Ruko gets the same idea when she hears The Girl of White and thinks of Tama. She may be. But I think the real Girl of Black is Mayu, just seeing how malicious she can be and how she was harrassing Iona. Speaking of, Iona seems to be changing, thanks to Ruko. The second half of the show kept me on my feet.
The topic of identity loss is brought up today. An Eternal Girl’s wish is more of a curse, as a wish can never truly be fulfilled until death, or until they think it is. Unlike Fumio, Futase has never really read much books, so it’s a huge problem for her to write books. The only reason she was able to write two novels about WIXOSS was because she had first-hand experience. But once everything she knew was used up, she got into a slump for a really long time and can’t write anything. She wants to see Mayu again in the white room, so she can get more material for writing, and she questions why she’s even doing this. Is it an obligation? Just who is she? She tries to battle Hitoe and Chiyori, but they refuse, and Futase just uses their encounter as another chapter.
As the girls leave, they’re pretty down in the dumps. Chiyori evens runs off from them, probably shaken up to see a novelist she admired in such a state. As Ruko checks on Iona, she sees that she’s not feeling well, so the girls head to Ruko’s place and try to help her out. It was kinda cute of them to ask Iona if she had a cold or a fever, and even wanted to give her medicine. In the end, she put a handkerchief on top to warm her up. Yuzuki talks about wanting to get answers from Iona about this Girl of Black thing, but Ruko mentions that if they were all friends, wouldn’t it be easy for them to talk?
In reality, Iona was having a nightmare, with Mayu calling her a hateful girl, where she hated everyone, everyone hated her, she brings misery to her, with Iona not wanting to believe her. A couple times in this episode Iona had put her hand over her breast where her heart is, that area glowing. Slowly, Iona is changing, and it’s thanks to Ruko. Iona gave Ruko a push during their battle with Futase, to not give up. She had given her words of encouragement, and later she questioned why she would even say that to her. She feels warmth from when Ruko put her handkerchief on top of her, wondering why Ruko would help her. And when Ruko gets a call of Hitoe’s kidnapping, she tells Ruko she’s fine and they need to go to Hitoe.
SPEAKING OF KIDNAPPING. Hitoe, after staying at Ruko’s place until dark, decides to head home. Yuzuki wanted to stay with Ruko, so Hitoe leaves without her. It was then that Akira had appeared before her. Eariler, Ulith had made another request of Aki-lovely. Akira wants to battle, but Hitoe absolutely won’t. Milulun notices that Hitoe doesn’t even have her LRIG, which makes Aki-crazy basically have a breakdown, in fear that Ulith might hate her and dump her after not finishing the request. It’s then she has an idea, and we cut to Ruko getting a phone call who she thinks is Hitoe (she agreed to call her when she got home), but instead was Aki-crazy telling Ruko she has Hitoe hostage. She tells her where to go, and tells her to make sure she has Iona with her. Iona tells the girls this, and Iona goads her to go.
Ruko, along with Iona and Yuzuki, arrive at I’m guessing Akira’s school. They find Aki-crazy in a classroom with Hitoe knocked over while tied to a chair and with bruises. BITCH. This part made me so angry. And to make things worse, Ulith walks into the room, not wanting to be missing out on the fun.
I’m interested in seeing Iona’s character grow. Mayu doesn’t seem as sweet as before, the more we see her the more malicious she seems. And Ulith and Akira…damn them. I know where this is going, and this sucks.
As dark as this episode was (and damn, it was dark), I really enjoyed it! I was worried because the episodes felt like they were slowing down, but today’s episode was perfect!! But damn, just when I was feeling kinda bad for Akira when she started freaking out about Ulith, she had to do something as bitchy as kidnap and beat up Hitoe. Hitoe, the sweetest girl on earth!
And like you said, Mayu seems way worse than Iona. As much as I disliked Iona in season 1 and leading up to this episode, I felt really sorry for her here. Mayu is like that dark voice we all have in our heads that tells us we’re worthless and terrible. 🙁 But if not Mayu, shouldn’t the real girl of black be Ulith?! She’s so manipulative, so cruel, so AWFUL. I’d even go so far as to say she’s the one who twisted Iona as well! And yet somehow Iona has been designated the girl of black, which I don’t really understand.. >.>