When I came to write about these past two episode of In/Spectre (Kyokō Suiri for you purists), I was afraid that I had actually missed 3 weeks of it – that much happens in these two episodes.
For a yokai show, In/Spectre has an insanely small cast – there were 3 (now 4) main characters that have dominated most of the season. Normally you have several new ghosts per arc – Natsume’s Book of Friends (what I consider the gold standard of yokai shows), has several new side characters per episode. In lieu of that, In/Spectre is doing an amazing job of the relationship development (Kuro, you lucky immortal, you).
The love triangle surrounding our mermaid/kudan eating boi is getting more complex. We saw a flashback of the cousin in an earlier memory, but now we meet Rikka – someone with the same gifts/curse as Kuro.
The real gem of these episodes is the assessed threat levels from each girl regarding Kuro: Saki fears Rikka, Kotoko fears Saki, Rikka – who knows….but Kotoko is randomly friends with Saki. Also, the two different fantasies of housewives from Kuro had me DYING. Kotoko’s wildcard nature is just so natural – but she’s the spark that makes this show alive. She and Saki make great foils for each other – any other show would stop at that, but In/Spectre is a cut above so of course we get Rikka too.
A few random thoughts: I like how the immortal cousins blood goes back in their bodies – that makes cleaning up so much easier (I gasped when Rikka splattered that keyboard – do you know how hard that would be to clean?) Also, the “good” immortal team’s overall strategy is interesting enough (using an ensemble of methods to combat the fiction being spread), but really the plot is just a vehicle for these great characters.
I feel like we’ve gone out of the prologue and we’ve introduced the main conflict here: Kuro and Kotoko vs Rikka….kind of. It is extremely inconvenient to have another world bender/immortal in play, who is not as altruistic/indifferent as Kuro. Problem here is that people are dying due to her choices…but Rikka can’t really be killed or stopped, so, yeah, this is a problem. And we have the police hottie – Saki – watching over the situation as well.
Oh yeah, and to settle the earlier confusion, Saki did know about the Kudan/Mermaid, so the plot hole has been patched and we can carry on!
All in all – I know I’m a sucker for supernatural shows, but In/Spectre is just enthralling. Great characters, clean plot…it’s an anime that I make time for every week, no matter what.
