Well the end of the episode did get over melodramatic but still, a very good episode. It is rather amusing to see two people bond over a shared goal of revenge. Their thinking slowly edged towards a dangerous outlook it became clear that one of these two is not on the same wavelength as the other. The detectives attitude throughout the game became worse the more he remembered and when the two remembered their sins, he was the one stating that they were not wrong. In truth, is he right? Murderers and rapists are not the kind of people who you can just chuck into a jail cell for a couple of years and hope they learn the error of their ways. You cannot force someone to change their thinking. The person themselves needs to recognise their own mistakes. Of course, even if you were to get three ghosts of past, future and present to show them the error of their ways chances are that they would be completely apathetic to it. So perhaps we would be better off without these kinds of people. However then the problem with this kind of thinking rears it’s head in this episode. When the detective got his revenge he lost his goal and when that happened he took of the role of what could be described as a living arbiter. He watches peoples sins and then judges them for it. Thus the problem is this, when you adopt the methods of a killer in order to remove scum from society then you in turn become scum. You cannot judge without being coloured by those you judge.
So in this death game we have a practiced serial killer and a impulsive killer. Both motivated by revenge for a loved one. The detective in turn egging on the young man to finish his revenge and giving him determination. The ultimate poetic justice comes that he has already taken his revenge and did so by pure stroke of luck. For the second person who just watched and didn’t lift a finger to help his sister was the detective himself. I find the logic somewhat flimsy as I think attempted rape and assault is more than enough reason for the detective to intervene. The reasoning that the person needed to commit an act first when he had very intent to do so just seems to be here to make the detective more villainous. In fact that would be my problem with this episode. The detective just changed to a villainous persona and started taunting the young man. For someone who was cold and indifferent that’s an odd change. But it did lead to an interesting development. The opportunity for the young man to take his revenge a second time. With the detective inciting him to do it and Onna begging him to put it aside. Even going as far as to spill the beans about void and reincarnation. I am not sold on Onna’s outburst here. I understand that she had misgivings about the process as a whole but I didn’t get the impression that she was this opposed to it. On the contrary I thought it was more than she didn’t like when the arbiters manipulated the process and not the process itself. So was sighing a bit seeing Onna attempt to convince the young man not to take his revenge and succeeding…nearly. Though the effect she had on Decim was fascinating with how she got him to question the very nature of his role. So I now see the pattern of this show, a death game is always followed by an intermission episode. I am not happy about it as the background dealings of the death games are significantly less entertaining than the death games themselves. With the amount of time left in this series I would prefer if these plot threads about the storybook and Nona hiding things from the boss be abandoned in favour of focusing on it’s strengths.
Onna’s outburst, I think makes more sense if you take it from the simpler aspect of a woman trying to prevent a man from ruining his chance at reincarnation. Onna has seen the man’s memories and knows that while he’s done a regrettable thing, it’s by no means an act that is beyond redemption. If you take the kharmic scale of the young man’s live and total up the good and evil in it, Onna believes at the point that she tries to stop him, that the man is not beyond that judgement point.
. Additionally the act of violence that is perpetuate on the detective is…rather horrifying. Contrast the relatively milder violent acts earlier in the episode. There is the act of killing to defend society and your family but it is quite another to perpetuate wanton pain onto another individual
True, it could be that her outcries on the system of judgement were her just being hysterical because she wanted to save the man. But it should have been built upon in previous episodes.
And that is why the last act was the deciding factor. It was revenge for revenges sake. Only with the goal of personal satisfaction.
The girl with the white hair streak has no name as of yet. There isn’t even a character named Onna lol. Nona is Decim’s boss.
Yep. Hence why she’s referred to as Kurokami no Onna. Meaning “Dark hair Woman.” Nona is Decim’s Boss and Nona’s boss is Oculus, the old man she plays snooker with.
I actually thought the ending was very well done. I was feeling the tension so it completely worked for me. (unless you are talking about just the last 30 seconds with black haired girl punching Decim).
It has been a weird series so far. The stand alone aspects of it are the strongest. It has failed to successfully build up anything else though, even though it seemingly appears to want to have some sort of meaningful overarching story.
And even though I didn’t hate the weaker episodes (I was even moderately amused by the comedic episode), I have already forgotten most of what has happened in the series already.