「人の牛蒡で法事する」 (Hito no gobou de houji suru)
“To Treat a Man to Beef From His Own Cow”

With one more episode after this, it becomes clear that what we were to focus on during all this time wasn’t who would win and in what order, but rather what Nezumi’s power enables him to do. The second half reveals to the audience that it was possible for Nezumi to win solely because of his ability to foresee hundreds of different possibilities in the future, one/some of which would lead him to survival. This means he had to play out the tournament a hundred times and die a majority of those attempts just to get the algorithm where Sharyuu tells him how he can use Tsujii’s bombs to get rid of the zombies that Usagi creates. Similarly, the extent of his powers are introduced to us through a series of macabre time loops where Nezumi fails to find an equation where refusing the after-tournament interview doesn’t end in one overly-elaborate demise after another. This, Ushii verbally responding to his own thoughts on offering Usagi a memorial, and the idea that everyone finds him familiar because Nezumi hung out with them in different timelines were small points where the show got really clever.

What we got in the first half of the episode was a proper send-off to some of the best characters in the tournament. Ushii, who had begun redeeming himself around his fight with the twins, tragically remembers Tora from the battlefield, but can’t quite connect the dots that she’s the same person dressed in the Tiger gear. He also finds Nezumi to be admirable in his intentions by honing in on preventing the zombies from multiplying any further and the fact that Tora is a large reason why Nezumi could get his hands on Tsujii’s bombs. On the same note, we get to see Misaki not only as a zombie who puts Ushiii in a tough spot, but back when she was alive too, telling Nezumi how he could kill the zombies on the off-chance she was zombified. And speaking of zombies, everybody clap your hands for the most disgusting return from Usagi. It’s hard to believe he would’ve been very likely to have won, and given a post-fight interview in the state he’s in as a sewn-together meat puppet piloted by Sharyuu’s zombie.

From here forward, what we have to keep in mind is the extent of the Duedeculpe’s web of connections and influence. He spends the interview trying to align Nezumi and those that helped him get to where he’s at with the world powers who had bet on him to win. In addition, he has enough power in his grasp to set up several death traps in case the winner doesn’t fall in line with his goals. It will be interesting to see what Nezumi’s course of action will be given that his next move would be to figure out what his wish will be. And now that the tournament has culminated in Nezumi trying to figure out how to survive granting a wish, and if any of this factors into Misaki’s plans for peace, the remaining time will be invested into finding out how on earth this show will end!

Preview

15 Comments

  1. I read the novel and there are a few things the anime didn’t make clear.

    -Snake’s ability to navigate without a head because of his Dragon’s Guidance. Yes, Rabbit’s zombies can use the abilities they had in life.
    -Rabbit’s necromancy applies to people killed by his zombies. Hence the birds he used to ferret out Rat and Monkey were the ones killed by zombie Boar.
    -Right before he was killed, Rabbit bit off his own tongue and choked on it, killing and enslaving himself.

    Finally, the rat is out of the bag. As fans speculated, his power is a Re:Zero-esque probability ability. His Hundred Paths of Nezumi-san allow him to experience a hundred possibilities and choose which one to make reality. The experience is very taxing as can be seen from his sleepiness and by no means did this actually guarantee victory for him. Related parties also feel vague familiarity with him.

    As for how he seemingly teleported into Horse’s hidey hole, he spent ten possibilities looking for a way to slip through the barricade.

    This was in fact where the novel ended. The novel was a prequel to a one-shot manga, Dōshitemo Kanaetai Tatta Hitotsu no Negai to Wari to Sō demo Nai 99 no Negai, which is the title of the next episode.

    bakato
    1. Thanks for your clarification, but I think the first point was shown more than once in the Anime.
      Like how Dragons upper body could still levitate, or Shuryuu turned the bank vault to sand.
      And Snake did put his hand on the floor to detect Rats position though that could really be missed.

      1993espada
      1. you speak from inexperience, some people are beyond clueless, you have to lay it out for them like elementary math for them to get it, just visit big anime discussion sites like myanimelist, it gave me headache talking to those people the first time, unless you tell them and explain why red is red and that’s it they will believe in whatever they believe in.

        John
  2. The novel states that despite the many probabilities Rat can look at, there are cases where the outcome will always be set in stone, no matter what he does.
    Rat’s bio states he tried using this power to see if he could confess to a girl he liked. She rejected him in all routes.

    zztop
    1. he tried using this power to see if he could confess to a girl he liked. She rejected him in all routes.

      Damn, and there was I thinking that would be a really good use of the Hundred Paths ability if I had it!

      Angelus
  3. i got the impression that nezumi’s ability is very mentaly demanding.. and I liked that there were limitations placed upon it.

    It seems like a total OP power.. but clearly it is a very taxing to examine all routes and also must leave the user wondering if they picked the best route.. (also there must be a limit as to how far into the possibility he is able to “see”.) hence he is sleeping all the time..

    the odd hints placed here and there by other characters who somewhat recognise him ever though they have never met suggested that perhaps, Nezumi is able to interact with a number of potential futures before living one.. and somewhat lives each of them all at once in a manner of quantum possibility..

    (the shrodingers cat analogy seems misplaced.. this was always an analogy about the ridiculousness of the thought experiment itself and not a demonstration of quantum behaviour.)

    there must also be an inate fear if you encounter a situation from which there is no escape.. (eg.. trapped in a 100 situations where you will die..)

    i liked this episode a lot..

    hells though, how op is the dude running this thing though… he seems to have the power to obliterate nezumi without moving from his chair (0-0 )

    defunkt_bots
    1. There’s a theory I’ve seen that Duodeuceple (the person who runs all this) is able to absorb the abilities of the dead warriors in some form. Given that 12 Juuni Taisens have now finished, that’s a lot of abilities. Certainly, it seems fairly clear he’s some sort of supernatural being.

      Aki-Chan
  4. I’m hyped for next episode, especially considering it’s technically the adaptation of the follow-up to the novel (the novel’s events ended at the point this episode ended). Hopefully we’ll get some explanations of various things (a little of Nezumi’s backstory maybe, or how exactly he and Usagi hit it off….and actually, even any glimpses of those other realities he teamed up with other warriors).

    Aki-Chan
  5. The things i liked this episode:-
    1-I like that they kept Usagi a complete mystery, he is so bizarre, unfathomable and crazy no one seems to get what he wants at all or the logic he operates if there is any, it made him a little bit more terrifying than a typical villain, specially that we didn’t see his backstory, it worked really well with his character that he is such a complete enigma (made even more interesting by Nezumi’s comment on how in one of the possible futures he and Usagi actually got along, must have been one bizarre sight, considering Usagi’s idea about friendship is turning people into his zombie slaves).

    2-The people behind the tournament are also an enigma, especially the one who runs the show Duodeuceple, is there another purpose aside from betting (countries no less), i mean some of the Nezumi’s deaths seemed supernatural (like the sword through the wall, wtf was that, was this the power of a contestant from a previous tournament), so it seems they might be collecting something from the participants or maybe the winners (or both), i wonder what Nezumi will wish for and if wishing the tournament would end -probably would have been Monkey’s wish- is a possible wish considering the scale of the whole damn thing)

    3-It’s interesting that despite Ox being a killing machine (genius of slaughter as they called him) he didn’t have any special powers or tools (wonder if the horns where just for a decoration, and the irony of the Ox wearing the Matador outfit XD), he was also surprisingly a noble gentle guy, it gave him a bit more depth than if he was just some stoic silent killer types we see a lot in anime.

    Hunter-Wolf

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