D.Gray-man – 16

Summary:

In the land of Roma 1000 years ago, there was a beautiful princess named Sandra. Though she got many marriage proposals, Sandra had said that she wanted to be the wife of the strongest man in the world, and so she had her suitors tested in a fight against the gladiator Vittorio. Nobody could defeat him, and it’s said that the fights continue to even today. It is on this rainy day that Kanda faces off against a swordsman in the ruins of a coliseum. Meanwhile, back at the Black Order headquarters, Allen is learning from Komui that Kanda has gone missing. To make things worse, there are lots of Akuma in the area, so Komui is sending Allen to investigate. He is joined by Lenalee, but she still seems to be angry at him for what happened during the Road battle. Since they haven’t had a chance to talk since then, Allen lowers his head and apologizes to her in the middle of the train station. Lenalee places her groceries on her head and tells him that he can’t raise his head because she hasn’t forgiven him yet. She feels that he’s selfish for sacrificing only himself in battle, and questions why he won’t fight together with her. It is because his left eye allows only him to see Akuma’s souls that she hates it. When Allen thanks her for helping him, the now-crying Lenalee tells him that she’ll always help him.

On the train, Lenalee tells Allen about a gladiator in Roma who has supposedly lived for 1000 years and the potential connection to an Innocence. The reports indicate that the area around the arena has become infested with Akuma, but any Akuma who go inside don’t ever come back out. This would seem to mean that the gladiator who has Innocence is defeating them. When they arrive in town, the pair find plenty of men with guns – bounty hunters. They are gathered here to get back the daughter of the Sardinia family Claudia who was kidnapped by Vittorio. That night, Claudia’s fiancé make an announcement that the bounty hunters who get back Claudia will receive a reward of 10% of the Sardinia fortune. The father isn’t too happy with the fiancé deciding this, but he also wants his daughter back. He tells Allen and Lenalee that Vittorio came one night and reported to Claudia that the strongest man in the world has not shown up yet. The fiancé meanwhile feels that they don’t need the bounty hunters if they have the help of the Black Order, but Allen flat out refuses him. Having noticed them talk about money and position and property, Allen question what’s most important to these men. He feels that it’s because the father and the fiancé are like this that Claudia ran away.

The next day, all the bounty hunters head to the arena in search of Vittorio and Claudia. However, a large group of Akuma also arrives and starts killing them. While Allen and Lenalee are trying to fight the Akuma, the fiancé has meanwhile raised the reward to 1/5 of the Sardinia fortune in order to attract more men. Inside the arena, another group wheels in a machine gun, but it does no damage against the Akuma. Instead, Vittorio appears and slices one open. The men target him with the gun, but the bullets are once again ineffective. Allen is about to go down to face the swordsman when Kanda appears and says that Vittorio is his catch. He doesn’t want Allen to interfere and starts fighting with Vittorio as his Finder comes over to explain that the sword is Vittorio’s Innocence. Kanda eventually is able to land a blow that causes large amounts of blood to spurt from Vittorio’s shoulder, but the swordsman heals it with the power of his Innocence. Vittorio then responds by slicing into Kanda’s side with his sword, causing Kanda to lose a large amount of blood in a short period of time.

Preview

Since this is the first time since Lenalee recovered that Allen’s been back with her, they added the parts from the manga where the two make up. I think it’s good that they’re at least trying for some sort of continuity even as they’re straying from the main manga storyline. It still remains to be seen how they resolve the eye thing later, but that’s still a ways off.
For the most part though, this episode didn’t really get that interesting until the action started. Because of some of the previous censoring-type changes, I was surprised by how much blood they put in during the Kanda vs. Vittorio fight. Maybe that’s not considered quite as violent as stabbing someone in the eye.
Next episode should finish this mini-arc, and then we have an episode titled Lenalee’s Love that will supposedly mark the return of the Komurin robot. After that, we’re going to get back to the manga with Arystar’s arc starting episode 19.