Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru – Washio Sumi no Shou Episode 5: Goodbye

As expected, this was an incredibly somber episode. The news of Gin’s death is told to the class and the episode follows with her funeral. Quite a number of emotions that could be felt in the funeral. Obviously sadness, anger, guilt, and painful to admit, some pride coming from the family members.

I suppose you can say that Gin dying is the equivalent of a soldier dying in war because that’s what basically it was. But the problem is that soldiers choose to fight in war, Gin didn’t have a choice because she was chosen. Of course she seemed excited and happy for her role, but when it’s a 12/13 year old girl dying, it’s something different. It seriously irked me when some of the family members were saying how the Minowa family is going to get benefits from her death, that she fulfilled her daughterly duties, and just that it was an honor to die for the Shinjyu. Again, I can see how that parallels a soldier “pridefully dying for their country” with that nationalistic talk, but again this girl just died and her (immediate) family is clearly heartbroken. There’s something very clearly wrong about talking about benefits and duty nonchalantly about a little girl. It just made me uncomfortable and angry. Anger was also felt from Washio and Sonoko, but also from Gin’s little brother putting God into question. Seeing Gin’s face one more time this episode was also heartbreaking.

I was pretty surprised not seeing anger from the family members at Washio and Sonocchi. Usually in anime the parents of the deceased yell and scream at the survivors who were with the victim and I expected something like that but I’m pleasantly surprised. I also expected this from their classmates, but instead they confronted them about their duties since none of them actually know what these girls do, but after this they should know it’s not something easy.

Washio and Sonoko promise to fight better and stronger, for Gin. We see them practice together but Sonoko is distracted. It’s then that Washio takes the initiative and takes Sonoko out to a festival, with their teacher giving them permission. Like previous episodes, this segment was filled with funny and cute moments like eating a lot and trying to win a plushie. At the end they watch fireworks and thank each other for existing and being friends (T_T) and that they’ll always be friends forever. The three of them. Sad and sweet at the same time. I’m happy the girls are looking towards the future with bright smiles and good attitudes but knowing the nature of this show, their heartfelt feelings are going to be stomped on.

Because right in the end we got that…evil document. Shoutout to LightMonk for sending in a complete translation of the document they had found. It was an interesting read.

Overview 3 is the final version of their plan, the Mankai that we already know about. Overviews 1 and 2 were a great read because of the historical aspect of the faeries, which have been around for a long time. It gives detail of what the faeries are and what they are capable of doing to the respective person. The Shinjyu are coming up with a way to not lose their heroes, as there is a small number of them and they cannot afford to lose more. They plan on introducing the faeries again. The document gives the history of them and also what abilities they were able to give Heroes before such as ice-based attacks, extra movement, etc. However, the power of the faeries are a lot more terrifying that I thought. When the power of the faeries are given inside the body of the person, each time it is used a miasma spreads into the body as they carry aspects of evil spirits, causing the user to experience horrible side effects specifically on the mind such as anxiety, loss of control, aggressiveness, etc. Basically, making the person losing their mind and causing them to be dangerous to themselves and others. But that’s only when they enter the body.

Instead, the Shinyju have come up with a different way where the faeries will be used outside the body, with the Mankai process we’re familiar with. Overview 3 said there will be high consequences, which it doesn’t show us. Again, thank you LightMonk for sending this in, I really appreciate it. 🙂

From reading this, it’s no wonder there are consequences from using the fairy power. Seeing as how cute they are you would never know they carry aspects from evil spirits. They’re actually a lot more frightening, giving their user an unstable and aggressive mind which could cause death, to also permanently taking away a certain function from the body such as paraplegia/quadriplegia, deafness, loss of the voice, and the other losses we know from the original. The teacher looked horrified, but unfortunately this system is going to pass. And it won’t end well (for now, I’m not a fan of the original’s ending tbh).