Impression
What’s red, but isn’t red?
Understandably, there seem to be some teething problems between Haru and Tokaku as the latter officially takes up her role as a protector – though what was more worrying was Nio’s offhand remark that Tokaku is the “latest edition” of Haru’s human shield. Does that mean she’s had someone in the past? She did seem to be idealistically hopeful that she could get to befriend all the assassins, who would all then decide to protect her too – though that’s probably just how Haru is. At least Tokaku’s gotten clearance from Nio and her boss, as well as the rest of the assassins – who I’m sure are happy at having one less competitor.
Haru was as naive as ever. I admit it did annoy me slightly, but I’m hoping that this won’t become a recurring issue – both in the sense that Haru will learn from this, and that the other assassins won’t try that sort of method. I’m not sure whether she genuinely believed that Otoya was trying to befriend her for real, or that somewhere deep down, she knew it was all a lie – at least, she genuinely hoped for it to be real, if nothing else. Otoya kept her phone strap and ostensibly had all these things in common with her, after all. She tried quite hard to have Haru let down her guard with her, and I’m sure she did it to enjoy the thrill of the chase – because to be honest, I think Haru would have accepted the flowers even if Otoya hadn’t gone to all the trouble of befriending her. It’s just like it was with Inukai Isuke’s tea. What I did find rather strange was that Haru didn’t tell Tokaku about the advance notice she got, even after Tokaku explained the assassin’s rules to her – Haru’s having Tokaku protect her, and yet she didn’t even mention that someone’s getting ready to kill her?
Otoya turned out to be batshit insane – I think we should be expecting this sort of personality divide from most of the assassins, though perhaps not something as drastic. So many of them act like normal high school girls, and yet they’re capable of switching modes easily whenever they want to – which will be helpful in luring in Haru, of course (who does seem to be unsurprisingly capable of defending herself when push comes to shove). Anyway, it seems like Otoya was one of the more radical (?) girls, in that she gets seriously turned on from killing people – so much so, that she decided to knock out Haru and take her time with cutting her apart before finally murdering her, so that she can get off on it for as long as possible. I thought she was going to rape her for a moment. While I won’t question her… method of killing itself, I’m wondering why she went through all this fuss instead of finishing it quickly – if she manages to get her immunity, then surely she’ll be able to get as wet as she wants in the future? Of course, in reality we’re nowhere near the end of the show, so Haru’s not going to be dying just yet.
That’s one down, ten to go! I’m not even sure what happened to Otoya at the end – whether she really did transfer out or if Nio killed her and covered it up. She’s got some dark secrets of her own it seems – something shocking enough to even scare a veteran serial killer. Conveniently, with ten episodes left I’m wondering if they’ll be assigning an assassin to each episode. It’s unimaginative, but it’d make sense with a manga that’s probably not close to conclusion – we’ll be heading for an anime-original ending either way.