I speculated that Anko-san’s arrival might not have been an entirely bad thing, given how perilous Mahiru’s situation looked to be. But this episode was a reminder that as long as you consider vampires like Nazuna the good guys, Anko is the enemy. She’s quite a mystery still, both in terms of her motives and her seemingly superhuman physical abilities. It seems very likely Anko believes she’s acting in the service of right and justice, but she also appears to be driven by a deeply personal hatred of vampires (that too isn’t fully explored).

I mean, it would be hard to imagine a more harmless vamp than Akkun appears to be. Why does he need to be killed, really? Yet it’s Akkun she targets, though in a fashion she appears confident won’t kill him. We learned quite a lot this week lore-wise, not least that a personal item from a vamp’s human days is a weakness that can be exploited. That includes Akkun’s glasses of course, which Anko exploits to her advantage. She demands Akkun reveal who turned him, though why that specific information is so crucial to her in unclear. She doesn’t have to wait long – Seri arrives on the scene, tilting the odds in a vampiric direction.

Anko asks Kou about Nazuna, and seems about to ask Mahiru about Kiku but defers the question. That leaves Team Kou rather shaken and they head over to Nazuna’s place to talk strategy. Not before Kou gives Akkun some of his blood, however, which everyone correctly assumes will piss Nazuna-chan off. Mahiru offers that he could have stepped up, but Kou tells him that once a human is fed upon they only have a year to turn, so doing so would have started Mahiru’s “clock”. Nazuna is indeed peeved, but it’s not a big deal apart from comic relief.

The other huge lore-drop here was that vamps gradually lose their human memories after they turn, a fact I don’t believe had been revealed previously. With Anko going around researching their weaknesses that leaves this vampire cadre at a considerable disadvantage, and it’s resolved to research the matter on their own and try and beat her to the punch. It appears that some remember more than others, and Nazuna professes to remember nothing at all from her human days and precious little from her early vampire ones.

This conversation between Naz and Kou, in addition to being pretty adorable, was probably a long time coming. Even setting aside the vamp thing the age difference here is the elephant in the room, and you can bet Kou thinks about it a lot. Naz is understandably reluctant to share too many details (and may remember more than she admits) but finally owns up that she’s probably in her 30s or 40s. In her mind this was kind of a worst-case scenario – not over a hundred which would be cool in a goth way, but just old enough to appear ancient to a 14 year-old boy. Kou admirably tries to salvage the situation as best someone so inexperienced can (he plays the “onee-san” card) but Nazuna is uncomfortably aware of the gulf that exists between them (and make no mistake, she’s in love with this man-child).

A search of Nazuna’s pad – in which waking up is her first memory, she says – reveals only one possible clue – a clinic patient ID card. A night visit follows, with Nazuna waxing lyrical about ghosts and such and Kou seeming totally unaffected. But there are footsteps on the second floor – Kou reasons that the biggest danger here is a human guard, not a ghost. And they belong to Kabura-san, another of those S1 characters I had to look up when she appeared. Kabura first showed up in Episode 7 (in that rooftop scene) and I don’t believe she’s been around since.

Kou is right of course – Kabura-san being a nurse here is extremely unlikely to be a coincidence. And her anxiousness to steer Nazuna away from investigating further amply supports Kou’s suspicion. It’s certainly possible that Kabura was the one who turned Nazuna, though the truth could be more convoluted than that. At this point it’s probably safe to assume Anko has been here already, so whatever the connection is it behooves Kou and Nazuna to glean the truth as quickly and completely as possible. Kabura isn’t going to make that easy – her “condition” guarantees that – but it’s one that’s probably going to have to be met.