Summary:

Yunyun tries to pretend not to recognize Maria, but she ends up having no choice but to join the group. During a rest stop, she reveals that she’ll die if she runs out of medicine, and she had wanted to see her home village again. Maria doesn’t want her to die, and Canaan doesn’t either, but their conversation is interrupted by the appearance of a gunman. Canaan tries to stop him, but it’s hard for her to fight without her synesthesia abilities, and ultimately it’s Hakko who disorients him with her yell. That leads to the gunman taking off his helmet, and the exposure to the sun causes him to die. Afterward, Santana identifies the man as an Unbloom, and Minoru has Maria take a picture of the corpse. The group then proceeds on to the village, and once there, Santana finally explains to Minoru how he used to be in the CIA. They had spread the Ua Virus to the village and used it to test an anti-virus, but Santana didn’t realize until later that this was actually an experiment to manufacture Creatures using the side effect of the Ua Virus. Minoru realizes that this means that the CIA was actually working with Alphard’s organization. In any case, Santana eventually left the CIA, and he met Natsume whose NGO’s job was to find traces of the crimes that the CIA committed.

Santana also explains that Unblooms are those who couldn’t become Borners, and at the end of the discussion, he asks Minoru to help Hakko if anything happens to him while he tries to deal with his past. This is cut short by the sudden arrival of an attack helicopter piloted by Liang Qi, and she starts firing missiles at the village. She manages to hit the building that Canaan takes shelter in, but her assault is interrupted by another helicopter, this one under the control of Alphard. Alphard is here to take out Liang Qi, but when she runs out of machine gun ammo and tries to have Cummings give her more, he shoots her because he doesn’t want her to kill Liang Qi. Alphard, however, had replaced his gun with an air gun, and she points her own gun at him for betraying her, allowing him one last word before he dies. Cummings can only say Ai (love) before he gets shot, but it turns out that Alphard also isn’t using real bullets either and has spared him because she’s interested in his and Liang Qi’s concept of love.

After Liang Qi flies off, Alphard lands her helicopter and locates Canaan inside the rubble of the destroyed building. When she realizes that Canaan can’t see her color, she reminds Canaan of Siam and how she killed him. Canaan notes that Siam was her light, but she has a new light, and this prompts Alphard to tell her not to die until she shows her true power. With a trace of her synesthesia ability now active, Canaan realizes that Alphard has an odd color – the same light brown color that Siam had. Canaan then loses consciousness, and Alphard feels that Canaan wasn’t hope and that there doesn’t need to be two with the name Canaan. Nevertheless, Alphard drags her out of the rubble just as Maria and the rest of the group arrives. Santana wants to shoot her, but Alphard explains that she’s going to the place called Factory where she’ll destroy everything, so they should let her go. She also instructs Maria to tell Canaan that Canaan’s true name is despair.

Preview

This episode answered some questions about the terminology they’ve been using (Unblooms, Borners, Factory) and about the village, but it raised even more questions with the way Alphard acted. I’m still not sure what her motivations are or why she wants to see Canaan’s true power so much that she’d save Canaan. I mean, it seems pretty clear that Canaan disgusts her, and she seems to want Canaan to suffer. But then there’s the fact that Canaan sees in her the same color she saw in Siam, and the fact that she claims she’s going to destroy everything at Factory, both of which would seem like good things. It makes me think that she’s not the villain I thought she was, but I really have no idea what she’s going to do or where the story is going. I will say again though that I love Sakamoto Maaya in a role like this so different from her norm.

As for the other characters Yunyun was amusing in the beginning, but it was really Liang Qi – and to a lesser extent Cummings – who was more fun to watch thanks to her love craziness. I had thought she’d be dead by now, but it looks like any fight with her won’t be until at least next episode. The preview doesn’t hint at anything in that regard, but it does show Hakko looking desperate with a gun and Canaan with her synesthesia abilities back, so they’ve at least piqued my curiosity.

20 Comments

  1. @Omni : I thought it’s 12 episodes …
    But good episode. Seems Canaan for the moment completely lost against Alphard …but don’t you find Alphard character complex ?

    Well…I can’t wait to see MinoruxHakko relation progressing ^^

    Oh …yunyun ..please a meatbun !

  2. yeah another CIA-plot-and-crimes fiction…
    CIA is, first and most a beaurocracy, with complete lack of capacity for such experiments… and its under strict congress supervision. and btw, if bio-weapons would be tested, it would be army – namely medical corps – not CIA – responsible for such actions…
    still real life aside, nice episode

    ewok
  3. alphard is seeking redemption at the hands of canaan she wants canaan to prove her wrong i just hope she(alphard) doesn,t die before that because she has giving up on everyone especially siam this episode kind f showed that alphard is indeed jealous of canaan because siam choose canaan over her

    zyck
  4. This was a good episode, I hope it’s not just 13 episodes.

    Ewok maybe you’ve not seen the docs I have, but it would shock you what the CIA have done in the past and are capable of; it was way beyond what I thought.

    Naanac
  5. My theoryness on Alphard: Siam’s last words included his thought that Canaan was different from him and Alphard who fought with a basis of hate. Perhaps Alphard at this stage has become like Siam – a person who’s fought on hate for so long she’s become jaded and looking to the unlikeliest things for hope.

    I note however that Maaya’s voice for this role is very similar to her role in the epic that is Kara no Kyoukai -_-

    S_1
  6. AI NO SHOGEKI!!

    *Launches FFAR at Canaan*

    Heh. Between this and the Fuchsia-colored Wii nunchuk-of-doom, I think I’m starting to like Liang Qi. It’d be a shame if she kicked the bucket too early.

    Allanx

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