Impression
We’re heading into new territory as of this episode – an uncharted area beyond the manga scanlation that remains very much unknown to us. While I admit I wasn’t initially too impressed by the fact that the episode revolved around Romeo and Juliet (especially after the stage was completely trashed last week) things ended up being less predictable than I had thought. Although my offhand comment about poison did turn out to be somewhat accurate. I liked how Kenmochi Shiena’s attempt at killing Haru was over before it had even begun – that helped to nicely subvert the (otherwise correct) guess that she’d try her hand during the play. And some of the roles filled by certain Black Class members had lots of nice little implications – Nio playing Friar Lawrence references her role as a facilitator or organiser, while there’s lots of irony (and perhaps even foreshadowing?) in Tokaku and Haru playing Tybalt and Mercutio respectively. Of course, it turns out that casting Chitaru and Hitsugi as Romeo and Juliet turned out to be more than just a coincidence.
Chitaru’s motive in seeking out the poison specialist “Angel Trumpet” was in fact revealed much earlier in the manga, and was left to simmer while the other assassins made their moves – likewise, Hitsugi’s identity as Angel Trumpet has been tacitly implied, but nothing more than that. That’s not how things ran in the anime, where their entire storyline was introduced and concluded within the space of an episode – I think I see how they’re doing things now. Diomedea will be compartmentalizing things, phasing character-specific plot points in (like Isuke’s backstory) when its their turn – just generally spreading out the limited amount of canon content they have over a wider number of episodes. The issues with this approach is obvious, and has been clear for a number of weeks now – the primary one is that it comes at a cost of long-term character development.
We (rightfully) know nothing yet about Angel Trumpet in the manga, but even after Hitsugi’s died in the anime, we still know nothing about Angel Trumpet beyond the fact that she’s a poison expert and is attached enough to Chitaru to accept death for her sake. We don’t know why Hitsugi commits her murders, or why she seems to sport a different, dangerous personality sometimes – it wasn’t even clear to me that she felt regret over killing someone close to Chitaru. Similarly, we didn’t feel much of Chitaru’s inner conflict, with that hasty backstory not helping at all – I think their simultaneous deaths a la Romeo and Juliet would have been much more tragic had all of this been explored a little better. And personally, I’d have liked it if Chitaru was a bit more angsty over the whole thing. Ironically, I suppose this falls in line with a common criticism of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – that the story is basically about naive teenagers who fall in true love instantly, have sex and decide to commit suicide a couple of days later.
That said, it was amusing how Chitaru found fault with Tokaku and Haru all of a sudden, even accusing the happy and innocent Haru of being Angel Trumpet – god knows why neither of them made any attempt at denying it! Both of them looked dashing, by the way – it seems like Hitsugi’s plan was to have Tokaku kill Haru using the poisoned sword (like something out of Hamlet) as Juliet herself has no combat scenes. Even if it had succeeded, I’m not sure she could have properly claimed the kill that way – I suppose she did hand over an advance notice (like a party invitation) and either way, Tokaku isn’t entitled to an assassination attempt herself.