Hahaha… we may have stopped one terrible thing from happening, but the future is naturally not magically fixed. In fact, we’ve managed to enter the worst timeline. And that’s saying something considering just how bad it was going into the Christmas Showdown. What do you mean, things got worse???
Ah, but we have to take a few steps back to talk about the resolution of this entire arc. This episode does a pretty good job tying up some loose ends, while leaving some ambiguity about the future. We start off by watching a Toman member meeting where Draken and Mikey lay out what happened with Black Dragon members and Hakkai gives his sincerest apologies about everything that lead up to that fight. Most of the other members are rightfully confused since they weren’t actually anywhere near the fight, but they accept his apologies and he gets to stay with Toman. All around, a good ending for him. Next Kokonoi and Inui revive Black Dragon, but have requested to join Toman under Takemitchy. Is that a good thing? Well, no one really knows since they were just part of our biggest enemy. But, as watchers, we know that both of them are just jumping around from one strong leader to the next, so it makes sense that they would join Toman. Under Takemitchy? Eh, they’ll quickly learn that his strength is just in determination rather than physicality. But you know what? There are plenty of people in this show that can fight, so it’s okay if he’s not one of them.
However, the biggest development in this episode has to do with Kisaki. We all know that he’s the villain of the series right now, but he’s also been doing his best to get closer to Mikey. His intentions may be good(????), but the means he takes to reach them are most definitely bad. Either way, Chifuyu decided to tell Mikey about everything that happened and what led to the event in the church so Mikey makes the grand announcement that Kisaki is kicked out of Toman. To be honest… I don’t really know how I feel about it. I really wished it would have been more dramatic rather than an announcement at a meeting. Now, Kisaki’s reaction to the whole thing was rather dramatic, but there wasn’t any build up to it so it felt like the announcement came out of nowhere. Oh well, a victory is a victory… right? But on that note, Hanma mentioned that members of Moebius would leave if Kisaki was kicked out, but it was only narrated that Kisaki and Hanma left. Did the other members leave as well? I guess that’s just something I’ll have to wait and see… even if we don’t really know or care for most of those members.
Outside of this big meeting, the remainder of the episode focused on winding down Takemitchy’s time in the past. Finally Takemitchy gets his own bike as a form of thanks from Mikey. After getting the absolute worst training on motorcycle riding, the two of them have a heart to heart while riding it. Rather, Mikey is once again open about what he learned from his brother. His brother found parts of the motorcycle in a scrap yard in the Philippines. Which initially doesn’t make any sense, but I’ve already watched the following episode so that meeting place suddenly makes a whole lot more sense. Then we get one final goodbye and picture with everyone before Takemitchy heads back to the future.
He may not be in jail, but we arrive at Mitsuya’s funeral. In the previous timeline, he went missing, but this time we have a confirmed body. Takemitchy really can’t catch a break.
Episode 12
Takemitchy is really going through it in this episode. Not only does he return to the future at Mitsuya’s funeral, he quickly becomes aware that all of the Toman members he cares about are dead. It’s one thing to have them all die either by gunshot or potential stabbing, but a couple of them had to deal with being burned alive or dealing with asphyxiation. Some of them got off easier than the others.
Honestly, looking back on this episode I think I just had a lot more shock than opinions. I mean, after everything that has happened to stop Black Dragon from rising the Toman ranks, we manage to have an even worse outcome… and somehow it’s all Takemitchy’s fault. I know it’s for drama, but sometimes, I think it might be better if he stayed in the past just to make sure that things run smoothly. Granted, if that does happen, I don’t think he’ll be able to fix anything if something does go horribly wrong. We win some and lose some. But after getting the details from Naoto in the future, Takemitchy receives a letter from the Philippines, which we quickly learn is from Mikey. Mikey is believed to be the one who murdered everyone, but Takemitchy is still willing to fight against that idea. Honestly, the moment we got the letter from a different country, I was quick to join in the Mikey defense squad… ahaha but what a twist that excursion turned out to be.
In the Philippines, Takemitchy goes to the ruins Mikey spoke of in the previous episode and eventually finds the specific location with the broken roof and piles of scraps. It’s here where they have a lovely reunion and then Mikey drops the news that he truly did kill everyone. Why did he do it? Well, I actually don’t know. We don’t know what dangerous path Toman took after we returned to the future. All we know is that Taekmitchy officially left the gang. This was likely due to the direction it was going. Now that’s just speculation on my end, but based on what Draken and Mitsuya told Mikey, it made sense to keep their crybaby hero safe from all the violence. However, it does seem that Mikey really does rely on Takemitchy as a replacement for his older brother. It’s incredible how much impact our main character has on arguably the strongest delinquent in this story.
But the real kicker of the episode is when Mikey asks Takemitchy to kill him. Killing people became so natural for Mikey; as he said, it’s the easiest way to get rid of his problems. Why were they problems to him? We don’t know. Perhaps, he just wanted to put an end to Toman? Maybe he realized that the path they took was not what he envisioned and it would be easier just to eliminate them all. It would be really unfortunate if that were the case, but did they all really have to die??? Can we make it through one loop where we don’t add on to the death count?
That being said, I think the interaction between Takemitchy and Mikey was really impactful. The flashbacks to the other members talking about the crybaby hero in addition to Mikey begging to be saved. Emotions were incredibly high this episode and honestly??? Before coming into this episode, I was complaining to my roommate about how I probably wouldn’t watch a third season because of how many issues I had with the pacing of this one, but after going through the episode? My interest in the series has been renewed. I want to know what led up to this point. I want to see us save Mikey. I don’t want to end up in a future where we lose everyone we care about and Takemitchy has to watch Mikey die in his arms.
Overall, I don’t have much to say about this episode! It was a good episode, but now I’m stressed thanks to all the new information we were given. But after everything that has happened… how on earth are we going to wrap this all up next week?
