TDLR; As of Episode 4: Still no progress or communication has been made between Yuzu and Reiya. You’re welcome.
Oh boy, one step forward, two steps back. Though to sum up this entire episode, the majority of it was JUST REPEATING THE SAME DIALOGUE, THE SAME ISSUE, THE SAME FLASHBACKS OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. It’s an understatement to say I was shouting incredulously in my notes from start to finish.
It’s actually super frustrating because on one hand, they are actually addressing some of the holes in the story I had mentioned (and had no faith we were going to get any answers to) in the past two entries. Such as, showing us how Reiya came across Yuzu in the first place, and how the Demon’s Instinct can pin point exactly who their bride is.
But here’s lies the problem, why didn’t they show us this last week, or even the week before that?! The order of these things happening is just a jumbled mess at the moment, to the point I really would like to read the original material to find out, was it this bad? Or is the the result of a botched adaption? Which is it!?
Actually… oh my god. I just realized Reiya literally hasn’t say anything to Yuzu apart of the following: “You’re my bride”, “You don’t have to do anything”, “I’ll take care of everything.”-— ACTUALLY DOES THIS GUY EVEN KNOW HOW TO HOLD A CONVERSATION?!?!?!?!?!! IT SURE DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT!
Next week we’re on Episode 5, and yet, IT’S BEEN FOUR EPISODES AND NO PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE BETWEEN REIYA AND YUZU. AT ALL.
This right here is really the most baffling part. This is only supposed to have twelve episodes… But what in the world is going on here? Why it taking this long for any progress to even get started? Is the first book really just this, going in circles?
And as if that wasn’t already bad enough! Reiya made himself absent as soon as 7 minutes into the episode, and only at 21:11 minutes did the two sit together again… only for Reiya to assert his so-called “assurance” over Yuzu by kissing her. (I’ll expand on this action more in a bit.) Great, just... great. Am I surprised? No, not the slightest, saw that coming miles away. But seeing Yuzu just taking it again is very aggravating considering she just told him that she doesn’t want to be reliant on him.
It would be generous to even suggest that by the end of the episode, Yuzu and Reiya are finally at the starting line in terms of finally getting to know each other… Except, not in the way you’d hope for it to be. Reiya’s actions are already putting him at net-negative points. It’s a hole he’s going to need to dig out of through learning how to navigate and temper these instincts properly, and keep himself as grounded as Nyankichi has demonstrated so far. Unfortunately due to his thoughtlessness to even consider speaking with Yuzu about any of his decisions, she’s getting a cold dose of reality-check that this isn’t the dazzling tale everyone’s said to dreamed of.
It was only natural that Yuzu was shell-shocked when she arrived to work, and was told by her boss that her guardian called and said she had quit. And to make matters worse, she has already been replaced because he cannot hire a high-schooler with their guardian’s permission. At the time, Yuzu had thought it was her birth parents pulling that stunt, so she was quite distressed when she learned that it was Reiya who do that (as we all expected). So she has every right to be alarmed about that it was him who did it. These are the red flags popping up for her to take notice of. Yuzu cannot trust Reiya’s so-called “love” until that trust has been properly established. Because Reiya hasn’t done shit to get started on that!
And thank god Yuzu had gone over to consult Touko over what has transpired in the last few days. Hell! The only one who actually bothered to explain anything to her was actually Nyankichi! She desperately needed someone to inform how things work and what to expect! Like hell she knows demon’s culture! Nobody, not Reiya and not even the servants has stepped up to share any wisdom to help her properly adjust, and understand the weight and responsibility of being a demon’s bride. Not to mention, the dangers that comes with being the bride of the most powerful one to boot! (AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE FACT REIYA AND YUZU HAVEN’T EVEN EXCHANGED NUMBERS YET! THAT SHOULD’VE BEEN THE FIRST THING THEY DID WHEN SHE MOVED IN!) That’s why they assign bodyguards to the bride’ and their loved ones, to ensure nobody gets used as a bargaining chip to expose each clan’s weakness.
Now that Yuzu understands her position as Reiya’s bride makes her his weakness, we saw how anxious that makes her because the last thing she wants to be is a burden. And then there’s the whole thing where Reiya is stripping away her ability to support herself independent through his dominance and power of authority. He continues to thoughtlessly take care of matters without consulting her, let alone even consider how she might feel about it. She’s obviously at loss what to do at the moment, because on one hand, he helped her get out of bad situation, but on the other, he’s steadily taking away her freedom.
