Another one makes the cut…

I certainly think there was a time when a series like Kokkoku would have made more of a splash in the anime world. In fact there was a time when supernatural thrillers like this were more or less the meat and potatoes of any given anime schedule – though that time was many years ago, and anime schedules were a lot smaller in those days. Now, Kokkoku feels sort of passé – or at least a bit quaint, if you’re feeling positive. You still see shows in this genre pop up of course, but they tend to be more modern in style, and even then it’s pretty rare that they succeed commercially.

When I say Kokkoku would make a splash, I mean because it’s good – very good indeed. In terms of traditional storytelling this might just be the strongest new series of the season, delivering a really fascinating premise without a lot of flash but with plenty of punch. What it’s doing so well, I think, is putting us in the place of the Yukawa family as they try and figure out what the hell is happening to them – we’re learning as they learn, and the process feels very natural. There’s a certain trust in the audience’s ability (and willingness) to keep up that I don’t see in many anime these days, and it always pleases me greatly when I do.

I’d noted before that this show reminds me somewhat of a more urban (or at least suburban) Kamisama Dolls, and that comparison got even more traction this week when it was revealed that there’s a family rivalry at the heart of this story, too. It seems there’s another branch of the old original clan, the Sagawa – and they (or their leader, at least) consider themselves the rightful inheritors of the stasis power. It appears that the Sagawa have become wealthy and powerful while the Yuzawa have grown weak and poor – though it’s Ojii-san that holds the power of the Master Stone. For an elite like Sagawa Junji, that has to be a pretty galling state of affairs.

In other news, it appears that the true power in the Yuzawa branch has skipped a generation and landed with Juri. As she’s being strangled by one of the TLS goons, her eyes turn white and then she forcefully expels the kami/alien/jellyfish (I guess officially called “specter”) from the gentleman throttling her. This has the effect of putting him into stasis (and possibly killing him too, according to Majima-san – at the very least it hurt like hell). This appears to be her “signature” power in the way Grandpa’s is teleportation – though a lot of that is still guesswork at this point.

Meanwhile the TLS is experimenting with the Herald, using one of their own enforcers as the sacrifice. The effects of this are twofold – we see that the Herald has grown smaller than the last time it appeared, which leads Sagawa to theorize that it loses energy every time it materializes to protect someone in stasis. And the dead henchman’s specter ends up jumping into Makoto’s body, thus allowing him to come out of stasis and join Tsubasa nii-chan in being able to move. And Makoto takes considerably more advantage of that than Tsubasa has been doing. Also worth noting here is that Tsubasa too was a kidnap victim (probably for the same reason as Makoto) when he was a child, and he blames PTSD over that for his current social dysfunction.

To say that there are a lot of moving parts to this mythology would be an understatement, but because Kokkoku’s narrative speaks so clearly I don’t feel as if it’s difficult to keep up – quite the contrary, if anything I just want to know more. But Kokkoku is quite the show for cliffhangers, and for now we’re left with Juri about to be killed by another of the TLS goons who happens to be able to move freely. She’s not going to die in the fourth episode, obviously, but it’s all part of that ability to put us in the characters’ shoes – she and her family just want to figure out what the hell is going on, but they’re too bust trying not to die to have time…