Awesome to see that alongside Suppon, the creators also took their time to show Lily’s story here and have her develop. Again, it’s an arc completely different from the previous ones so far, in the way that Suppon doesn’t really have any problems fitting in. The only thing that’s seriously getting in his way is the trauma from 13 years before, in which he lost his entire family.
The fact that he still hasn’t gotten over it was pretty sad, and that combined with Suppon’s usual maturity made this quite an effective episode. As for Lily, I like how this series really doesn’t try to avoid sensitive subjects here. The childrape of the earlier episodes were much worse, but I can very much imagine of how the problem of foreign soldiers having their way with local women, only to abandon them afterwards, is addressed here, as usually anime are too politically correct to talk about it. Really, 2010 has been an interesting year for the portrayal of WWII with this series and Senkou no Night Raid. This series takes care to show the horrors of that time period, while also showing that every side had its share of assholes.
And I know that I’ve been saying this often enough, but damn, I’m really impatient for that Heitai-arc. This guy is one heck of an interesting guy, so I really hope that the final two episodes, or at least the semi-final one, will be his.
Rating: ** (Excellent)
I guess since “Heitai’s” arc involves (strongly) someone else (two people directly) from the already introduced characters, it has to be the finale. They should be at least two episodes and it would be a fitting end to the anime if they stop at this point with no second season as it seems.
I think the episode kinda hint that Suppon might also suffer from exposure to radiation as a result of the nuclear bombing in his home-town.