I… don’t even know where to begin with this one. I thought last week’s premiere was decent, but this one sure threw a lot of the optimism I had for the show right out the window.
I suppose I’ll start with Reiya because he was the biggest disappointment. I was hoping this week we would get the chance to get to know him better, as well as see him make an effort to get to know Yuzu. But that wasn’t the case. Instead we got more “love-struck” zombie-talk, while she’s telling him about her family’s neglect, he’s smiling! Really dude????? Is this the appropriate time to smile? Then he proceeded to basically drop everything all for Yuzu, (including a fiancee he was already engaged with out of mutual interest of power, which I’ll get to in a bit). And yet, the worst part about all of this, was not for a second of this episode did Reiya make any efforts to sit down with Yuzu to properly talk about this whole thing, let alone actually try to get to know her. Getting her material goods and mending her dress is one thing, but actually sitting down and talking to one another about how they plan to go forward is the most important thing they need to do right now! (I couldn’t even enjoy the comedic scene of trying to figure out what to give her as a gift because of how everything was going so far.)
And if you thought that was bad enough, oh no, it actually gets even worse!
Without even consulting her, Reiya made decisions to go ahead and contact her grandparents, as the super-fast background check indicated they were the most appropriate and trustworthy people to turn to for her. Overnight, he had his servant go talk to them, reveal Yuzu’s situation and arranged them to formally adopt her, so that she’s under their protection and not her birth-parents. And best of all, he dumps this information on her, he also reveals that she wouldn’t be living with them, but with him instead! THIS ISN’T ROMANTIC, THIS IS STEAMROLLING.
And don’t even get me started on him being a creeper at night by going into her room to look at her one more time, and kiss her forehead. Don’t you fucking tell me “It’s so romantic!” IT’S NOT. IT’S ABSOLUTELY NOT. THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF A CREEP. THESE TWO LITERALLY JUST MET. This kind of thing reminds me of the god awful cringe of crappiest books I’ve read.
Ironically, all of this behaviour was actually what I discussed at length last week. When Demons find their bride, the way they seem to lose all sense of reason when it involves them, and that’s what makes them so terrifying. They have no sense of boundaries with them, they make the grand assumption they will be accepted, or at least don’t seem to be willing to budge on that matter. In-fact, we saw this with Reiya today. We witnessed him think about how he can keep his ‘bride’ close. And it wasn’t healthy thoughts, it was “If I pamper her, and make her feel loved, she won’t be able to live without me.” This right here, is the red flag of exploiting the fact Yuzu’s extremely vulnerable right now, and Reiya is trying to make her dependent on him.
What was also explained today was what we already figured out in part last week: Humans don’t understand how a Demon Bride is selected. The ones greedy for power think they can just throw themselves at the demons, and have a chance at successfully winning their heart, or be taken a liking to. But the truth of the matter is, it’s actually such a rare case for Demons to find their brides (soulmates), that it’s considered something akin to a miracle. This is considered the optimal way to go, because not only would their instincts make them wholeheartedly devoted to them, but it’s beneficial in terms of maintaining or gaining power because their off-springs with their destined one, possess great demonic strength, and their families prosper.
The whole Demons’ possessive and obsessive fixation on their brides is something I had speculated we might see explored in some way or another as a source of conflict. But after this episode, I fear this may end up being romanticized instead… which is to say, is not my cup of tea. So I really hope I’m wrong about that…
Story-wise, there’s a far greater potential to use this possessive mindset to highlight the whole thing about “it’s everyone’s dream to be a demon’s bride” is not necessarily sunshine and rainbows as it’s suggested it to be. The truth can be messier, uglier than anyone would expect, making it a source of conflict that can be a genuine obstacle in their relationship development, as opposed to romanticizing this approach as the way to ‘show’ Reiya’s love for Yuzu.
Interestingly we did get to see one moment when we actually saw Reiya’s unfiltered thought was before he became “lovestruck” with Yuzu. Before then, he didn’t believe this kind of thing. That’s why he made no effort to actually look for his bride, because he didn’t believe in it. Instead, he chose to get engaged to another demon of a powerful family with mutual interests. But that is precisely why I find it so freaking bizarre that he says things like, ‘I finally found you.‘ Like, that’s blatant lie: He was never searching to begin with! He simply settled on a strategic engagement instead!
