Re-Kan! Episode 4: Flame-Haired Messiah

Obligatory beach episode and gangsters.

We get a two-parter in our episode. The first half is our beach episode, while the second half is about our long-haired friend Esumi. But I think the theme in today’s episode was superheroes, being one whether you have an abnormal ability or not.

The first half of the episode is the group deciding that they should go to the beach, but if they’re going really far they need a chaperone to go with them. This is probably the most normal and responsible thing I’ve seen in an anime, because usually in anime the characters go off by themselves without an adult or parent…good job, show. Well, Yamada invites his older brother as the chaperone, because he’s a cop. They get to a beach, which is empty because there have been strange things happening there. Of course, ghost shenanigans happens a la Inoue screaming and Uehara taking pictures, and the ghosts helping out Amami. And they keep the running gag of the annoying perverted cat trying to harrass the girls, but the awesome ghosts prevented him from doing that.

Everyone has fun, except for Esumi, who keeps inching away from everyone, namely Yamada’s older brother. She met him before, awhile ago in her gangster days, which we learn about in the second half. After their day at the beach, she and Yamada’s older brother exchanged emails, and he recognized her as the Flame-Haired Messiah, as she was nicknamed. Esumi wasn’t the scary gangster that would beat up just anyone. In fact, she became a legend around those parts and was deemed as a hero. She rescued a girl being harrassed by a group of guys, which is what she does. She helps other people. Kinda like Amami, she helps others without a second thought. In one fight, she heard a scream for help. She saw an arm outstretched and reached out for it, and ran with the person without even looking at them. When they got somewhere safe, she turned around only to see that she was holding only an arm. And it turns out the arm was trying to avenge her own death by getting Esumi arrested, but that didn’t work out.

And in that moment, Esumi met Yamada’s brother, who’s a HUGE fan of hers. Whenever he hears that the Flame-Haired Messiah is around, he goes to the scene to meet her. He finally did, and he was fanboying so hard and making Esumi uncomfortable. Well now in the present day he sent her a fan email after their beach trip. He sends another email while she’s at school and replies to him. She thinks it’s annoying and embarrassing, but I smell a ship here! And the others do too.

Not much happens. They have a simple and fun beach trip, we learn about Esumi, so that’s nice. The hero thing refers to Esumi, but it refers to Amami too. Yamada’s brother mentions how he always wanted to be a hero growing up, but became a cop when he knew he wouldn’t get superpowers, so he’d use the power of the law instead. He mentions to Amami that her sixth sense in a way is a superpower. Amami thinks that over on the train ride home. If her sixth sense can make people smile, then it could be a superpower, right? Unlike Esumi helping people, Amami helps ghosts. In that way, they’re similar.