Well that was one way to abruptly drop a big reveal on us… and frankly, I wasn’t a fan of how they decided to do it.
I literally shouted, “WOW. THEY ARE JUST DROPPING IT NOW!”, because it really felt like it came out of nowhere. Not only did it feel shoehorned into the scene, but I wasn’t a fan of the fact it was revealed in this particular manner. And to make matters worse, given the topic being discussed at the time, it felt like it was forcefully explaining why Ginji and Aoi will never get together. So I guess what I’m getting at here, it didn’t really feel organically done.
So what was the big reveal? Well Ginji told us the price Odanna paid to save Aoi involved giving up a portion of his own life span.
Well that explains a lot why Odanna really doesn’t want Aoi to know about it.
(Predictable? Yeah, but still a big deal nonetheless.)
This also gave us perspective as to why Odanna had abruptly distanced himself in episode 1 and 2. As soon as Aoi started pressing for information about changing her destiny, that was when he drew the line and took several steps back. At the time, it made me wonder if he did that because he feared Aoi was becoming interested in him for the “wrong reasons” (marrying him out of obligation), as opposed to marrying him because she loves him. So his sudden shift in behaviour makes a whole lot more sense now, especially since Ginji himself said, “‘I’m sure she’d be even more intent on pursuing the master”, which is exactly what I’m suspecting Odanna wants to avoid. In-fact, I bet Odanna was counting on Ginji not to let that slip, but alas, he did and now Aoi knows saving her wasn’t as simple as just finding her.
Bearing that in mind, despite my gripes with the execution of the reveal… I do wonder if it’s because of the likelihood that Odanna is set on taking this secret to his grave, that Aoi may actually never learn the truth of it. So if that’s the case, then allowing us (the readers/viewers) to see into Ginji’s head fills in the blank while keeping Aoi in the dark. Though whether it should’ve been done at this point of time, in this particular manner is left up to debate.
That being said, the idea of an ayakashi chipping off their own lifespan could arguably be seen (from a Human’s perspective) as ‘trivial’ considering how long they live to begin with. So one has to wonder just how much did Odanna have to give up. We know he has already been around for a long time, over 700 years, at the bare minimum. One might as well describe him as an immortal at this point, especially since the ayakashi choose to seal him away as opposed to trying to eliminate him altogether, but I digress. Either way, now that we know the price he paid, the other question that comes to mind is: What motivated Odanna to do such a selfless thing in the first place?
If there was one thing that I found rather curious in this brief flashback, it was when Odanna tells Ginji there’s a girl he wants to save, and revealed she’s the one he’s going to marry. Two things to think about from this. The first is the implied distinction on who initiated saving Aoi in the first place. For a long time, we’ve been left wondering was it Shiro or was it Odanna? Based on the information we’ve gotten so far, it sounds more and more likely that it may have been Odanna who ended up finding Aoi first, and then had to reach out to Shiro to inform him about his grand-daughter’s situation.
Which leads to the second point: Odanna’s absolute certainty that he’ll be marrying Aoi. This goes to show that Odanna has been waiting a very long time for this, and proven he’s even willing to wait even longer if it means having his feelings reciprocated. But it also brings back the question about the timing of the collateral Shiro signed. I have been wondering for some time now whether it had been Odanna who had actually shrewdly trapped Shiro into signing the marriage agreement. This way, he’d have secured her a safety-net and a safe place to be once she was saved. After-all what better person is there than her grandfather Shiro to help prepare her for how to safely live among ayakashi?
As for Ginji, he’s definitely in a tough spot. He’s in a situation where he can’t really reveal his feelings because it’s just make things awkward and complicated. This means he’ll never be able to get proper closure, and he’ll have to quietly hold onto his feelings or eventually let them go. He cares deeply about Odanna and Aoi, so he doesn’t want to do anything to screw it up for them.
Ranmaru’s understandably worried about it because Ginji’s very transparent about his feelings. Heck, he even goes as far as suggesting maybe it’s not hopeless, it’s possible for Aoi to fall for Ginji instead because in his view, Aoi doesn’t look like she cares too much about Odanna’s situation, but we the audience and Ginji knows that’s not true.
As for the development project, it as nice to see the twins Kai and Mei again. Their presence actually ended up quite useful, as they were the ones who were able to pin-point that something was off about Aoi’s initial recipe for the cheese fondue. With their suggestions, they were able to improve upon it and make it more likely to succeed. But that wasn’t the only thing Aoi worked on today. She’s trying to recreate the desert (apparently a tiramisu) Kasuga and Kiyo had when they sneaked off to the Apparent Realm together. She’ll be using their home-grown strawberries to meet the conditions of using local ingredients. Aoi hopes that this treat will help bring Kasuga and Kiyo closer again, as Kiyo revealed that he has been consumed by the fear of losing someone he cares about or being betrayed by someone he trusts ever since he has taken the position as the Hachiyo.
Speaking of trust issues and betrayals… Remember the whole fuss in last week’s episode with the poisoned plate? Well turns out it wasn’t poisoned. Well that’s good in all, but also kind of underwhelming. But while it wasn’t poisoned this time, it did it’s purpose of sending a message: We can kill you at any given time. So there’s that I guess!
The last thing I’d like to mention before I wrap it up: I do hope that this whole separation from Odanna doesn’t drag out for too much longer (we’re at ep 10 now). Similarly to the first season, (though this time, it’s arguably worse off due to being taken out so early on…) Odanna sorely lacks screen-time– and no, that doesn’t include flashbacks. In-fact it’s almost insane when you think about it, especially since it’s supposed to be a romance between Odanna and Aoi. But their time together always feels so short, which is painful to say the least. Hopefully we’ll get more of the two in the second half, but it largely depends on how things escalate and how things are paced out. I did recently come to discover the novel is still on-going! I had initially thought it ended at vol 11, but there’s actually 13 volumes now! So I wonder what that means in terms of adaption purposes. Either way, I’m quite happy to see there’s more content beyond that, but this makes me wonder how many volumes we’re going to see adapted this season then.
