Five episodes (out of 12) in, it really doesn’t make much sense to hedge at this point.  I’m committing to Revenger simply because I really like it – I think it’s very solid across the board, with the potential to level up even more in its second half.  The truth is I would have done so sooner if it hadn’t been for Urobuchi Gen’s involvement, which is ironic as he’s a far more interesting writer than most anime can brag on.  But he’s always a yellow flag because his history simply can’t be ignored.  But when it’s time to leap, you just have to leap and hope that ledge is as sturdy as it looks.

This was probably the most Urobutcher episode yet in terms of being existentially bleak (his bailiwick).  As such it was fitting that it focused on Nio, who’s certainly the darkest character in the main cast.  He may just be the most interesting too, for reasons this episode did a very good job of highlighting, though even the supporting players like Souji and Teppa are proving to have considerable nuance.  Nothing seems to thrill Urobuchi more than children being brutalized physically and emotionally, and this was right up his alley.  But Nio is all about control – the question is just how secure that facade really is.

The brutalizer-in-chief here is Douan (Hayami Show, an Urobuchi fave).  He’s a freak who runs a freakshow, kind of a cross between Pennywise and Fred Mertz in appearance.  We know he locks up children in cages for his traveling circus, and maybe he does a lot more than that to them too – whether that part is just about Nio or all “his” kids isn’t 100% clear.  Are these kids odd in some way that makes them suitable for show, or does Douan mutilate them to make them so?  That isn’t clear either, but at the very least he’s a kidnapper and a pedophile (upholding a long-standing tradition of scumbag freakshow masters in both reality and fiction).

Douan gets most of his stock from abducting poor children from the mountains (Yuuen makes it clear that the authorities could care less).  It so happens he abducts two urchins who are friends with Hana (from the boarding house), which loops the Reben-ji into the situation.  Douan also shows up at Nio’s kite-fighting event (which Souji has bet his remaining wad on), pleading with Yuuen to “give back” Nio.  Douan makes a point of calling Nio a monster and a demon, but Yuuen insists that he’s a human being and (obviously) refuses the man.  His presence, though, does freak Nio out enough (the first crack in the facade) to lose the battle and with it Souji’s stash.

Intermixed with this main plot is a very interesting conversation between Souji and Raizou, who’s still working on his art.  Souji can’t figure out how a guy who only ever killed people can have a gift for painting (guess he doesn’t know Miyamoto Musashi’s story), but Raizou explains that he gets the same feeling when painting as he does staring down an appointment, as if time were standing still.  “Once you achieve the state, what you do is of little concern”.  To which Souji asks absolutely the right question – if that’s the case, why did all those people you killed have to die?

Nio naturally defies Yuuen’s order to stay hidden while Douan is in town, instead going straight to his camp.  The clever fox manages to get Douan to give him a gold coin in exchange for coming back, which Nio then gets Hana’s friends to bite.  Once the gold is bitten the Reben-ji can’t refuse the job, though it seems Nio couldn’t be the one to bite it himself.  Nio’s commission for bringing in the business is that he wants to end Douan himself, which leaves Teppa, Souji, and Raizou strictly as decoys.  Nevertheless they have their hands full with Douan’s freaks to say the least.  The kindly snake woman frees the children when all hell breaks loose, with Yuuen’s help.

That final scene between Nio (who camera angles seem to suggest may be physically intersex – or they could just be camera angles) and Douan is appropriately creepy and fucked up.  Nio had to be pretty confident that Douan couldn’t make him “his” in the way he suggested – if he hadn’t known how this would end up, he never would have gone through with it.  No, Nio is in control of this situation right from the beginning, and it follows the exact course he will have planned out.  That’s the way he likes things.

The interesting question about all this is Nio’s motivation.  Was it, as he says, simply a matter of recouping Souji’s money, and the caged kids would have been “better off than in the mountains” anyway?  I think he had far more personal motivation here, even if he’d never admit it.  “Even if it only amounts to an excuse,” Teppa says about himself, “we try and justify the things we do.  Except for Nio, who doesn’t feel the need.”  All of these people are engaged in this charade, pretending that they aren’t simple hired killers.  Nio seems to be the only one who feels no need to justify his actions.  Maybe he is a monster, as Douan says, or maybe he still has time to develop into a human being, as Yuuen wants for him.  But if that’s the goal, this lifestyle is hardly the right choice to pursue it.