Just a reminder: The future of LiA is very much in doubt, and it’s up to you to decide what happens next.  Thank you for all your support!

That kicked my ass and left me for dead by the side of the road, in the way only Made in Abyss can.  From the opening with Belaf to the strains of “Hanezeve Caradhina” (always a clue something emotionally heavy is going down), the emotional barrage was relentless.  This series is just so hard, in so many ways – it never lets up on you as the audience.  It’s demanding, it’s difficult, it’s painful, it’s awkward and unsettling.  I haven’t felt the need to trot out that opening line since Orange (Episode 4, I checked) but it definitely fits.

Belaf was the one of the original expedition who most suffered through what happened, as much or even more than Vueko I think.  Both of them took their fates as a sort of deserved punishment, rightly or wrongly.  His giving Nanachi his memories and releasing her and Mitty as a sort of benediction was perfectly in-character, both for Made in Abyss and the character himself.   But what he offers Nanachi is not freedom, because it forces yet another impossible choice on her.  That’s what Retsujitsu no Ougankyou is all about more than anything else, I think – impossible choices.

Nanachi’s decision was, again, perfectly in-character.  She can’t abandon Reg and Riko for the past, even if the past looks and feels like the Mitty from before the worst Bondrewd could inflict upon her.  This brief reunion was a sort of dream, and I think one from which Nanachi always knew she would wake up.  She embraces her responsibilities and makes the painful choice, though this at least gives her the closure of having seen Mitty off herself.  It’s also a reminder that what’s true of Mitty is true of everyone else in Iruburu – there’s no leaving this place for them.  One way or another it’s their final rest.

Meanwhile, Gaburoon is protecting Riko, Ma, and Moogie  – along with a few other hollows – from Faputa’s murderous rampage as Reg dozes and Wazukyan and Vueko look on from above.  It’s every bit the slaughter you’d expect, though it’s not the gore that makes this episode so brutal – it’s the karmic pain which suffuses every pore of it.  I’ve seen it argued (absurdly, in my view) that these hollows are not truly sentient, have lost the essence of what made them human and individual.  Well, they sure as hell don’t act like it.  They fight and die to try and protect each other and their village.  They have memories of the past and dreams of the future, and regrets about both.  You can argue that Faputa is justified in annihilating them, but don’t let yourself off the hook by devaluing those she’s destroying.

This is a very, very, dark and difficult situation morally speaking.  Tsukushi designed it to be.  Just as one can’t reasonably dismiss this as anything but a massacre, Faputa can’t be pardoned with ignorance.  Gaburoon has been visiting Iruburu – she knows full well that inside the village is a thriving culture.  The problem is that culture is an affront to her very being, and she’s perfectly justified in feeling that way.  Gaburoon makes it clear to Reg once he awakes that this is something he can’t run away from – he has to make a decision and face down Faputa, if that’s what he chooses to do.  Reg doesn’t remember as much as Gaburoon does, but he remembers enough to know that Gaburoon is right.

Not for the first time, poor Reg.  I’ve come to view his context within this story as the embodiment of pure goodness.  Reg is (as Faputa keeps repeating) kind – limitlessly kind.  All of his impulses are driven by empathy and integrity, and that, combined with his tremendous power, constantly puts him in impossible situations.  In the past (his already being named Reg almost assures that it was Riko’s mother that named him) his kindness towards Faputa made her fall in love with him.  Not all the memories come back as he and Faputa struggle but enough do to recall the emotions they shared.  That Reg never had to see this Faputa, and the promise he made to return and go adventuring with her was made in good faith, but without the knowledge of what she truly is.

This is the latest impossible dilemma Reg finds himself in.  How to stop Faputa, who he loved, from destroying herself in a sea of rage until nothing is left.  How to save a village that was created from terrible darkness, but now claims a hold on the heart of Reg’s current companion.  I don’t see any reason to suspect Wazukyan is powerful enough to do either, so Reg carries the fate of all on his narrow shoulders.  I don’t know what the right answer is here, but I do know it’s not a simple question.  Perhaps most fascinatingly, I don’t even know what Irumyuui would want to happen (and I don’t think it’s as obvious as some would have you believe).