AT LONG LAST, we finally got a bit of a conversation today, as well as multiple interactions for an exchange. It’s terribly overdue, and unfortunate all of this had to happen AFTER the kiss, (talk about a scrambled order of events), but it was very welcomed to see.
I’m quite glad Yuzu had explained to Reiya that she has trauma about being cast aside by him like her ex and family has done to her. That’s why it’s really hard for her to trust him. In response to that, Reiya said despite that, he hopes he needs her to stay by his side, but in the mean time, he’ll do his best to earn her trust. And thankfully much to my relief, we saw him make appropriate adjustments and even offered a compromise to better accommodate Yuzu’s wants and needs.
That said, when Yuzu said “He’s taking my feelings into account.” Yeah– ONLY IT TOOK FIVE EPISODES FOR THIS CONVERSATION TO FREAKING HAPPEN! There’s still a lot of things that they need to address, but hey progress is progress, but it’s about bloody time. Better late than never though, so I’ll gladly take this win!
Yuzu also did a bit more some self-reflection on her past relationship with her ex Yamato, as well as her existing fears. She acknowledged she was never truly in love with Yamato, and that she had only dated him because she was just grateful and happy to be liked by anyone. She now knows she wasn’t sincere with him, and acknowledges her own mistake of how that wasn’t very fair of her to do to him either (regardless of the outrageous outcome of it). That’s why this time, even though there’s a part of her that urges her to just surrender to Reiya’s “love”, she doesn’t want it to be one-sided. Yuzu hopes that she can eventually open up her heart to come properly and mutually love Reiya in return, and that’s something she’s going to have to work towards.
But that’s going to be an uphill battle with how little she understands love and romance in general. As one would expect, being pampered by Reiya is going to be quite a long adjustment period. On top of that, besides the fact Reiya’s “love” right now isn’t exactly “authentically approved” just yet (after-all this is demon instincts on the wheel right now), it’s important recognize how critical it is for Yuzu to work on loving herself properly. As it stands right now, she feels inadequate, and incapable of making anyone happy. So this is inner growth that Yuzu will have to work hard at, otherwise she’ll be plagued by constant anxiety and insecurities when compared to others, such as Sakurako Oniyama (Reiya’s original fiancée).
Speaking of, sure enough that came up this week! I talked it in the last entry how was only a matter of time before word of Reiya’s engagement would reach Yuzu’s ears, and of course it came from none other than her friend Touko (who had assumed Reiya had the courtesy to at least tell Yuzu that much). This of course, sent Yuzu into a panic because yeah, who wouldn’t freak out when you hear about it from a third party? In that moment, Yuzu became terrified of what that meant for her place at the house. If he were to still be married his original fiancée, what would that make her? A mistress? Thankfully this is where Nyankichi quickly stepped in, because he knew it would freak Yuzu out and quickly quelled a lot of her fears.
And if it wasn’t emphasized enough last week: this episode proved yet again why Nyankichi is by definition the one and only “Most Sane and Rational” character in this cast. This guy is basically Yuzu’s key informant. Without him, Yuzu would be going into all of this completely blind and utterly helpless because nobody’s sitting down with her to give her any proper explanation about the bridal process. And thank god for Nyankitchi, because if it weren’t for him stepping in to explain things properly, Yuzu would be succumbing to this huge misunderstanding about her role while under the impression that Sakurako Oniyama is still presently Reiya’s fiancée. In-fact he was the one who quickly realized how Touko’s words would be twisted and misunderstood without context. That’s why he jumped in as fast as he did.
So how does it work when demons find their brides if they are already in engaged? Well to begin with, Demons generally marry demons. But when it comes to the clan’s next head, their partner gets chosen by a committee, and Nyankichi was no exception to that. He too had a fiancéee of his own up until he had met Touko. As ‘Demon’s Destined Brides’ are actually quite a rarity, it makes sense that these arrangements have already been made given there’s really not telling whether anyone’s going to encounter such miracle. But if the Demon’s bride is found, then the arrangements are scrapped and the destined one becomes the top and sole priority.
They even touched on the whole matter about whether there are any ‘male brides’, something that’s been left rather ambiguous for the past four episodes. According to Nyankichi, they do exist, but it’s incredibly uncommon because female demons are notoriously picky about it. Human men doesn’t have the same kind of level of influence in their society— which uh, doesn’t speak well for the Human Brides marrying a Demon. But we already know that, as human brides are highly valued because (for reasons still unknown), they are able to give birth to extremely powerful demons, which can be the key to increasing their Clan’s power and status. But based on what we’ve learned so far, the same doesn’t appear to workor at least have the same kind of benefit when a female demon gives birth to a baby conceived with a male human/groom. So they’d prefer to be paired up with other Demons since there’s a greater likelihood of gaining more power and influence.
While it is interesting how little is known about this whole thing, the ambiguity of how this thing works makes it actually quite dangerous. They don’t understand why it changes their behaviour making them act the way they do (ie: increasingly possessive), and they don’t know why they choose the one they choose. All of these things, could prove to be good or even essential to know, especially in cases where a Demon like Youta, finds himself chained down to a manipulative psycho-bitch like Karin. The less they know how all of this works, the harder it will be to fight free against the bad ones.
As for communication progress between Reiya and Yuzu… After the kiss, we got, [checks timer] exactly one minute of what barely passed as a conversation. It’s quite frankly pathetic it took this long, but it does finally inch them past the starting line, but boy they still have a long… long way to go. It’s actually mildly infuriating when you think about how much better it could’ve been had Reiya just had done this before he kissed her. [Shakes fist]
But then there’s this other bit later on in the episode, where I actually had to check this episode three times to see if it was mentioned at any point: This conversation Yuzu tells us they’ve had about ‘when she wants something, she has to kiss him’. So clearly, as we’ve already been starved of just any conversations already, the writer decided this should be yet another OFF-SCREEN CONVERSATION! GENIUS!
