Shout out to Chifuyu for once again showing me how much I care about him. He has such a big heart, that I almost forgot how much of an idiot he was — so once again, Takemitchy you better make sure he doesn’t die.
And honestly! I think he has a fighting chance this time around! After waking up from his beatdown from Taiju, Takemitchy declares that his beef with the Black Dragons is something that he will have to deal with on his own. He doesn’t want any of his friends in Toman to get involved, which is… not the best situation to be in, but also fair considering how messed up things can get in the future. One thing leads to another and Takemitchy ends up telling Chifuyu about his time travel abilities. If I’m honest, this took me completely by surprise! I know Chifuyu is a loyal guy, but the fact that Takemitchy hasn’t been able to tell anyone else about these abilities and his desire to change the future almost made me think the option was off of the table. I mean, we likely would have had to deal with someone not believing him, but it’s worth a shot. Luckily, even if Takemitchy tries to play it off, Chifuyu does end up believing in home, namely because of how the interaction with Baji in season one played out. He doesn’t make fun of Takemitchy or blame it on any of the injuries he received. Perhaps he’s really just dumb enough to let all of this make sense.
That being said, we have a new ally on our side trying to take down Kisaki. I mean there are plenty of people who don’t necessarily like him, but now we have someone who can feasibly grasp just how bad he is going to get in the future. However, it seems Kisaki is going to take a bit of a back seat while we deal with the larger problem at hand: Black Dragon. Turns out Toman has gone toe to toe with them in the past, but that was under the Ninth leader. Since then, when Taiju has taken over, it seems they have completely reformed and become so much worse. Well, in Black Dragon’s eyes, they’ve probably become a whole lot stronger, but for everyone else… it’s probably not going to end well. Hakkai, of course, is trapped within all of this since he’s Taiju’s younger brother and it seems Taiju has some funky feelings about family bonds. It’s like you have to be loyal to the family, but Taiju is absolutely willing to beat up both of his siblings without a second thought… hoo… but to be fair, he’s willing to beat up anyone without a second thought.
Back to Hakkai though. In order to save Takemitchy from his brother, Hakkai declares that he will leave Toman, something that we definitely don’t want to happen due to events in the future. Things have already changed a bit, namely the fact that Hakkai has declared Takemitchy. Of course, that alone isn’t enough to prevent everything that happens, but it does give us a chance to see that Hakkai is still a good kid, at least relative to everything else in the series. Every single one of these characters aren’t as evil as the future makes them out to believe. There is something out there that fundamentally changes them for the worst. Unfortunately, Takemitchy has the hard job of figuring out how to stop that. This episode, he decides to trust Chifuyu which… doesn’t do him any favors. In fact, it makes him look ridiculous in front of everyone else. It’s a good thing people don’t know you for being the tough guy Takemitchy or else you would be screwed.
Anyways! It’s ultimately up to Mitsuya to decide if Hakkai stays or leaves Toman. And Mitsuya denies the request. What I don’t know is, did this happen in the original past? Or is this the event to keep people safe in the future? We know that Hakkai is going to kill his brother for money, if we can trust the information that Kazutora has left for us. We don’t know what leads to the event, but we can speculate that by the fact that Taiju sells violence to others that Hakkai is willing to do the same. Again, I think there are some weird family values going on in that family, so anything is possible at this point. We do, however, know that Mitsuya goes missing in the future and that Hakkai looks up to him, so perhaps we need to be keeping our eyes on him for the time being. Good luck Takemitchy, I do not envy you.
Honestly, I think this was one of the better episodes that has aired this season… which is not saying much considering this is only the third episode. For the most part, I feel like the animation was a lot stronger and the pacing felt a lot more consistent. It seems like we are really getting into the groove of this arc. So, I’m going to keep my hopes high for the remainder of the season.
