Butterflies everywhere!

I’m gonna need a bigger notebook at this rate.  The mythology of Summertime Render is expanding so fast that it seems hard to believe we’re not even one-third of the way through the story yet.  Just how much are Tanaka Yasunori – and Watanabe Ayumu – going to cram in here?  Of course, if it follows the common course for series of this type, at some point it’s going to be a like a rubber band stretched to its limits and released.  All the infodumps will come due and assert their importance as the focus contracts rather than expands – and likely at a much faster rate.

OK, let’s try a more systematic approach this week and see if that helps me organize my thoughts…

• Shadows “target families”.  OK, we sort of knew what.  The question is why – though I can think of some obvious reasons, some more philosophical and others more practical.  Obviously if the entirely of a closed group is taken over, it’s easy to keep that a secret from outsiders.  But – especially given “Shiori’s” comments later in the episode – I wonder if these shadows don’t covet the human family dynamic for some reason.
• Immunity – this is obviously a big one.  Once your shadow is killed you can’t be copied again (judging from my reactions to each, I think that sledgehammer is more likely Moderna than Pfizer).  Nezu has it – “Ryuunosuke” doesn’t.  Of course all this is contingent on Ryuunosuke’s theory being right, and we know she’s not infallible.
• The question of Hizuru-Ryuunosuke’s identity seems crucial.  I started out gravitating towards dual personalities, then edged away from that after Episode 6.  Now it seems more or less to be confirmed, but Nezu’s “close, but not quite” when Shinpei suggested it is clearly important.  We know Hizuru and Ryuunosuke were twins, and that he was killed by shadows 14 years ago.  Did she take on his personality as a means of denial of his death, or is – as Nezu may be suggesting – something more going on here?
• Shiori’s shadow was special – which Hizuru didn’t seem to know was possible.  It couldn’t be killed with a single hammer blow.
• However, it could be trapped by nails at three points in its body – which we now know is a thing.
• Shiori’s interrogation was full of significance, seemingly.  Did she kill Ushio?  Yes, or so she says.  She also says “the end” is coming this summer, and makes note of her plans to “go home” with her family.  That’s an interesting statement for all sorts of reasons, not least that she should have known that she was about to be killed by Ryuunosuke.  Her “parents” has also just been eliminated, and clearly these shadows inhabit the roles of the people they replace to a certain extent.  What exactly was she referring to with that statement?

Hizuru literally punching herself in the face to stop the conversation between Ryuunosuke and Shinpei was a funny moment, but it suggests that this dual personalty thing is not a mere affectation but a real disorder (or something else).  The path Shinpei was starting to wander down – pondering the difference between these perfect copies and the ones they replace – struck her as a very dangerous one (ironically, given that she strode that path in “Swampman”).  And I can see why – the blurrier these lines get, the harder it will be to do what must be done.  But might we be progressing towards a point where Summertime Render calls into question whether “what must be done” is as obvious as it seems to be right now?

It’s also becoming increasingly clear that the changes Shinpei is causing every time he comes back are having an impact on events and behaviors (like Mio trying to cook for him, for example).  This is inevitable but it points up an inherent problem Shinpei faces – his advantage is in knowing about future events before they happen.  But the more he tries to influence events, the more they change and the less knowledge he has to leverage.  Ushio showing up in the Kofune house this time is a huge change, and caught Shinpei totally by surprise – calling into question whether any of the events he expects to occur from this point forward will play out as he remembers them.