Eva’s First Impression
KAKURIYO IS BACK! I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally be starting this season! Rewatching the first season and rereading my entries immediately brought back all of the excitement I felt back then!!!
It’s been some time since they’ve concluded the ceremony! First we got to see Ai (Odanna’s ogre fire familar) has finally taken a form of her own! Previously she had mimic’ Aoi in order to serve as her double while she and Odanna would sneak out together. Now her new form she had decided one effectively makes her look as though she’s their love child, hahahaha! She bears Odanna’s resemblance of his black hair and oni horn and Aoi’s purple eyes! She’s very adorable!
But it seems the time they’ve had to breathe will be a short one with a new storm brewing. Today we’ve learn there has been some strange and concerning developments happening in Youto. While swinging by to pay off the remaining debts for Tenjin-ya’s aid during for ceremony, Ranmaru revealed that he has heard something fishy has been going on. Rumours have it that Raiju’s stirring up some trouble, again. (If you don’t remember him, he’s the bastard that loves to cause pain and misery.) The opening theme sure alludes to a lot of that, though I do wonder to what extent of chaos we’re going to see from it. Kakuriyo thus far has been fairly… lukewarm (should I put it?) when it comes to ‘dire’ conflicts. Often times in the first season, things that looked like seriously trouble didn’t really pan out as badly as one might expect them too. Raiju being the one exception probably, as he straight up was the reason why Iso-hime had to give up her life. So it will be interesting to see whether the stakes will actually be higher this season– and for reasons we later learn in the episode, I have suspicions that may very well be the case this time.
Now that wasn’t the only breaking news of the day! We got the sudden announcement of Kasuga getting married! Wow that sure felt like it came out of nowhere– but as it turns out she’s from a noble family that belongs to the Northern Lands. Because Tanuki’s are considered weak, they are disciples of literature and they use the knowledge the acquire from it in order to survive. For such reasons, Kagusa is entering a political marriage with the current Chief’s grandson, who will be succeeding his position as the new Haichiyo.
Fortunately Kiyo, her husband to be, isn’t a complete stranger, nor is an old man like Oryou had originally feared it to be. Instead it happens to be a childhood friend who is also her first love. But she doesn’t know whether or not he will reciprocate her feelings. Nonetheless, she’s looking forward to the marriage. The main thing that she is sad about is leaving Tenjin-ya because she enjoyed being there, and she also has some worries about how she’d fare as the wife of someone in such a high position.
Needless to say, it was interesting to see her make a point to Aoi that not everyone is set on fighting their fate. For Kasuga’s case, she understands the responsibility and purpose that comes with the political marriage and she’s lucky enough to be with someone her own age and she at least has some history with.
Speaking love and marriage, Kasuga did probe Aoi a bit on how she feels about Odanna. Of course Aoi denies she’ll ever marry him and nor does she have any feelings for him. (But we all know better.)
That being said, while she has grown more attracted to him, and feelings are budding in her heart, the truth of the matter is: Odanna is still a stranger to her. She knows nothing about him. Not his favourite food, not his past, his up-bring, not even his real name! (Remember, “Odanna” is just his title). So it’s natural that she has some degree of hesitancy when she talks about the degree of her feelings and willingness to marry him. She has finally reached that point where she really wants to get to know him more.
And today, we got to see Aoi do just that. At long last (and thank god for it), she didn’t beat around the bush and longer and FINALLY asked Odanna whether he had contributed to saving her in the past.
However getting an answer out of him wasn’t as simple as one would hope. Especially when Odanna revealed ‘he doesn’t want to give her an answer to that, and there are things he doesn’t want her to shoulder.’
Despite Odanna’s attempt to avoid giving a straight answer, I think most of us can agree in all likelihood, he was responsible for saving her. But his guarded response suggests saving her came at a great cost. And the reason why I say cost is because Ginji revealed an important piece of information in the final episode of Season 1. And that was to keep Aoi alive until He finishes preparing the food that would change her destiny.
I think it would be fair to assume changing one’s fate comes with a price. In-fact if one didn’t, that would be considered naive, don’t you think? There’s always got to be a catch, and it can hardly be considered a simple task. And we know this too since time was needed to even prepare the meal, so Ginji was tasked with ensuring her safety in the meantime. So whatever that had entailed, Odanna really doesn’t want her to know the price he paid to do it– which, admittedly is mildly concerning to say the least… Especially that fairly ominous way Odanna disappears at the end of the OP Theme. Because seeing that made me go, “Shit. I smell angst.”
But now this puts Aoi in a bit of a tricky situation. She wants to get to know Odanna. It frustrates her how little she knows about him, from the food he likes to learning his true name. So it’s understandable how frustrating it must be for her that the moment that she tells him that she really wants to get to know him more, that’s when he suddenly raises his own walls to keep her from doing just that.
And admittedly, it’s a bit contradictory coming from Odanna given how he wants to be close to her, and yet he feels the needs to remain distant from her– but sometimes that’s just how it is. Of course it’s a bit of a shame too, considering it sure felt like they made a lot of progress in getting closer when they spent time together in Orio-ya. It was there where Aoi really got to experience Odanna’s kindness and willingness to support her no matter what– especially when you consider the likes of searching for the Mermaid scale. It was there where she got to see him in a framework of a potential lover as opposed to “her boss” back at Tenjin-ya.
Furthermore, I’m very glad they’ve also finally addressed Odanna’s insecurities. I talked a lot about this through the first season because Odanna would often speak in a manner of scorning himself, suggesting he feels insecure about himself around Aoi. And today we finally got the confirmation that yes, that was the case. All this time, he thought she was scared of him– which is a bit crazy considering they’ve definitely have had some intimate moments. But it goes to show that even in moments of doubts, he sought to comfort her and almost let his own instincts take the wheel. And now thanks to today, he can have the peace of mind knowing knowing with certainty that she isn’t scared of him. But I suspect it must be a bittersweet moment for him given while he’s happy she wants to learn more about him, he’s still reluctant to share anything about himself.
So it’s going to be interesting to see what it’s going to take for to get him to open up. Throughout the first season, while we really didn’t get to see Odanna as much as we would have liked to, during the moments we did, he made it count at least with the way he cares for her. Now it is Aoi’s turn to go on the pursuit!
The last thing I wanted to touch on before wrapping up is of course: The change in character designs. Now when I first saw it, I liked it and thought it was a nice glow up, but after freshly rewatching the first season and then go back to this, in way I do miss the previous designs. It’s not that the new one is bad, but it will take some time to get used to. My one wish though is that please, for the love of god– just please, KEEP THE ART STYLE CONSISTENT. I really don’t want to experience the whiplash of completely different art-style in the middle of scenes again. That was just terrible, especially during the really powerful moments.
As for the Opening Theme Song… Unfortunately I’m not really feeling it– the rap part kind of took me out. But the ED Theme was great as always! Maybe the OP will grow on me, we’ll see! Looks like we’re in store for some exciting stuff though!
With that said, I absolutely cannot wait for the next episode! I’m thrilled to be covering a series I’m quite deeply passionate despite not having read the novels! I really hope they’ll include more of the goodies that had been said to have been left out last season this time round!
Possibility of Blogging: Guaranteed
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed
PS: I swear to god– SOMEBODY BETTER BE ANNOUNCING THEY ARE LOCALIZING THE NOVELS BY THE END OF THIS OR SOONER.
