I suspect Mao is a series that appeals to viewers who like stability and order. For 25 episodes it’s been remarkably free of fits and starts. Consistent? Yes – but it goes deeper than that. What strikes me is that the amount of “stuff” – action, exposition, character drama, comedy – in each episode is virtually identical from week to week. It just keeps relentlessly moving forward, the anime equivalent of “It Follows”. The compare and contrast it and Demons of the Shadow Realm provide ends this week, but seeing the work of these two legendary mangaka side-by-side for six months has been a fascinating experience.

As always with Rumiko, every character has a very specific and well-defined role in stitching the plot together. Wait and eventually she’ll reveal it with total clarity. As for Kagari, the girl at Hakubi’s side, she’s responsible for the crisis Mao’s exorcism was supposed to address. Except it’s no exorcism as there’s no possession. Rather, this is a curse – using one of her Puppet Needles. T crime? Confronting Kagari for cursing students at their school. Dealing with this is easy enough for Mao but the afflicted girl is too scares to go back to school, forcing a Plan B in getting to the bottom of the curse incidents.

That Plan B is Nanoka going undercover – not the high school uniform she was planning to wear. In the end Nanoka doesn’t ever say no to Mao even if she’s piqued, and so is the case here. Kagari isn’t exactly making it hard to track her down – she’s a cursing fiend, flinging her needles left and right willy nilly to anyone who farts in her general direction. As she will later explain to Nanoka, this is all practice for her – cursed needles are the family business. And she’s the one in charge of using the ability on behalf of the Goko Clan, who – in the person of Hakubi – have claimed the attack as belonging to them.

Once the two girls cross paths they recognize each other and Kagari moves to stick her proverbial claws into Nanoka. Nanoka manages to dodge everything but what looks like a sewing pin – the item that will act as a homing device for her other needles. Mao finds it and removes it but unbeknownst to him it still works. But Kagari is arrogant and sloppy, clearly thinking a lot more of herself and her family ability that reality justifies. She got Mao with it once when he wasn’t aware the needles existed, but now this is child’s play to him and he soon turns her tricks back on Kagari, forcing her to take him to Nanoka.

That’s going to prove significant not because of Kagari but Yurako, whose bidding she seems willing to do. Yurako is really the last of the major players introduced this season to have her role clarified, but this final two-episode arc seems focused on doing that. Having had Kagari fetch Nanoka, Yurako promptly has her remove her needle and scram, clearly intent on grilling Nanoka about Mao. Nanoka asks all the right questions quite bluntly and straight out, but Yurako is only half-listening. “Does Mao think about me?” is pretty much the only thing on her mind.

So who is Yurako, really? Not Lady Sana – she’s insistent on that. And incensed at the idea that her face belongs to Sana. But she has been around since the Goko Clan days – she makes that clear. And the fact that she’s been in love with Mao for 900 years confirms that she’s indeed not Sana, who was in love with Daigou. She tells Nanoka that her name is a combination of the Kanji for “Ghoul” and “Rakshasa” – the flesh-eating demons knows as Rasetsu in Japan. All this certainly implies that Yurako isn’t human, but just who or what is she? We’re going to find out next week, looks like, and it’s important enough that Mao is ending the season with it.