I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about this, but HE’S A FLIPPING FISH.

——

This episode was so emotionally hard-hitting that I wanted to raise my hand and ask “are you SURE this is a comedy?”.  We’re gearing up for the final episode next week, and the stakes keep getting higher and higher.  Most of the episode is spent trying to get all the characters back in one place, since everyone got spread out over the course of the last episode.

Akira has been the real leader in the past couple episodes; he’s really taken charge and looked out for all the people he cares about.  I like seeing other people besides the main character take charge, and Akira is definitely the man with a plan.  He’s able to round up all these angry people who don’t know what to do and give them direction.  It also makes me wibble just a little bit to see him realize just how much Haru, Natsuki, and Yuki mean to him.

Natsuki did his fair share of stomping on my heart, this episode.  He’s really grown in to himself since Sakura ran away.  He calls his dad “father” for the first time in the entire series, and he asks Mariko to take care of Sakura while he’s out hunting the alien sea beast (which makes a bit more sense now that we know that Haru is ACTUALLY A FISH). I also grinned like a loon when he referred to himself as “the fish prince”, because it’s actually quite significant; although he’s a good fisherman, he’s never fully committed himself to how great he could be, and now he is.

Haru steals the heartbreak show when he is absolutely devastated to see Yuki back on the island.  More than anything else, he wants Yuki to be safe and not fall under the control of the sea monster, and seeing Haru so disturbed at the thought of someone getting hurt because of him, especially Yuki, and especially after what happened to Koko, was really hard to watch.

Yuki put Haru in his place, none too gently at that.  It was important to him to make sure Haru knows that he’s not going to be content to leave just because things get tough, and he’s going to to absolutely everything he can to help Haru stop what’s going on in Enoshima.  Even if it means Haru still has to leave after the sea monster is fished out of the sea.

It seemed like things were going to end on a high note, the gang meeting up in the surveillance tower before the boys head out to sea, but Duck decides to launch it’s missile prematurely.  The missile ends up striking Ayumi’s boat, which he was apparently still on.  Talk about a sucker punch right at the end.

I’m stupidly hopeful that Ayumu survived the strike, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from anime, it’s that you can never be certain someone’s dead until you see the funeral.  But even still, it was the kind of wrench thrown in to the machine that you just weren’t expecting, and it was a hard-hitting end to an absolutely solid episode.

GO Rating: 5/5