When it comes to anime and this site, context matters. It’s an extremely thin season, even if what there is of it is jammed almost entirely into the weekend. Forget the bubble – I honestly don’t know how I’m going to put together a Patron Pick list for this season. So I can’t even really consider dropping something like Firefly Wedding until it gives me no choice. It’s not formulaic, it’s well-produced, it’s interesting and weird if nothing else. But that said, I sure don’t know what to make of it.

Series don’t always have to have a point, don’t get me wrong. But I do like to have an idea what they’re thinking. When I say I’m not sure what the point of this show is it’s because there’s no other way to say it. What are we supposed to think of this situation? Is Satoko just going to be ground in the gears and humiliated every week (though would kind of be the classic shoujo approach). Are we not supposed to be repulsed by the fact that Shinpei is an absolute sociopath? Or is this all just being presented for entertainment’s sake, in voyeuristic fashion?

Any way you slice it, this is a pretty messed up situation. Shinpei pushes Satoko into being a courtesan (a very charitable application of the term), at the shadiest brothel on the island to boot. He tells her she needs to get a customer to buy her out, then follows her into her meeting with her first customer and proceeds to stab him. I get that he’s not the sharpest tooth on the saw, but does he not understand how this works? On some level this all sort of defies logic to be honest.

Immediately Satoko gets paired off with Nitobe Eishin, the son of the superintendent of police on the mainland and an almost literal Jekyll-and-Hyde personality. He seems mild enough, but get any alcohol in him and he turns into a savage monster. As such he’s been banned from all the decent brothels on the island. He presents as shy and awkward and this is Satoko’s first time, so there is a certain connection happening here. Satoko considers that given his position, Eishin may be able to help her get off the island. He offers to in fact, eventually attaching it to an offer of marriage. And Shinpei has been watching the whole thing from a front-row seat.

For just a flash I was worried on Eishin’s behalf, as Shinpei just flat-out killing him seemed like a fair possibility. But one of the three courtesans Satoko made enemies of – also at this brothel – switches out Eishin’s water for sake and we see the other side of the man. At this stage Shinpei’s presence becomes welcome, and he eventually steps in and stabs Eishin through the arm. He’s intent on killing him too, against Satoko’s wishes, but Eishin is armed and uses his pistol to put a bullet through Shinpei’s shoulder at close range.

Satoko has spirit, I’ll give her that, and she’s pretty cool under pressure. But why shoujo so often fixate on abusing the heroine is quite beyond me I have to admit. There is going to come a point, even in this season, where I need to have some idea of why I should be watching this series if I’m going to keep doing so, never mind covering it. But I’m not quite at that point yet, so I’ll give it at least one more week to make its case.