Last week we left off with Natsuno and his band of meddling kids digging up the grave of Megumi. After some vigorous work that takes all day, they find that she's not in the grave. Kaori finds the good luck charm that she left at Megumi's grave a couple of feet away from the grave, doubly confirming that the corpse has decided to go on a walkabout. While Natsuno and Kaori's brother examine the empty coffin, a shady figure drags her off into the forest. Much to Kaori's horror, the figure is cold to the touch and has a pair of long, sharp fangs that go straight for her jugular. Lucky for her, the charm she holds spooks the spook, which gives Natsuno the chance to whack it across the noggin. The group thinks the thing is dead, but just to make sure they toss it into Megumi's grave and lightly sprinkle it with dirt so they can check the next day if it's moved. After the group leave the unconscious vamp wakes up and stumbles off, probably with a huge headache.

The next day the group goes back to the grave and finds it redone and missing a corpse. They decide to stand watch over the grave of a recently killed villager to see if it will reanimate. Elsewhere Seishin contemplates his interactions with Sunako and how they relate to Toshio's assumption that the Risen are to blame for all the recent deaths. Back at Natsuno's house, a little girl knocks at his door and his father answers. The bitchy little girl asks for Natsuno, but he isn't home. After several minutes of whining and tossing a very creepy Japanese puppet into the house, she gets invited into the house and waits in his room for him.

This week is probably the slowest of all the episodes thus far. Nothing really happens besides the attack on Kaori and the little girl getting invited in. With the assumed access the vamps now have at Natsuno's house, it looks like the poor teen will probably be losing his parents in the near futures, especially if you see what the names of the next episodes are.

[You can watch Shi-ki over at Funimation]

 

 

 

To take the oft-implemented concept of the family-related flashback episode and proceed to totally dump all over it is a risky and commonly fanbase-alienating maneuver, but somehow, as miraculous as Heroman's win-streak has been, the show does exactly that with "Memories" and manages to come out looking as clean and polished as ever. I get a lot of sh*t around discussion circles for comparing Joey's relationship with his father to that of Renton and Adroc Thurston from Eureka Seven (gasp! Another BONES production!). The parallels are obvious. Aside from the fact that they both share the same buffed-up, rugged physicality, the two are seen mostly in photographs before getting any actual screen time via flashbacks. Everything about their personalities is left up to the viewer to assimilate, because our protagonist, the son in question, doesn't really know a damn thing about them. What this episode does, amazingly, in a very short amount of time, is put Joey (and Holly as well) through a series of emotions that ultimately leads to their understanding of what a hero truly is: someone that doesn't have to save the world, just waking up each day with a purpose to provide for the ones they love.

Like I said at the outset, this episode has a lot of balls in how it executes the relative retrospection trope. We've all seen the flashback episodes of countless series, and they're usually filler; telling us things we could have already guessed from the way things have been playing out so far with characters. Some series go the opposite direction and introduce new moods and character depths that we would have not been provided with otherwise. The Rem Saverem flashback episode of Trigun comes to mind (as does this lovely song). Cowboy Bebop's "My Funny Valentine". Samurai Champloo's two-part "Misguided Miscreants" (Wantanabe excels with this concept.) Episodes that do not just say, "Okay this is something that happened to this character. Watch it and feel something," but instead have the character (and those around them) learn something about themselves while their own memories are playing out for the viewer. While Joey tries to combat Holly's naive statements that their father was no hero because he failed to keep his promise to return home on the day he died (how babyish is that, seriously?), Holly has to learn to break down the protective walls she has around her emotions. We learn that Holly gets this trait from her mother (whose cause of death is still unknown)--she never let her guard down, never showed her tears to her children due to the loss of her husband.

Lina is having a rough time as well, fighting opposing emotional forces from all directions. Skrugg Will shows up outside her window late at night and essentially says his goodbyes, as he knows he'll either be dying soon or taking over the world, but not before, in his true-to-douchebag-bro manner, forbids Lina from furthering her relationship with Joey. If that isn't enough, Lina's similarly douchey dad (we know where Will inherits it from) starts berating Lina for continually worrying about her Will ("Your brother is dead!" "No he's not!") It was an interesting scene; it was the first time Lina's father didn't feel like a stereotype, he displayed a true humanity and Lina's reaction was equally heartfelt: she ran out of the room in tears. It honestly shouldn't have played out any other way.

After a Holly-gets-hysterical scene at Brian and Catherine Jones' grave (complete with rainy, black and white flashbacks of chibi-Holly tugging on her mother's dress at the funeral) Joey gets his act together. Discovering a family picture tucked inside his father's hardhat with the words "You're the reason I get up everyday" written on the backside gives him and Holly the confidence to bond together and move on from their petty arguments, not just regarding their father but about anything. Holly is decidedly going to forgive her father, and at the same time let Joey be Joey without having to feel the need to protect him from what she presumes to be imminent danger all the time. When Lina's father comes running to Joey's door exclaiming that Lina is missing, I assumed Joey would take this opportunity to find Lina by himself and confess what is going to have to happen with Will. Only half of that happened, you can assume it is not the latter half. At the same time, Lina is either going to respect her brother's wishes (is he really even her brother anymore?) and break off her relationship with Joey or she is going to drop the L word and get the rock rolling downhill. Not lesbian. Or lesbians. Neither of those things happen, as Professor Denton cockblocks the whole supposed-to-be-dramatic sequence on the moonlit shore and drops a bomb on Joey. What that bomb is, we'll find out next time. From the preview: Looks like the biohazard plant-monster from the island is attacking the White House. Everything is connected has been a repeating phrase in the last few episodes. I invite all rugs to be pulled.

(On a side note: Is it me, or does the animation in this show just keep getting better and better? I swear, Holly's half-naked, pajama-wearing form looked more sharply illustrated than ever. Lina was no slouch, either. She drinks Horizon milk. That's awesome. I do too.)

[Heroman is simulcasting on Crunchyroll]