This inconsistency is bothering me quite a bit, so I’m left to only hope maybe that’s just the demon instincts taking the wheel here, and it will be used as a real conflict they need to overcome… And if that were to be the case, I would actually like to see Reiya actually being surprised by his own actions. After-all, he has been steamrolling this whole process so far, skipping all the steps he should be doing before all of this. But frankly speaking, after this episode, I’m not particularly optimistic that we’re going to see that play out. Though if it does, I think it might help salvage the story as absurdity of his behaviour since it wouldn’t be romanticized, but rather recognized as a problem that needs to be dealt with.
Side note: Bearing all of this in mind, I actually find this makes their first meeting on the bridge last week even more ridiculous. I thought it was bit weird last week, but didn’t bring it up because I was hoping they’d show us how/why he was there in the first place, (which they didn’t do). Are we supposed to believe he just going for a walk or something? It came off as far too random, there’s no build up. Or as we supposed to assume it was when he was returning from that party? They didn’t show it well if that’s the case. It was like he was just dropped there out of thin air, and bam, the encountered each other! Feels utterly thoughtless.
I’m also not particularly optimistic about how the issue of breaking off the engagement with Kiyama Sakurako is going to be handled. On one hand, it could be a very messy conflict that will have to be resolved, but at this time, I don’t have much faith that it’ll be executed well. Despite being the youngest daughter of the family, she’s said to be the most powerful, so she holds a lot of influence, so you’d think she wouldn’t be particularly happy about this. After-all, she stood to benefit marrying the top order of the Ogre clans. That would put her in an even more powerful position, probably one she may not want to yield.
Speaking of Yuzu… Last week I had celebrated the fact it wasn’t a full blown pity party. She has support outside of her family, there’s light in her life that she can turn to that enables her the opportunity to breathe and escape from her household when needed. She isn’t in a situation where she’s not being fed properly and is locked up in a shed. However this week, gave us the pity-party– and I was not pleased to say the least. Where did her spine go? There were some scenes when you could see she was feeling a bit uncomfortable with how Reiya had contacted her grandparents asking them to adopt her, and expected her to just move in with him. But she didn’t really do much of anything in those moments. She did say she needed more time to think about it, but not even two seconds later, she’s like: Maybe I can trust him.
It also didn’t help she gets a call from Karin saying she’s gonna drop some of her things off (don’t even get me started on how randomly that came out since Karin and the family are still unaware of the situation), goes to see her, somehow expecting they’d be able to speak as if their fight never happened, or the fact she didn’t try to stop Youta when he SET HER FREAKING ARM ON FIRE. Why Yuzu thought that is, I don’t even know. This is straight up just deluding herself at this point.
Frankly speaking, it’d give me a lot more peace of mind if Yuzu were to make the decision to live with her grandparents for a little bit. (But I don’t think any of us expect that going to happen.) More than anything, I really want to see Yuzu realize sooner than later (preferably by next week’s episode) that the sweet words Reiya is giving her right now is not the kind of love she’s looking for. It’s merely demonic instincts is telling him that she’d his bride. There’s absolutely no “love” between them right now, and to suggest such a thing would be blasphemy. And the fact not even the most bare minimum of basic effort has been made yet, is a very concerning to say the least.
So yeah, I wasn’t kidding about how this took a nosedive real fast. Last week wasn’t amazing but I did see potential in it. After this one, I’m not particularly optimistic that I’m going to get it here. So next week’s episode will be critical to showing me which direction this story is going to go. There’s potential in this series, so here’s to hoping it’s not going in the direction I fear it might be going.
And if this story wants any hope of avoiding joining the collection of shallowest stories that play with the Cinderella trope, it needs to be a journey where both Yuzu and Reiya comes to understand what it means to truly love each other. Not superficial flowery words, steamrolling, and possessive thoughts encouraging dependency like we saw today. If it’s going to be anything of the sort, I’m out.
