Episode 6 is named “Erase my reality”
Yup, that totally bodes well. No sense of dread to be had there, clearly, this was a beach episode. See, just two girls, a guy and a man in a alpaca mask sitting out and eating sweets by the water. While two of their friends wander into a dangerous ruin, with one key rule “Under no circumstances are you allowed to lie.”
So we begin the episode by picking the two Let’s Players to go in, one girl and one boy. Anya and Himiko are chosen, much to Akatsuki’s sadness, he wanted to participate. “Awww, I had perfect attendance.”
I can’t, really put my finger on it. There was just something strange about Akatsuki’s behavior this episode. Not just his comment about being left out of the challenge, but near the end of the episode. He’s sitting there looking at one of the chromosome prizes from a previous challenge and reflecting about how he hopes they can find the rest of them soon. However, what is the point of these things? Why would they be important? Even if they collect them, will they have the views they need to escape?
The entire scene just weighs down on me.
During a scene with Zakuro and Kaikoku, Kaikoku reflects that he doesn’t trust Akatsuki. Which, honestly, same.
Speaking of Zakuro, he goes to speak with Paca again. Though Paca claims he knows nothing about Zakuro’s sister, i’m not entirely clear about what he goes to confront Paca about here. However, Paca makes it clear that acting up isn’t really an option anymore. The white room is cleaned and ready and while Zakuro isn’t the top contender to be thrown in there (Kaikoku takes that spot) he would not be afraid to use it. Zakuro stupidly goes to attack Paca, but is stopped by Makino.
Meanwhile, in the maze.
Himiko and Anya get attacked by a mess of mummies after Anya tells a white lie in the fact that he’s been getting plenty of sleep. They barely escape the mummies, but not without a brush with death. Anya almost gets strangled by the helmet he always wears and they both fall from a bridge. With that fall though, we get some backstory on Anya. He was the youngest of three siblings, one of them went out to buy ice cream for him and got into a motorcycle accident. The helmet was his. (Also, Anya wanting mint chocolate ice cream is adorable.)
They progress and eventually find the wall guardian.
They are given 3 taks, 1. confess their first love
2. say 5 nice things about the thing closest to their hearts right now
3. Confess their sin
Their first love: Anya doesn’t have one, and Himiko’s is the boy who lives across the street.
The nice things: A blob comes out of the wall to form the shape of what they hold closest to their hearts at this moment and it appears to both of them as Akatsuki. Honestly, this is where the direction of the anime got a little strange and lazy. The needlessly long pan out as Anya considers the five things he wants to say drags on for way too long. I kind of want to read the manga for this part, see if there was a mass of panels like that perhaps that would explain this odd choice. In the end, they both come up with five things and pass.
Last: The confession. We don’t actually hear either of them immediate. Instead cutting to Yuzu and Akatsuki talking, and Anya and Himiko coming out of the ruins. It cuts back right before the credits, we don’t hear Anya’s…but we do hear Himiko’s.
“I killed my brother.”
That’s the note that the episode ends on. Wow, I um, I’m not sure how to react to this in the slightest. Himiko, the one who comes across as the sweetest girl here, killed someone. I’m interested to know more about this, what’s the story behind this. Was it in self-defense? What went on there?
It’s also struck me, this is an on-going manga, so we’re not going to end up with any proper conclusion probably. We’ll probably not get much character resolution either, makes me kind of sad. Oh well, overall i’m just happy that we got a little Anya backstory this episode. We’ve brushed up against Kaikoku, Zakuro, Anya and Himiko’s backstories.
That leaves Karin, Akatsuki, Yuzu and Makino.
The thought that we won’t get a conclusion if the manga is ongoing is a bit sad but hopefully the anime at least takes us to a reasonable resting point because I’ve really been enjoying the build up in this story and being left with nothing would be quite disappointing.