If the rotation held this would be a serious week on Kore Wa Zombie, and sure enough that’s exactly what we got. Though there were certainly a few moments of silliness the episode followed the pattern of alternating humorous and serious eps.
As suspected the King of Night had in fact abducted Yuu, for reasons still somewhat unclear. He states that he wants her to make his wish come true, and also that she broke a promise that they’d be together forever. If he doesn’t get what he wants, His Majesty will kill off her friends. Along the way, he also confirms another suspected fact – that it’s Yuu’s emotions that summon all these megalo that keep turning up – including the giant kappa that ends up sitting on Haruna.
Fortunately Dai-sensei shows up just in the nick of time and deals with the megalo – she can’t sit idly by and watch the King destroy one of her pupils after all. Those two definitely seem to know each other, or know of each other at least – Dai-sensei especially seems to have a big reputation in the underworld. Unfortunately this is where things start to get very confusing – and you know things are bad when the only way the writers can try and explain what’s happening is for some “deux ex exposition” from an on-screen character – and even Dai-sensei’s explanation of what was going on with Tomonori didn’t make much sense. Apparently she’s the kid sister of one of Dai-sensei’s friends, and she somehow happens to be some sort of “Mahou Shoujo Ultimate Weapon” in addition to a vampire ninja. In any case, she involuntarily launches some sort of transformation sequence which Dai-sensei conveniently can’t help her with, but Ayumu can. He does, and rescues her, but just when all seems well Yuu – temporarily free of The King of Night’s clutches – decided to covertly leave the others rather than continue to put them in danger.
I think there’s quite a bit of organic drama in Yuu’s situation, and I really like some of the characters here – Yuu, Ayumu and Tomonori especially. I find the lazy writing a real downer, though. I’m OK with things randomly happening occasionally, but when it’s the sort of plot-driving drama like what we saw with Tomonori this week, it feels like cheating. I won’t re-hash the issues I had with last week’s ep, but again, it ties in to creative laziness – and for me, that’s the biggest drag on this show right now. It’s fun, but that’s all it can be until the plot and humor stop taking short-cuts and earn what they get – as they have, in fact, with Yuu’s storyline. And her story – and her relationship with Ayumu – are not coincidentally the best things about this series.
