I feel like Riko has been naked quite a lot in this series and I thank god that it’s not treated in a fanservice manner. That may be something that should be par for the course but with my experience in anime it often takes every opportunity to throw in some fanservice. At this point I have become rather immune to it but I can appreciate that Riko has been topless on screen a number of times and it doesn’t make me feel like I am watching something that could potentially get me arrested. Something that I cannot say so easily about certain other shows which shall not be named. The episode recaps at the start of episodes feel like they are getting longer but animation still is at a high level which I hope continues till the end of the season. I am surprised at Ozen whom I originally had pegged to be significantly more villainous by the end of the last episode. This episode instead shows her as a much more playful character than her intimating design would suggest. She reminds me a bit of a Katanamonogatari character with her eyes and general listlessness. So far she is acting the role of the cynic, and raining on Riko’s earlier misplaced optimism. One by confirming that her mother is indeed dead and also verifying that the message inspiring this whole journey was not written by her.
I find this rather…cathartic. Riko has so far attributed that everything that has happened so far is related to her. Much like the main character in a story she thinks that the world revolves around her only to have Ozen confirm that she doesn’t really have anything to do with this at all. Of course we don’t quite know if Ozen is telling the truth or not but based on the character she has shown in this episode I don’t quite think she’s the type to lie. In fact this journey appears to be more about Regu than anything else and Riko is more just the tagalong. Sadly this episode ends right before what looks to be the biggest and most shocking reveal but we did get some interesting things. We have a strange corpse like creature that Riko saw in the middle of the night as well as some new info on the Abyss.
My guess is that this corpse being happened to be the Whistles that tried to ascend from the lower levels and got hit with the curse at it’s worst. But as to why it happened to be in Ozen’s house at that moment does make me wonder whether Ozen is experimenting on them. For other exposition we have Marulk who lets us know that the further down you get in the abyss, the more complex the artifacts become. As well as how a tree this giant can grow in the abyss by taking nutrients from the sea floor of the land above. Also Marulk may be a boy instead of a girl seeing how he reacted to Riko walking in naked and Regu inquiring about his gender. So we have reached the halfway point of this series and I do wonder just what twists await with this white cube and how it will effect the story going forward.
