I don’t know the process by which episode counts are decided for TV anime, but Fumetsu’s 20 seems like a strange number given the industry’s general adherence to multiples of 12 and 13. Some may perceive the glass to be half full – seven extra episodes, oh boy! – but after watching “A Large Vessel,” I can only view it as half empty. Fushi’s attempted escape from prison and resulting torture were stuffed into a twelve second montage, undercutting the horror of his experience and muddling his subsequent search for an exit. Parona’s encounter with a would-be rapist was neutered by its placement late in the episode (though her previous wall-scaling scene was suitably tense). Characters are being robbed of the ability to process their experiences, and in a series like this one, which is about the experience of life across cultures and species, that’s a serious issue. “Just add more episodes” is a hated catch-all phrase of mine, but fuck it, I’ll join the chorus in this case: Fumetsu deserved 26.
I put all that negativity before the jump because that’s what I feel most strongly about (it’s an issue that may persist well into the show’s future) but “Large Vessel” wasn’t a bad episode. We were offered a peek at Parona’s history with Ninannah’s practice of human sacrifice, which perfectly explained her desire to rescue March in the present day. Her sister stole her away from their village in the lead-up to the selection, which is precisely what Parona tried to do with March at the start of this arc. Both girls were saved from a deadly fate in their childhoods, and now Parona has been spared a second time by Fushi’s impossible strength. The guilt she feels at her sister’s fate, the frustration at her inability to save March on her own, the outrage at Ninannah’s adherence to barbaric traditions… Parona is a complicated character, and this episode did a fine job of presenting that fact. I especially liked the contrast between her stoicism and March’s laughter during their trip to Yanome – they’re two sides of the same fateful coin, but one side is corroded and lacking the innocence of youth.
Fumetsu scored pretty highly on this week’s March Humanity Report, as well. Even though she got accustomed to prison life with the efficiency of an AI running a cheerfulness program, there was an earlier sequence that nicely highlighted her vulnerability: the letter-writing scene. All the wonders of Yanome’s modern society weren’t enough to keep March from missing her mama and papa – in fact, the complications of modernity were what prevented her from contacting them. Alphabets and postal systems are no help when you don’t know how to write or what district your village belongs to. March tried to maintain her fire in the face of those frustrations – the inky handprint she left on her parchment was fiercely cute – but in the end she was defeated. (Of course, she was back to her buoyant self just minutes later, but good food will do that.) She also declared her intention to become Fushi’s mother in an early scene, demonstrating that the story hasn’t abandoned her original dream. Now that we have that confirmation, though, I don’t want to hear any more of this “I’m ready to die” nonsense out of a five year old girl.
Talking about Fushi, there was some weird stuff going on with his empathic abilities during his time in prison. In the words of his creator, “The vessel opened.” I seem to recall that, before this week, Fushi only experienced those fur bristling and eye mutating scenes during moments of physical contact (I could easily be wrong, though). Now he’s capable of spotting Parona from fifty feet away and forming an emotional link with her, which is on an altogether different level. After she fell from a great height during her attempted escape, he sensed her pain and uttered his new favorite phrase (“it hurts”). Is this newly-formed connection something that will grow stronger over time? Is it a hint that he’ll assume Parona’s form in the future? And if he can transform into Parona, can he also transform into Oniguma, whose massive frame would be an unstoppable trump card in their upcoming jailbreak? I’m interested to learn how the Immortal’s evolution will proceed, but never at the cost of a reasonably-paced story. No matter whether these characters pass through heaven or hell, they’d better be given the chance to process the journey.
