Short Synopsis: Aoki tries to catch the culprit of this arc’s crime red-handed.
Highlights: A solid conclusion.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
This arc really took its time to tell its story, and it worked out pretty well. The thing I liked about this arc wasn’t the characterizations or the intensity that some of the other arcs of Himitsu showed, but rather the complexity of its storyline. The previous episodes showed lots of question-marks, and this episode answered them very nicely, even though I had trouble as usual, trying to understand those elaborate dialogues. ^^;
So in the end, it was indeed the bald guy with the hat. The first incident on the train wasn’t because of him, but a girl he really liked was assaulted by a knife. When he tried to stop it, the girl got stabbed, and a bottle that contained the disease got slashed open, spreading the disease through the various people on the train. The following murderers were him, trying to erase the evidence. I didn’t like it when the characters started talking Chinese, though. It was already hard enough for me to grasp what that dialogue was about without some Japanized Chinese translated in Kanji…
I also liked how this episode addressed the sardine-can syndrome of the Japanese trains and subways. They are notorious for how nobody ever seems to talk there, and when such a major incident happens as someone getting threatened with a knife or something, most of them try to ignore it, instead of trying to do something to resolve it.
Then there’s that idiot Aoki. As it turns out, he never kissed and got himself infected, but he just made his fingernails look like they were infected. He did jump right in front of a train in order to save the culprit, though, in a desperate attempt to save Miyoshi from her disease. In the end, there was a romantic tension between the two, but Aoki reminded Miyoshi too much of Suzuki. That doesn’t really work when he wants to get a relation with her to make her forget about the guy.
I think I also finally get why this series feels weird at times, and I can’t seem to fully enjoy it like I did when it first started. I first thought that it was because of bad characterization, but that’s not quite right: even in the first half, this show has seen some great cases. The thing with this series is that it’s incredibly inconsistent: one episode focuses at characterization, while the next focuses on mystery, then the next one is all about horror, then there’s one that aims to disturb, then there’s a thought-provoking one, et cetera. The things that made a previous episode great aren’t the focus of the following. The best example of it is episode eight: possibly the best episode of the entire series because it was so bloody disturbing, but it also caused me to expect the same of the rest of the series.
In other words: this series is incredibly unpredictable: you’ll never know what an episode will be about. It’s both so in the good ways and the bad ways. On one hand, those bloody expectations don’t always cooperate you expect tension but instead get a fairly quiet episode that aims to be more thought-provoking, et cetera. On the other hand, it does show great writing to be so incredibly versatile with this series. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword, that’ll probably cause Himitsu to never really make it to my favourites, but it’s a great series nonetheless.
I mistakenly put this question at the end of episode 19 but here it is again, corrected: what do you make of that odd scene at the end where Maki(?) is blindfolded in bed and someone coming in from a shower starts to strangle him? There is no dialog here but what did Maki say after Aoki and the woman parted company? Could it be a clue? Also, that kiss seemed to upset him, but why?
By the way, thanks a million, two millions for blogging this series. I cannot believe fansubbing groups are ignoring it. There have been no English subs since episode 7 and that’s just too sad. So I welcome any specific info you care to share. Please do not think of them as “spoilers”! When I only have RAW anime to go by every piece of information is deeply appreciated. Thanks again!
That final scene was indeed one big question-mark, I have no idea what it meant either. Heh, I actually thought that the blindfolded person was Suzuki, and that that was some kind of flashback of him with Miyoshi. As there’s still that mystery of why they were fighting at one point.
In any case, I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one enjoying this series. I was beginning to think that everyone else just abandoned it. ^^;
I know you blogged this ages ago but…
Anyway I think it is Maki and Suzuki. I think this episode seems to imply some kind of complicated relationship between Suzuki, Maki and Miyoshi. And there were a few ambiguous things that could be interpreted in a few ways, including a close relationship between the two leads.
Some would say Kainuman, (and that would be a good shocker) but I think from looking at the whole series, probably the former scenario.
Maki might be into Sadomasochism and suzuki is his partner. I finally watched it after it got subbed…
Woohoo for subtitles, and the manga is finally scanlated up to this part with a summary of the last bit released, which clears some stuff up. WARNING. THE FOLLOWING IS EXTREMELY CONVOLUTED AND COMPLICATED.
What happened is that Aoki and Suzuki resemble each other, and Maki says at the end was, “I knew the two of them would be attracted to each other.”
Miyoshi was Suzuki’s fiancee, and it’s heavily implied in the manga that Maki loved Suzuki, though unclear if Suzuki returned his feelings (the reason why Suzuki never married Miyoshi was because he couldn’t choose between Miyoshi and Maki). Maki’s feelings for Suzuki are carried over to Aoki (one of those not directly stated out right love, but heavily implied enough that it’s pretty much there) which was why he was upset at Aoki and Miyoshi kissing.
Aoki obviously loves Maki, though if the love is romantic is debatable, and even if it is, he doesn’t realize it (especially since later on in the manga, Aoki and Miyoshi are engaged, but Aoki keeps on doing stupid stuff like always putting Maki before Miyoshi or accidentally calling Miyoshi ‘Maki’).
Miyoshi may also have some feelings for Maki as well. Yeah. Complicated.
So the scene at the end (in the manga, it’s a short story unrelated to the train case) is Maki having sex with someone. In the manga, Maki and his partner both speak (Maki’s partner asks him if he wants to be blindfolded), but the manga is careful not to reveal the gender of his lover (which leaves it up in the air for the fans if Maki is gay and in love with Suzuki/Aoki or not), and I guess to preserve that, the anime made the last bit speechless. But Maki wanted to be blindfolded because he says doesn’t want to see anything, and you get fragments of flashbacks that make up a short story about betrayal as well as bits of Suzuki and Aoki. I don’t know why he’s thinking about murder cases as he’s having sex, but there you go.
There’s more stuff at the end of the short story that the anime doesn’t go into where Maki thinks to himself that he doesn’t want his his secrets to be examined after his death, but he doesn’t know if he deserves that luxury and more heavy implications that he likes Suzuki/Aoki.
Basically, Maki is a very messed up individual.
Thank you for clearing that up Ebod. I just finished watching this series and I was confused as all heck about that scene.
By chance, where do you read the manga? I’m frantically searching for scanlations (shoot, even the RAW Japanese version would be nice) but I’ve come up empty. ;O;
Any help would be appreciated~ 😉
wow i am so glad i found this. i just finished rewatching Himitsu and the last scene of so 20 was still bothering me (especially cuz there was no dialogue and Maki’s lips looked lush lol so i was debating whether it really was him or not then again no breasts). anyway, now i want to read this but the last 2 volumes aren’t scanlated :((