Kemono Jihen is certainly the biggest unanswered question of the season.  Not in terms of quality (that’s unerringly high every week) or the ending (if you’ve read the manga, anyway), but its future.  Kai Byoui Ramune is equally wonderful but certainly won’t get a sequel – Kemono Jihen is a different matter.  It was announced this week that the series would be re-running in its entirely in the spring, another modestly positive indicator (along with excellent manga sales and streaming numbers) – it would make a lot of sense to do that as a lead-in to a second cour in the summer.  But really, who knows?

While I think the essential nature of it was communicated, the nature of Akira and Yui’s origin story was certainly toned-down a good deal from the manga version.  I guess in hindsight that was to be expected (this is around chapter 18-20 if you want to see the uncensored version) – Aimoto-sensei doesn’t pull any punches in her depiction of what the “duties” of the chief are.  She’s a rather ruthless writer, something that occasionally comes across in the anime – one of the reasons it sometimes reminds me of Togashi.

While there are certainly unexplained (or at least unconfirmed) aspects to Yui’s personality change, it’s now obvious that he dealt with some pretty serious shit in order to protect Akira.  Lest anyone doubt it, male rape is certainly a real thing, and what the women of the Yuki-onna village do to their young “chief” comfortably qualifies.  It’s hardly surprising that Yui is so intent on protecting Akira from all this (even knowledge of it), especially after nature takes its course and Akira’s situation in the village becomes much more perilous.  We now know when and why the brothers split up.

None of that explains why Yui is possessed of superpowers unrelated to those of a Yuki-otoko.  The Nullstone does, however – which captures the keen interest of Inari-sama.  Meanwhile Nii-san comes up with a plan to defrost Inugami, Kabane, and Shiki, who he assures the panicking Akira are still alive.  Kabane’s survival is easy enough to explain, but the others’ not so much – it turns out Inugami-san has used his transformation ability not on himself and the boys, but the ice itself.  Kabane manages to extract himself, though at the cost of leaving his lower half (and his pants) behind.

Once more we see that under extreme pressure, Akira is capable of coming up big – especially when the survival of his friends is on the line.  Kabane doing battle with Yui is a no-win for Akira – the likely outcome is losing someone he can’t bear to lose.  So he concocts a plan to separate his brother from his friends, leaving behind the means (Nii-san and salt) to finish saving the others.  This comes at the cost or removing himself, too, which forces him to put on a performance which quite baffles Kabane, whose unerring emotional radar tells him that two seemingly contradictory things are true.

After talking “Mister” through the defrosting process, Nii-san relays a message from Inugami – Kabane can go after Akira, because Inari isn’t going to harm him under the circumstances.  The uneasy balance of the tanuki-kitsune dynamic remains a mystery, but Akira undeniably does need saving whether Inari’s promise about the Nullstone connecting Kabane with his parents has any truth to it or not.  Her agenda here is at least clear enough, and she already has Nobimaru trying to execute it.  But even if Inari isn’t going to take advantage of Inugami’s situation, what happens to Akira is obviously of little interest to her.

The focus on first Shiki and now Akira’s past is a reminder of the elephant in the room, and that Kemono Jihen has barely scratched the surface in terms of fleshing out its premise.  There’s a big story out there, that’s a given – the question is whether we’ll see that story play out on the screen.  If the adaptation had any intention of hurrying things along or crafting an original ending to give closure, it’s offered no evidence whatsoever of that so far.  Either this is the first stage of what’s intended to be a long journey, or one of the best advertisements for a manga you’ll ever see even in a medium that’s crowded with them.