RAINBOW: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin – 22

「Emergence」

While Baremoto didn’t fully redeem himself in the conclusion of his mini arc, at least he came to his senses and made strides towards doing so. However, the most relieving thing was this episode wasn’t nearly as aggravating to watch now that everyone knows how foolish Baremoto’s been. The preview last time spoiled the fact that he was going to be stood up by Eri after believing she’d run away with him, but there were still a couple of noticeable surprises along the way. The first was the fact that Mario, Suppon, and even Heitai supported Baremoto’s decision even though they didn’t agree with it. In essence, it felt very similar to Joe’s arc not too long ago, where he was willing to distance himself from his friends for the sake of his music career. Not a bad thing whatsoever, because it got through to Baremoto’s conscience the same way that it did Joe’s. In fact, I was glad that the guys showed Baremoto what it means to put “bros before hoes”, even when that bro is selling you out for a hoe. It still bothered me that Baremoto was so head over heels in love with Eri that he should be considered legally blind even with his glasses, but at least he showed remorse over the decision he made. Out of respect for the friendships that he was breaking off on his own accord, that was pretty much the absolute minimum I wanted to see from Baremoto to save me from hating him.

As for the second surprise, it was Eri meeting up with some newly introduced university student and committing a double suicide together with him. There really wasn’t any foreshadowing about that happening, except maybe from the scene last time where Eri was lying to Baremoto about having a younger sister whom she was saving from a life of prostitution. I figured that scene reeked of lies given how they choose to hide Eri’s eyes during part of it (a tell-tale sign that someone’s lying), but wouldn’t have guessed that she was contemplating suicide and trying to get Baremoto to give up on her. Looking back, I’m still not sure if this was a positive experience on Baremoto’s growth as an individual; however, they sure seemed to depict it as such with him somehow realizing that Eri was trying to convince him to live a fulfilling life after he saw the scorched tree he was supposed to meet her by sprouting new leaves. That was probably a bit too figurative for me to buy into since Eri seemed more anxious about committing suicide than Baremoto’s future, but I did appreciate the sentiment the story was going for. More so than that, I was appreciative of Baremoto trying to come clean with his mother about stealing from them, and doing construction work in Yokohama for a month to try and pay everyone back the money he weaseled out of them.

With the friendship these six guys have, it’s not so much about the money in this case, but the need to make up for the mistakes that I wanted to see. Like I mentioned above, he did make some strides towards making up for his stupidity as of late, which if nothing else, showed just how much in love he was. Once someone starts doing really dumb things that’s very unlike their usual self, it’s a pretty good indication of how hard they have fallen for someone. Next time, it looks like we’ll be starting Suppon’s mini arc. The sight of him in the preview and in the previous episode just before Baremoto’s brothers came by make it look like he has some sort of health condition. Seeing as his he lost his family to one of the two atomic bombs, I’m immediately left wondering if he has radiation poisoning. Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Preview