So Reiya can keep telling her that he’ll take care of everything all he wants, but what he does not and will not understand until he actually gets to know her, is that Yuzu will not blindly trust anyone’s sweet whispers of love. For her, love is not eternal. Never again, does she wants to be in a position of vulnerability. Having a job to ensure she has the income to continue going to school, furthering her education and living arrangements is a necessity to her to know she can take care of herself. This was the only sense of future-proofing security she has been steadily working towards, and Reiya just robbed her blind of that.
Between the three demons we’ve met so far, among them Nyankichi is undoubtedly the most grounded one so far. It might have to do with the fact he’s a lesser demon, and he had chosen to attend a Human public school since Touko didn’t want to be separated from Yuzu by attending the demon’s school. It probably helps him understand the differences in social cues between demons and Humans. So maybe this is in part of why he has shown to be a much better communicator. It’s truly a saving grace that Yuzu’s friends with him for this reason.
However Nyankichi was justifiably spooked when he had noticed the Ogre presence on her. As a lesser Cat demon, he has no interests in messing with the Ogres, nor does he wants to get on their bad side. If anything, it’d be best to stay off their radar entirely. I was actually genuinely concerned about what might happen when Reiya heard Yuzu had left the mansion. His little bodyguards are probably the only reason why he wasn’t blowing down the doors to get to her. I suspect if she were actually in real danger, they would’ve informed him as such since he can detect where they are at. (Needless to say, they aren’t very good at their job considering they get easily side-tracked.) I’m glad for Nyankichi’s and his clan’s sake that Reiya didn’t appear to inflict any harm on anyone there…
As for Reiya, [sighs] we finally got some things from his point of view! Thanks to that, we did actually see him starting to take notice how this powerful instinct of theirs really is. He has noticed he’s feeling things in ways he hasn’t felt before, and his whole behaviour of how he goes about things have changed as well, but he hasn’t quite fully realized just yet that these are signs of this instinct chaining him to the bride.
What we also saw, was some of the effects of what happens when the destined bride rejects the said demon. When Yuzu told him that she didn’t want to rely on him, Reiya felt something and that’s what pushed him to kiss her, his instinct was to remind her that she belongs to him, and attempt to “assure” her that she can leave everything to him.
Interestingly though, Reiya revealed to us that for his entire life, he has always felt this sense of emptiness that he could never fulfill. That’s why when his friend talked about the brides, while he said didn’t really care about it, this showed that there was actually part of him that did have a sense of longing for it. It was when he had sensed Yuzu on the overpass, that was when he finally felt whole again. Even while he was in a vehicle, all of his senses were pointing a spotlight on Yuzu, embracing her in dazzling light.
And it was thanks to this reveal that we finally got an answer as to how demons sense their bride nearby, and how Reiya came across her in the first place. But seriously, this scene should have happened two episodes ago!!!!!! It’s outrageous that it took this long in the first place!
Aside from all of that, there’s actually another problem I’ve noticed been persisting since the second episode. This series seems to struggle a bit with some of its comedic scenes. I’m not even entirely sure how to describe it, something like a whiplash maybe? I’ve noticed these scenes tend to fall flat. It tries to be funny, but it’s not working– for me anyways. I can’t speak for everyone in that regard. This was especially noticeable when Yuzu was being told about how fearsome and powerful Reiya’s father is, and then we see his parents, and… Not only do his parents look YOUNGER than Reiya, but their cringe-worthy gooey behaviour (one which Reiya cannot stand, and I can hardly blame him for it) certainly wouldn’t make you think they are the most feared demon on the top of the order. The only comedic scene that has actually landed for me so far has been Nyankichi’s reaction that Yuzu is Reiya’s bride and the ogre presence on her. That bit was well done at least.
With all of that said and done, I honestly thought I was going to end up doing a double-post of this as a wait-and-see how the next episode was going to be. But I ended up writing quite a lengthy post. Honestly I’ve been left wondering why I haven’t decided to just drop it and stop watching it at this point. Maybe a part of me doesn’t want to believe it’s actually this bad. Like… I heard this was supposed to be a good series… Surely… it’s not like this right? Maybe it’s just the adaption that’s the actual dumpster-fire… right? Maybe it’ll get better.. right? I feel like things are just going to get uglier though before it gets better. There’s already misunderstandings plot-points just laying in wait, such as Reiya neglecting to mention he was freaking engaged up until he met Yuzu! While it wouldn’t surprise me if this were to get conveniently swept under the rug, I really don’t think it’s going to given how the power demons’ balance works in this universe. This is absolutely going to come up sooner or later, and considering communication been non-existent at this point, that’s definitely not to make Yuzu feel much better about this.
Anyhow, this is certainly something akin of a hot mess that I can’t look away from at the moment. So I guess as long as I have things to say about this, I’ll keep covering this. Addressing the good bits, and chewing out the bad, and really… just waiting to see if it’ll finally get things into order…
