Angel Heart – 22

Summary:
Yume continues to point a gun at the woman who killed her father: Shanin. But she can’t pull the trigger. Even though Ryo and the others catch her in Shanin’s room with the gun, they allow her to go home with it. While in her own room, Yume gets another call from Dog Walker – he promises to come explain things to her. Meanwhile, the sleeping Shanin connects the ring on Walker’s hand from the concert to the ring that Masaomi Kazama was wearing. She wakes up and wants to go after him, but Umibouzu tries to stop her by filling her in on how Yume learned that she was the one responsible for Yume’s father’s death. However, he can’t stop Shanin who’s determined not to run away from this. At that time, Masaomi is confronted in front of Yume’s house by Ryo. Although Ryo suspects the violinist, he lets Masaomi go by pretending to be distracted by a phone call (which is really Umibouzu reporting that Shanin is coming). Masaomi enters the mansion, takes Haruka hostage, and intrudes on Yume’s room.
After taking back his gun, Walker explains that Mad Dog wasn’t Yume’s real father – he was actually the one who had killed her real family. Walker suggests that Mad was under a lot of stress and had taken Yume as a plaything. However, Yume refuses to believe that. In fact, on her tenth birthday, Mad had admitted that he wasn’t her real father, but she had accepted him because she loved her father. Outside, Ryo is perched in a tree aiming his sniper rifle at Masaomi. Old man Chen has also gathered a force of the Genbu. Ryo is about to pull the trigger, but the sound of an approaching car is heard. With Shanin at the wheel, the car crashes through the window of Yume’s room. Shanin bails out, shoots the gun out of Masaomi’s hands, and then delivers a knock-out kick to his face. Yume picks up the gun that landed at her feet, but then drops it again when she starts asking why Shanin helped her and why Shanin became friends with her. Shanin explains that she killed people based on her orders but she had wanted to stop being a killing machine after seeing Yume crying to her dying father. She’s here now because of Kaori’s heart, and she’s able to be happy because of Ryo and Kaori. But she knows that it’s unfair for her to be happy when Yume’s not, so she offers Yume the gun again with the chance to take revenge.

So Masaomi was indeed Walker, no big surprise there. As a villain, he’s a bit lacking in the evil and powerful departments. I had expected Ryo to snipe him, so I definitely didn’t think that Shanin would make her entrance by crashing through the wall and then kicking his ass. But the plot is still more about Shanin making amends for what she did in the past. Partway through the episode it occurred to me that it’s like Shanin is going through a 12 step program (a la Alcoholics Anonymous) and is on the ninth step of forgiveness.
Anyway, it’s obvious from the preview that Yume-chan’s not going to take revenge. If next week ends this arc, then I bet that it’s going to be another feel-good episode.