It actually flabbergasts me how long it took for these two to have any substantial conversation, let alone any development time on-screen. Only this week (episode 5) we got some stuff in the beginning, a tiny bit in the middle and then some more heartwarming stuff end of the episode…. But you’d think there would be a lot more time for us to see the two to spend together now that Yuzu works at Reiya’s office after-school. Incredibly, we didn’t even see them spend any time together, especially when Reiya is supposedly taking more breaks. It was even something Takamichi had asked Yuzu to help him out with since Reiya’s an absolute workaholic! I’m left wondering, if you’re not going to present content that provides substance to develop the characters and show us the growth of their relationship… What are we here for then? Brainrot of Yuzu trying to convince telling us how ‘loving’ Reiya is, and Reiya telling her how he wants to be happy and stuff?
I guess some people are fine with this kind of content (you do you), but at least for me, I don’t feel like they have given us enough scenes of the two together to really come to appreciate them as a couple to root and care for yet.
That being said, it’s not completely hopeless. There were a number of great improvements made in this episode. We’re starting to see Reiya exercising self-restraint and patience. And while he’s still far from perfect (as there’s still a number of issues he STILL hasn’t addressed, the fiancée, the responsibilities of a demon bride, the list goes on), he’s at least starting to be a bit more mindful of how Yuzu feels about certain things, as well as respecting what she wants. And considering how freaking possessive he is, this is very encouraging to see. I just wish we had more substance to chew on in order to appreciate that properly, because it’d be nice if I can come around to appreciate his character.
On the subject of that, it’s important to recognize Reiya willingness to make adjustments of accommodating Yuzu’s needs and comfort-zone by letting her work at all is a big deal. (You could say this is similar to how Nyankichi was willing to go to a human school of Touko’s choice instead of dragging her demon one where the brides traditional attend.) Takamichi mentioned that it’s generally frowned upon for the bride to be working because it makes it look like they cannot adequately care and provide for the bride, which is why it’s generally prohibited. It doesn’t matter if she wants to work, that’s just how it’s going to be perceived by others. Naturally as his retainer, Takamichi doesn’t like it, but Reiya has shown us today that he doesn’t give a rats about it. And if anyone does complain about it, he’ll probably assert his authority to shut them up real good.
And that wasn’t the only thing Reiya did for Yuzu this week. He wanted Yuzu to feel loved and appreciated by leaving her a gift and a card for every birthday up to her most recent eighteenth one. Although it’s material goods, the short but brief message on each card was a thoughtful addition… Although I get the very sweet sentiment behind it, I did find it borderline weird to an extent since it kind of feels more like a letter you’d expect from your parents or grandparents— which it is existentially the point as he’s expressing his gratitude for her being born and regrets he wasn’t able to meet her sooner. But if I were to put aside my nitpicking about the letters, it goes without saying this is the sweetest gesture Reiya has done by far. Again, something I can appreciate. (PROGRESS!)
And finally there was also the bit where Reiya has recognized for Yuzu, it’s a bit too soon for her to initiate any kiss on the lips, heck even kissing on the cheek takes a lot of courage from her. So if even if she only grazes the cheek, it’s still fine to him. But she did manage to do that much today, and he gladly accepted the compromise despite it not being what he has asked for.
…Actually damn, I just realized how dangerous this arrangement is– and not for Yuzu, but Reiya. I wonder if he has any clue about that, especially given how little information Demons have on the whole ‘chosen bride’ phenomenon. We know it can be terribly dangerous because we have already witnessed Karin taking complete control of Youta by kissing him and then gave him a command that Youta’s rationality knows he shouldn’t do, but because pleasing the bride is the ‘top priority’, he’ll bypass that to make sure that wish is fulfilled. Of course we know Yuzu wouldn’t do something like that, it’s not in her nature to, but the risk still stands. With how little she knows of, she could potentially ask for something that she doesn’t realize could cause problems! It’ll be very interesting to see if something like this comes back to bite them in the future, or witnessing her sister pulling such a stunt will make her think twice about it. The only silver-lining to this habit is that Yuzu would be able to keep Reiya in check should he set off on a rampage of a sort. But I digress.
Last but not least, we had this weirdly placed flashback from Takamichi. It was about his first day being assigned to serving Reiya. He was describing how despite Reiya only just entering grade school, he had the air of King (and hell, even his voice didn’t sound like one of a child!) Takamichi went on to say how Reiya “change his life” but he really didn’t explain how he did apart from immediately recognized him as the master he would serve for the rest of his life.The only thing I can maybe take away from this, is perhaps indication that Takamichi can see and may be even unsettled with how much Reiya is changing. It was noted how Reiya is now a bit softer to the employees at the office, as he’s typically known for being quite cold. So it seems Yuzu’s presence as the office has influenced him to be a bit softer.
Overall this was certainly the sort of episode that drew mixed reactions from me, but as a whole it wasn’t terrible, if anything it was a welcomed improvement. On one hand, some good things that gives me some hope, on the other it’s just the usual bizarre things that makes me audibly shout, “WHAT?!” But hey, at least Reiya had some new lines this week! (Sad I have to even say that!) But out of all things, I think my biggest disappointment in this episode was the absence of the conversation they had about ‘when Yuzu wants to ask of something, she needs to kiss him.’ I really wished we had seen this conversation unfold– solely because we’re already lacking on-screen interactions between the two. So here’s to hoping in the next episode, we’ll actually see Yuzu and Reiya have more substantial and productive screen-time together. It’s genuinely crazy to think next week is the half-way point, and it’s only just getting started now.
