“”Even if you beat me, hurt me, brainwash me, or force me to become your tool, you can never break my soul.”
Summary
Juju drugs Sasami, keeping her consciousness intact long enough to tell her that Kamiomi is “dead”, and that her father will be used to impregnate her so she can give birth to a new Tsukuyomi priestess. Kamiomi manages to escape from his bindings and rescue Sasami with Kagami’s help, who sent Tsurugi’s sword over to the shrine’s remains. When Juju catches them and blocks their escape route, Tama turns up after losing her way a few times, determined to make things right again.
Impression
Despite everything that’s happened so far, my feelings still remain mixed over Sasami’s mother – especially considering the shopping trip they took together last week, as well as the flashback that occurred this episode. She was still preaching Tsukuyomi ideals to Sasami even as a child, but there was a motherly air about her nonetheless – she wasn’t as stuck-up or hard-headed about everything like she appears to be now. Her mother had a sense of humour, and Sasami looked like a happy child back then – she truly does love her mother, and that’s probably why it’s so hard for Sasami herself to see her mother completely disregard any relation between them, and prioritize her duty as a Tsukuyomi priestess before her duty as a mother.
I don’t think anyone would be born with the willing mind-set of sacrificing yourself in order to make the world a better place for humanity – and so I’ll go with the assumption that Juju’s stubbornness over the duties of a priestess has been conditioned into her as part of the training given to her by the Tsukuyomi shrine. She must really have been conditioned well if she’s willing to go so far as to come back from the dead to enforce the bloodline, numbing Sasami with drugs and later tearing a hole in her stomach to drug her mind entirely. At least she’s recognizing Amaterasu’s power as a threat, instead of being overconfident with the power given to her by Susanoo, the now revealed god of the underworld. Anyway, it seems like Juju has absolute dominance over the Tsukuyomi family – look at Sasami’s father! He looked so confident back then when attacking her, and now I’m not even sure whether he’s still alive! He’s being referred to as an “it”, and it looks like he’s only being kept around in order to make babies with Sasami, who just happens to be his estranged daughter. My heart did go out to her when she pleaded for it to be Kamiomi instead – someone who actually loves her, even if he shows it in the weirdest ways. Kamiomi seems to be more involved in this than Sasami thinks – despite knocking him around Juju couldn’t kill him for whatever reason, and called him her brother, when he’s supposed to be her son.
I knew this show wouldn’t stay on the dark and angsty side for long – first with Sasami beating up Kamiomi over being late, then later the confrontation that Tama (of all people) had when she finally arrived at the top of the shrine after getting lost. It was getting pretty tense with how the scene slowly revealed who had arrived, then all of a sudden: “THIS WAS SO FAR AWAY~!” Oh Tama…never change xD Kagami sending over Tsurugi’s sword did actually help a lot, and we got to see how badass Tama actually was, being a new god that had the power to teleport, as the human world’s perception of her hadn’t quite stabilised yet. And the sword can do it too – which got rid of Juju’s version that was given to her by Susanoo. I’m liking Tama more and more every week as she proves herself to be wiser beyond her years, admitting that her entire genki act was just a pretence to make up for Tsurugi and Kagami’s lack of positive emotion. Though…if she’s able to do all this, Sasami should have really just let her take over and take revenge for her sisters back in the restaurant.
At the end of the day, Sasami loves her mother – and it’s because she loves her that she’ll use the same Reverse Path spell her mother taught her to seal her away and send her back to the underworld. Oh, the irony. Tsurugi also revealed that Juju was carrying that rabbit doll all this time – maybe as a memento of her time with her daughter, as short as it was. Perhaps she’s not so heartless, after all.
Also, Tama’s singing was horrible. Please, never do that again. Kagami might have been singing as well underneath all that, but I’m not about to try and find out.
