This episode was all about crowning moments of awesome. Heitai and Baremoto… their actions really made this episode. Not only did the creators find a plausible reason to get Mario out of jail, they also used this occasion to refer back to Mario’s past.
This arc at its core, I think, really was meant as this social criticism, a tad different from the first arc. The first arc was all about underlining the horrible circumstances that some inmates are put through. This arc uses this, but looks at a broader perspective, and also includes the views of the hard-working war veterans who look down on the street-punks. Baremoto’s speech was all about addressing this hypocritical view, and how the lives of their generation was ruined because of the war these adults went into. I do believe that they could have portrayed these adults with a bit more depth, but taking the length of the series into account, and how a lot probably needed to be cut here, it was handled quite well.
Now that we got Mario’s back-story wrapped up, I’m really curious what the creators plan to do with that of the others. At this point I’m not sure whether their background was cut in order to focus on the more important parts of the story, but the OP is definitely hinting at something more.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
You should add a new rating for this episode: “Fuckin Epic!” lol
def the best or one of the best episodes of the whole series
finally, the music isn’t too over the top and works really well with the drama
Awesome episode. It will be interesting to see what happens next week…