Tick, tick, tick…

Things are really heating up with NnM just as we seem to be running out of time to resolve them. With no official notice of a second season, for the viewer this is quite the quandary – how invested do I allow myself to get, knowing that everything may dissolve into a rushed anime-original FUBAR ending? I suspect that we will get a second season, in the end – this is a pretty popular shounen manga in Japan and the writing has the feel of intentionally stretching things out rather than rushing through them.

We seem to have moved beyond preamble now at last – the Shikoku army has been spotted in Nura territory, heading towards the epicentre of Nura power from multiple directions. Also racing towards them are the Supreme Commander and the Supreme Commander of the Shikoku Clan, having finally roused themselves from their idle chat and boarded a sleeper train. That’s a pretty funny juxtaposition of worlds to start with, but with the old Tanuki (badly) disguised as an elderly human and Natto-Kozo swilling beer at an alarming rate, that whole train ride is a trip in more ways than one.

Meanwhile Hitotsume is still a sniveling little toad, trying to stymie Rikuo (who spends almost the entire ep in youkai form) from assuming full command. The senior leadership finally agree that if he leads only those pledged to him – the “next generation” of the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons – he can go to battle without formal counsel approval. Rikuo has cleverly already sent out a pledge for aid, which many powerful youkai appear to have heeded. But will it be enough against Tamazuki and his demon blade – the “Devil’s Hammer”, which seems to absorb the power of those it kills in a sort of Tensaiga-like way?

This was good solid shounen – nothing too extraordinary but well-executed. The battle must surely begin in the next ep, but what of Rikuo’s human friends – are they here, at the end of all things, to be shuttled to irrelevancy on the sidelines while the demons in big-boy pants do all the fighting?