I’m the first to say that this run of episodes has been Mononogatari at its anime best. But I have one not insignificant beef at the moment. As you may know my feeling is that in a post that’s mostly going to be positive but with a quibble, it’s better to get the negative out of the way so one can move on to the good stuff. And that quibble is this: I don’t buy the Bureau’s role here. I didn’t buy the original reason Tsumabiki offered for why they teamed up with the Warazamawashi, and I don’t buy that they’re brushing off Tsuzumi’s annihilation so breezily. If they are, the pair of them don’t have much sense of loyalty.
It’s possible the revelations in the next couple of eps may convince me that this development makes sense (though it strikes me as unlikely). It also kind of bugs me that the two of them would be surprised that the “living god” they awakened would be such a loose cannon. I get that it was seemingly different when Botan was a child, but really – they have no excuse to be surprised by any on this. It just makes the absence of a better reason than the one Tsumabiki gave last week that much more grating.
Without any question, this living god inside Botan is a powerful being. Powerful enough to make all the local (and maybe non-local, for all I know) tsukumogami bow towards it. It’s kind of interesting that doesn’t seem to be true of the bridal trousseau, though whether that’s a matter of distance or some other factor I don’t know. What I do know is that Hyouma jumping into the fray was enough to drag Botan back into a sort of standoff with the marebito for control of her body, which annoyed the umbrella academy to no end.
It seems very much as if was the moment (and perhaps the reason) Kushige re-entered the fray, though we don’t actually see his humanoid form. My assumption was that it was Kushige that re-established the Botan barrier (I don’t think she’s strong enough to do that on her own). It’s also around this time that the rest of the Nagatsukumogami drop in, having finally extricated themselves from the barrier. With Hyouma out on his feet their timing could hardly have been better, and if Kushige is indeed back in the fray that probably tilts the scales in their favor.
The other big shoe drop here is that Tenjitsu, the shady seeming leader of the Warazamawashi is revealed (thanks to Nagi shattering his parasol) and he has Hyouma’s brother’s face. Not only that, Takanashi Hideyori, who voiced Hayato, is voicing Tenjitsu. I don’t buy for a minute that this is actually Hyouma’s brother, but it’s odd that the umbrella that (presumably) killed him would have taken on his appearance. This provides yet another test of Hyoums’s resolve, which he passes yet again, but this is obviously a significant twist going forward.
SeijiSensei
September 6, 2023 at 10:37 pmSeems to me choosing to use the face of Hyouma’s brother was a decision by the Umbrella to disorient his opponent.
Nicc
September 7, 2023 at 6:28 amIn this episode, we see the marebito fully awaken in Botan, the first time it has happened since she was a child. She gets a new look and a new voice to go with it. All of the nearby tsukumogami bow towards her direction like it was an unspoken order they cannot refuse. Even Kai was compelled to bow his head. I too also wondered if this was localized or if this happened all across Japan and beyond. If it’s the latter, then it means everybody knows about it now, including the top brass of the Saenome. There will certainly be ramifications, but I don’t think we’ll be getting to that in this cour.
Right, I’m still trying to make sense of the actions of the Music Bureau. We learn that Fukie’s music eventually got into the heads of the Kadamori brothers and the other Saenome there, but he just left them there. That probably means that Taiju is fine too, but just adds to the question on what they want from humans. Now, the Umbrella Corp… wrong universe… seem to bow willingly, which makes sense for them. The marebito shows off some of their abilities by easily erasing Tsuzumi. Hyouma is in no condition to fight any further, but he still steps in and it seems that just one look from was enough to make Botan waver. She’s still in there and trying to fight it. The Cool Down Hug from Hyouma works to calm her down and just in time for Kushige to recover enough to put the barriers in Botan back up. We still don’t see his physical form yet and it looks like he still needs more time to get there.
Hyouma also calls out to the trousseau while they’re still trying to figure out how to escape from that barrier. They finally do and shattering Tenjitsu’s umbrella in the process. The timing is perfect too as the umbrellas were going after Hyouma. Yu being Yu made sure to separate Botan and Hyouma first. I was wondering why Tenjitsu’s face was being obscured, but we get the reveal that he’s wearing the face of Hyouma’s brother. Even Tsubaki is shocked. I concur with SeijiSensei that it was a ploy to psych out Hyouma, but again he pulls it back in. There’s another round of fighting to go as it’s the trousseau versus the remaining members of the Music Bureau, who seemed to have powered up. The preview suggests a face-to-face meeting between Hyouma and Tenjitsu. I wouldn’t be surprised if the face wasn’t the only thing Tenjitsu was able to copy.
DonkeyWan
September 10, 2023 at 10:05 pmThe main thing annoying me about the series at the minute is the amount of grandstanding going on. 3 episodes of flachback/exposition with the occassional bit of fighting is irksome. The other thing slightly annoying bit is that Hyouma’s rople seems to have been reduced to shouting he will protect someone, getting horribly injured, stoically soldiering on, shouting some more, then waiting for back up to take over. We have yet to see him really do anything worthy of a main protagonist, in fact at this stage he’s more like the sidekick who gets beat-up to justify the anger of the actual main stars.