Just quietly pretty great, that’s what this show is. Astoundingly consistent in terms of quality but equally versatile in terms of tone. I don’t expect a second season here (obviously I would love to be wrong), so we’re headed towards what will presumably be the “ending” as far as the anime is concerned. Given that the staff probably knew that going in, they’d have had the option to do something original in order to give the series closure. I have no idea if they actually are, but this episode definitely feels like it’s setting up something conclusive.
Basically the past and the present have been two arcs slowly (and elegantly) converging all season. And the streams finally crossed this week, in pretty explosive fashion. In the past, we see that Juurouta collected all of ***’s bones and erected a marker to them – which Nagi’s descendants have been watching over ever since. Juurouta was a hell of a guy, that’s for sure. He wants to protect the village, yes, but he also wants to protect the women he loves’ memory. As a human, she was heroic, And he has no way of knowing how much of that nature is going to wind up surviving in tatarigami form.
Back in the present, Kaoru is working a doujin event in costume for Miwa, and working Miwa for gifts as thanks. Tomita-san and Shinohara-san (known as “Mom” to her classmates) happen by, and Tomita immediately lamps Miwa as a potential threat, which Shinohara finds irresistibly juicy. A bored Hinata comes over to Dara-san’s house – apparently they’re just using a “torii portal” to get around at this point – bearing (stolen) castella, milk tea, and a terrifyingly complex-looking model kit.
It’s the holidays, so the siblings offer both a Christmas visit and a New Year’s cleaning, though Dara protests that she was trying to project a kind of tatarigami chic with the derelict look. One the Hatsumode is over (the kids hit Yamatagi-Madara’s shrine on the 3rd) it’s back to playtime, but Kaoru gets a cold after an extended super soaker battle in the snow. Dara-san has a rush of guilt over whether she’s a bad influence – she can’t feel the cold, and hanging with her might make the kids spirit magnets – but Kaoru will hear none of that.
Again, this weird bond between Dara and the siblings is low-key really heartwarming. Dara sets about a three-day spell of Misogi (cold-water prayer) because that’s all she can do for Kaoru. He’s fine – the whole anime cold thing is refreshingly low-key here – and even sick Kaoru is a force of nature. Once he’s back in the game he and Hinata are immediately all over Dara-san again, and this time they decide they want to set up a projector so she can see a movies, since she can’t leave town to go to the nearest cinema. She has just the place, she says, but that will turn out to be a bad decision on her part.
The place she chooses is an old cave she set up to contain Yamatagi-Madara. Hinata – who’s very sharp – quickly pieces together how all this fits in with Dara’s origin story. And soon enough the kids are trying to piece together the planks Dara used to create the sealing spell – which Dara soon realizes might have her name written on them. And indeed they do – it’s “Koharu”. A nice-enough name, but the impact is anything but. The memory of it was sealed away for a reason, and once Dara sees it what very much appears to be her older sister Tsubaki appears, having been inside her the entire time. Any way you slice it, that ain’t good, especially with Hinata and Kaoru in the line of fire. It sure does feel like a climax, whether it played out this way in the manga or not.
