This was actually a rather quiet episode, right up until the last few moments anyways.

Ouni, Chakuro and Lykos return to Lykos’ island, where she shows them the graves she dug for the people she used to live with. Then Lykos takes them to see what looks like a mass of throbbing, glowing nodules called nous. Lykos, which is not her name apparently (though she doesn’t say what her name actually is) explains that she and her people chose to live without their emotions, so they voluntarily surrendered their feelings to the nous in order to become Apathoia. In turn, the Apathoia are being used as pawns in a war by others without emotions (if I understood Lykos correctly).

Ouni wants to use the nous so he no longer has to feel trapped while living on the Mud Whale, and Chakuro tries to stop him. Ouni shakes him off and Chakuro’s contact with the nous allows him to see some emotions and memories of others, and then some of his own memories. He also sees a glimpse of Lykos as a child, though he doesn’t know the context. The next moment Chakuro is saved from the nous by Lykos, but Chakuro runs off.

A search party finds Chakuro, Lykos and Ouni, and they are returned to the Mud Whale. Lykos is taken away somewhere to be kept it confinement alone, and Chakuro is locked up with Ouni overnight. The next morning he is released, as someone saw him forcibly taken away by Ouni and figured that Chakuro was a prisoner, not a willing participant.

We see a glimpse of a blonde man with an eye patch again, but there’s no mention yet of who he is or why he’s on the Mud Whale.

The next day Chakuro is released. He meets up with Sami and his two friends, Nezu and Rou, and they plan to find a good viewpoint so they can watch the locust swarm . However Chakuro runs off in a rush, saying he will return shortly.

Meanwhile Lykos is still locked up. Neri, the child servant to the Elders, asks Lykos if she needs anything. Lykos asks her to ask the Elders to return her to her island. She does not like having a heart nor having emotions, and now that she’s away from nous she’s starting to regain both. Suddenly Chakuro shows up and kidnaps Lykos out of her room. His friends are shocked to see Lykos, but Chakuro assures them that Lykos won’t be spotted because he’ll hide her under his cloak.

The sun is starting to set by the time Chakuro and his friends, plus many other Mud Whale inhabitants, are hiking to find a viewpoint from which to watch the locust swarm. Sami is jealous of the attention Chakuro is giving Lykos and she tries to get him to carry her like when they were younger, but Chakuro gets shy and rejects her offer. Sami gets all flustered and stalks off.

While everyone waits for the locusts, Lykos describes one of her childhood memories to Chakuro. It turns out that it was the fragment of memory Chakuro saw when he touched the nous, the glimpse he’d gotten of Lykos as a child. After she finishes her story she starts to cry, wondering why she’s only feeling the pain from the memory just now. Of course it’s because she’s no longer interacting with the nous. Chakuro reassures her that she’s normal, and that the two of them are the same now. As the locusts finally arrive and light up the night sky, Lykos starts to attempt to explain to him about Falaina (the Mud Whale), but her words are lost in the loud buzzing from the locusts. After the swarm is over, Chakuro returns Lykos to her room.

In the morning Chakuro is slow to get up, but he eventually makes his way to the farm where he will be working with Sami and Suou for the day. The two youngsters start planting seeds, and Suou leaves to talk to the Council of Elders.

Suou sees Neri debating whether to enter Lykos’ room and she explains her dilemma to him. Suou charms his way past the guard and enters Lykos’ room, offering to pass her message on to the Elders. Lykos desperately explains that the residents of the Mud Whale are in grave danger. Someone is chasing them!

And of course as Lykos is relaying this warning to Suou, the exact danger she’s trying to prevent rears its ugly head. Another island called Skylos appears from behind Lykos’ home island and heads towards the Mud Whale. At the same time a metal blimp emerges from beneath the sand ocean and hovers in the air near the farm where Sami and Chakuro are. The windows open and people wearing clown masks point guns at the Mud Whale people below. They fire shots, and as they do Sami quickly steps in front of Chakuro to protect him. It looks like she takes a bullet for him…

In the final moments of the episode, Chakuro says that all the events from that point forward are recorded in his personal diary and not as part of the Mud Whale’s official archive logs. He gives that role up on that day, presumably because of the attack.


My thoughts:
I’m glad we got to learn more about how the people on the Mud Whale live. By the sound of things, all unmarked individuals are automatically elected to the Council of Elders when they turn 61. Before that one unmarked individual is made the Chieftain, but they are really only a figurehead for the people and wield no real power. More importantly, the Council of Elders are the only people on the Mud Whale who know the truth about the outside world and the role the Mud Whale occupies in it. This is why no one else on the island even knew about Lykos or the Apathoia, and it explains why Chakuro was so shocked when he overheard the Council’s conversation with Lykos in the last episode. Even the Chieftain does not know the information that the Council of Elders know!

I really hope that Sami doesn’t bite the dust two episodes into the series. ;~;  Her and Chakuro are a cute couple, even if they both look several years younger than they are. (Is Sami the same age as Chakuro? We know he’s 14 but she looks a bit younger.)

Argh, I can’t wait for next week’s episode!!!  >w<