how on earth did she go unnoticed? I suppose I ended up being partially right about the next plastination work she carried out, of the two childhood friends bonded together – or their bodies at least, with their heads removed and positioned by vines high above their fused body. Eww…that’s disgusting. I feel even more sorry for the other friend too, who is now traumatized thinking that she is the one that holds responsibility. It was thankfully quick of Shinya to crack down on her immediately with the help of his unknown friend who is jailed behind multiple layers of security – we may be seeing more of him and his weird tendencies later in the story, as I don’t think such a unique character would be created for the sole purpose of helping Shinya out this one time. The name Makishima being mentioned also fired him up, who I’m finding more creepy every week with his unusual obsession of the Shakespearean tragedy Titus Andronicus.
Let’s talk about that final scene. After sitting through the ED and thinking on what a mindblowing series this was, my first thought was that this probably happened to Touma too, which is why he’s missing, no-one can find him, he’s not acting any more etc. It’s not that he stopped, it’s that he’s dead, and was disposed of by Makishima. It’s a cruel game he’s playing here – after giving up on Rikako, he still takes his time in reciting Shakespeare and slowly racking up the fear levels of his victim before having them killed in pretty gruesome ways, though I won’t debate on whether it’s worse than the plastination method or not. It’s likely that Rikako getting herself identified resulted in Makishima abandoning her, and setting up horribly painful-looking things like that animal trap in order to make her go through some pain, have her hand sliced up by those dogs (what ARE those things exactly?) and finally shot by his musical accomplice. Oh god, I need some Akane to cleanse me…ahh, that’s better xD I love how she’s not exactly central to the plot for now, but still provides moe service to make the gore a bit more bearable. Anyway, we’re seeing a difference between those who are entertainment and those who are entertained, and unfortunately Rikako was the former. Well, she’s dead now. Can’t do much about that. The arc has finished rather abuptly all of a sudden, but Makishima apparoaching Shinya for the first actual time in interest of him can’t be good, as we all know the eventual fate of Makishima’s entertainers…
