「失意の果てに~凶刃~」 (Shitsui no Hate Ni ~ Kyoujin ~)
“The Limits of Despair ~ Assassin’s Dagger ~ “

While last week’s episode kind of foreshadowed that something was going to happen to Isshin, I never expected that he would go down as hard or as fast as he did. Under the circumstances, I’m still amazed that what happened, actually happened. As Gotou and Ishii make a mad rush to the temple, worried about Isshin’s safety, they arrive to find both Isshin and Nao are safe and sound. With Ishii taking Nao to the car, Gotou explains how dire the situation is to Isshin. For some god awful reason, Isshin takes this chance to reveal how reckless of a person he really is – knocking out Gotou as Yakumo’s father appears. He then decides to follow right behind him, alone, into the temple. But the stupidity of the situation doesn’t end there, Isshin then decides to sit with his legs folded as he lectures Yakumo’s father about how ridiculous his ideals are – only to get stabbed in the chest. As the feeling of rage inside me slowly dissipates as I try to finish this paragraph, it annoys me how reckless Isshin was. Instead of attempting to put up some sort of struggle, he decides to shamelessly put his life in danger. I mean, he took the time to tell Gotou to take care of Nao if something was to happen to him but I didn’t expect him to be the reason why something would happen to him.

As Isshin falls into a coma and is stuck in a hospital bed Yakumo opts to stay at the hospital to be at his side. Even with all the ridiculous things that have happened so far, a small ray of light manages to shine through all the darkness in this episode. That light coming straight from Gotou. I always knew that he was a really emotional guy deep down inside, but I didn’t understand how good of a guy he was until today. Just by going off of how he handled Nao, I think that Gotou would make a really great dad. For some reason, I get really worked up when I see really sincere family-like emotions. Especially when they come from the least expected people, like Gotou. When he yelled out to Nao not to cry but to be strong as Isshin was rushed to an ambulance made such a strong impression on me that when he later told her it was okay to cry at the hospital, I felt some emotions building in my chest. Then at the end of the episode when Gotou goes home to check on Nao and his Wife and see’s his self-portrait done by Nao, I probably had just a big a smile as Gotou did. I mean, seriously, look at how happy Nao looks. What caught me off guard was when Gotou finally let his emotions out. In a truly manly fashion, he takes a step outside and looks out into the sky, letting his inner thoughts quietly leak out. It’s a damn shame that a man as great as Gotou won’t be able to have kids – the world needs more fathers like Gotou.

With the whole mystery revolving around Yakumo’s father, it looks like that there’s something extra strange about him. I think Ishii’s idea about him being a spirit like Takeda makes sense, but the way he’s able to touch and manipulate corporal objects (like a dagger) doesn’t. Seeing how there wasn’t anything revealed about his powers here’s my guess – I bet that he’s able to project his spirit or something close to that. If he was able to do an astral projection of himself, it would explain how he was able to get past the entire police force into Nanase’s jail cell and possess her AND how he was able to stab Isshin. While I’m talking about the stabbing, it looks like the doctor who Yakumo’s father visited last episode was the main surgeon working to save Isshin. With two more episodes left, I can’t wait to see how this series manages to tie everything together.

 

Preview

9 Comments

  1. My guess is there are 2 “Yakumo’s father”. The real father is dead and is a ghost, while another pretender disguised as him is a still alive person. The two can then cooperate with each other.

    Dusk
    1. I don’t think so. A very logical and most likely explanation to Yakumo’s father is that he either dead or alive. He has the ability to project his spirit like Divine said, but what he did state was that Yakumo’s father body is still alive and cinematic if he is in a coma in the very same hospital. This theory came from something Yakumo said a while back where he state that on rare occasional can a person soul live his body and still be alive during sloving the child’s death in the hit and run. Yakumo’s father must be the rare case.

      As for Ishin, I believe Yakumo’s father has no intention of killing him. He just want to wound him and send Yakumo into a dark state of mind. I believe his father ultimate goal is to turn Yakumo into himslef. Like father, like son. I figure the finale has something to do with Yakumo killing his father, a final step in turning Yakumo evil.

      chaos
      1. @chaos
        In case you didn’t realise, its not divine who’s writing up this series =\
        Btw, does anyone know the ost that plays near the end before the ending theme?
        Somewhere where Nao sheds a tear on Gotou’s drawing. There was also another insert ost I was interested in, but I think these things are generally very hard to find?

        tra-
  2. True, if Yakumo’s dad is a spirit he couldn’t use the dagger, but you never actually see who stabs Isshin, do you? All we see is the gloves with the dagger, so it’s possible it was someone else, although I have no idea who it could’ve been

    Bossun
  3. They definitely alluded to astral projection with that spirit in the hospital asking people when they’re going to die then Isshin talked to that girl at the hospital in the previous episode and then this episode it apologized to everyone. I mean it’s pretty obvious they were one in the same. So yeah I’m leaning toward astral projection.

    sealouse
    1. True, that might have been one the main purposes of that girls part in the series. Make Isshin do a nice uplifting speech and hint us towards what you wrote. Hopefully she will at least show up again and smile with Nao.

      Greg

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