Midnight’s thoughts
To say what I think about this weeks episode, I have to look back at last weeks and compliment the way it fleshed out the relationship between Julia and Ryuuou. Which was previously something that didn’t exactly add up. It’s important to look at that and reflect on that connection, because as she is held by Tsubaki Setagaya.
The man who stole the research behind the SCM and driven to near insanity from her refusal to wear her SCM and risk becoming enslaved him, you have to understand the base relationship shared between her and Ryuuou.
This episode begins with Ryuuou speaking with all of his slaves and informing them of a strange star shaped SCM that is showing up on the scm map. He desires to track down the owner and find out why it’s so special and if possible, enslave the person with it.
The person with the star SCM was located at a school, so Ryuuou has Julia go pose as a student to gather information. Fujiko Taito, offers to go as well and poses as the schools nurse/health teacher after the real one fell mysteriously ‘ill’.
She is quickly found and taken down by Setagaya, who then sets his sights on Julia. He has her come to the bio lab and captures her, she’s not wearing her SCM so she can’t be forced into a duel. Unfortunately, Fujiko had been wearing hers and was turned into Setagaya’s slave, she uses a drug to know Julia out.
He asks Julia how it feels, he wants her to describe to him what it’s like to be a slave. He calls her a valuable research project. He even goes as far as trying to force her SCM into her mouth, so he can collect her as a slave as well.
She rejects it and throws it away, he decides that’s fine and he’ll use her as a test to see how long it is before someone goes into withdrawals.
The episode skips over to Eia and Yuuga, who now are trying to find more slaves to free. They set their sights on a man they’ve heard about, Muon Nerima, who is a man we’ve seen a few times before. He’s the owner of the brothels that tried to hire Zenichi, and I believe the one that is keeping Ryuuou’s mother. We find that in this SCM scene, he is not a owner, but instead the slave of…I believe his daughter?
Minami Kita, who enslaved him after getting fed up with his over protective nature and helicopter parenting.
Eia approaches the two of them about a duel, a duel that is apparently stacked in his favor. The duel, whoever can get the most money at the end of two hours. As Muon owns multiple businesses, it seems like an easy win for him.
He has his men go to collect money from his businesses and Eia sets out to the streets. She goes to the middle of the park and begins to sing, the opening tune. People donate a little, she has one of her slaves drop in a ton of money posing as a rich girl.
Meanwhile, Yuuga, posing pathetically as a loan shark goes to Muon and goes to offer him more then enough money to win the duel. He tries to get him to sign a contract that will turn the money back over to Eia right as the time limit is up, giving her the money to win but Muon is too smart.
Of course, this was never the true plan. They knew he’d see right through this. So as the time is about to reach it’s end with him having more money [only because of the money provided by Yuuga. She has more then his businesses provided.]
A detonation device goes off in the money, burning it all, leaving him with only the money he got from his businesses. Winning Eia the duel. She gains two very influential slaves, both with extensive knowledge about Setagaya.
The episode ends with Chūō informing Ryuuou that he can not contact Fujiko or Julia. Ryuuou hits his phone, probably to try to call Julia but the phone can not be reached.
This episode was really good. I’m glad to see Muon go down, perhaps this could lead to an alliance between Ryuuou and Eia, considering she could just order Muon to let his mother go now. I can’t recall the last time I’ve wanted to punch someone in anime as bad as I want to punch Setagaya [Yes i do, it was Yuuga back in episode 5. I still haven’t entirely forgiven him for that…] but, at the end of it all I can’t wait for Setagaya to be taken down. Perhaps put in jail, perhaps murdered for the things he’s done. All I know is that he is absolutely sick and I can’t wait for Eia to triumph over him.