「あの日に戻れたら」 (Ano Hi ni Modore Tara)
“If We Could Go Back to That Day”

This episode gave me some Perfect Blue vibes, anyone else got the same feeling? 

It seems Rui is dealing with some internal struggles, and this episode gave her a lot more depth as a character. It fully fleshed out why she has that double personality, not overly uncommon for people who perform on stage to have their stage persona and their daily life one, though. 

It looked at first like it was just the trope they threw on top of her character. But it’s more than that. She is an overachiever, and because of that, she tends to look down on others. When Mystery Kiss was first set up, it consisted of three girls, but after a producer came in and decided Yuki was bound to be the center, instead of Rui, conflict arose between the two girls. 

Both Shiho and Yuki wanted Rui to be the center, so it came as a shock to the whole group. Rui exchanged messages with Yuki, seemingly treating, and decided to meet up at the agency late at night. When Rui shows up, she finds Yuki already dead. 

Yuki Mitsuya IS that Narita girl, furthermore Yamamoto decided to replace her with a look-alike, and have her use the deceased name. 

Yamamoto hired Sekiguchi and Yano to dispose of the body, in return, they now own half the group’s income. Wrapping her up in a tarp and violating her body so she becomes unrecognizable. 

A body wrapped up in a tarp, bricks hanging from its side, descending to the bottom of a seemingly endless void, the stage is set, the knife is cast, and the cat is out of the bag.

This explains why Yamamoto made her wear masks, and why they were so cautious as to not show her face in public. 

Then as Rui falls deeper into madness and despair she comes across Baba, and almost incrusts a relationship with him, he becomes her anchor to reality. 

On the other hand, when the news broke out, Odokawa starts putting the pieces together, he realizes the girl who loves Karage is not the same girl he first originally drove. He’s so close to knowing the full truth, he can almost taste it. He gets a surprise visit from Big Brother Diamond, Odokawa doesn’t trust him, and we learn Little Diamond is holding back from speaking to his big bro. That’s mostly Odokawas fault, but Big Bro Diamond confirms they were never on opposite sides, so it seems like he might have a resurgence. 

Imai, even with Odokawa’s warning, is still captured by Yano and Co. And is just seconds away from committing the bank heist. A.K.A checking out his lottery money (or is it an actual heist?). But Odokawa and Dobu have their case switching plan in place. And ready to execute.

Baba has to have a tough conversation with Shibagaki, it was honestly a little heart-wrenching, Baba didn’t say anything Shibagaki already didn’t know, but it hurts hearing it from the person who has been your partner for so long. Shibagaki is seemingly stuck in his old ways and doesn’t want to change his set formula. So maybe this separation seems like Satoshi will have his place in the spotlight, and maybe it’s what Shibagaki needs, someone tough that challenges him and just doesn’t agree with him in everything. (aka is not a yes man) Satoshi gave me the vibe he’s level-headed but thorough in what he does. Maybe he’s the perfect combination for Shibagaki as he might be able to bring him down from his high horse and look at things more analytically.

Gouriki is searching for answers about Odokawa, at this point he’s coming up to stalker levels (maybe I’m being too harsh), why is he going to such lengths, just for a friend. I smell a plot device. He finds out something quite interesting, it seems both Odokawa’s parent’s committed double suicide, or at least that’s what the police concluded from the accident. Odokawa was able to escape though.

Then in his search he comes up to a hospital, and it seems Odokawa all but suppressed that memory, he kept a thought diary with his daily routine and stuff, but Gouriki is denied access to it because it’s not something a General Practioner should be looking at, to which he exclaims, he doesn’t want to look at it as a doctor but as Odokawa’s friend. What will he find in that diary? And will it be the key to get Odokawa back to reality? And exploiting this whole synesthesia theory? 

All of the answers were given when Yamamoto held the press conference, of course, we still don’t know who the murderer is. But the plot has been so carefully handled and all of my predictions have been blown out of the water, so at this point, I’m afraid to make a prediction. As Enzo said so much more eloquently than me, nothing is a coincidence in Odd Taxi’. So we’ll just have to wait and see.

Certainly a little bit of an info dump this episode, and the way this show handles dialogue it might have been a little bit hard to keep up, so let me know if I missed anything. As we rage towards the conclusion, this certainly was a much-needed episode!

Last week my impatience got the better of me, but thankfully this week we finally got answers, and everything seems to be back on track!         

Preview

6 Comments

  1. Rather than answers, the uncertainty of what is really happening and what is the true has increased. I don’t believe anyone in this series.

    Each question that appears will be answered by another question, as if question 1 was a rephrasing of question 2.

    Odokawa’s past might be linked to all the events that are happening. A boom that triggered the current mess.

    but who knows.

    nene
  2. I have a theory that Odokawa started all this mess. I just tag spoilers even its just a theory.

    1.) I think Odokawa killed Yuki Mitsuya(Real) for or maybe some past grudge he has with Yuki’s Parents. One is that Yuki road a taxi after the convivence store before she could meet up with Rui.
    2.) Odokawa put Yui’s body in the Agency Build. This would lead to Rui discovering the body. the rest its history. This created his solid alibby
    3.) Odokawa can’t sleep because he killed someone. Possible the body is in his room.
    4.) Odokawa has an ailment that categorize humans as animals due to his past trauma of drowning with his parents. That’s why he can discern easily per person he meets in one look and categorize them as animals.
    5.) Dobu and Odokawa probably are 1 person?

  3. I was wondering how Donraku was going to be involved in all of this, getting so many answers in one episode was much needed but how did Miho get his eraser and will getting it ease Tanaka’s search for vengance?

    Hopefully the writers will play it out as skillfully as they’ve done all of the world building and storytelling.

    Waiting for Little Daimon to shine in the last moment. Thank you for your coverage of this series, I have truly enjoyed it!

    torog0z
  4. There is some ambiguity about Odokawa’s comments about “that’s not the girl I drove”
    Another interpretation is that after seeing the pictures of Yuki Mitsuya, her realized that she wasn’t the girl that he drove from Nerima to the studio the night of the murder. He drove Sakura, the fourth choice for the group and future fake Yuki Mitsuya.
    Who might very well be Yuki’s murderer, besides being an accomplice (possibly a relative?) of Tanaka the psycho killer.

    Nemo

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