Subculture Anime Blog

Crawling in my skin~ These wounds will not heal~

Summary:

Past:

When Nagi sees that Yuuko has come back to school, then recalling that she had disappeared on the same day that Yuu had, she questions if she knows where Yuu is. Despite Yuuko’s denying the fact, Nagi frankly asks for her not to bring misfortune upon Yuu. Before leaving her, Nagi states that this is something only Yuuko can do. Simultaneously, Yuuko and Yuu recall all that they have regretted not doing with each other. Yuu did not accept Yuuko as his sister, and was not able to draw her. Yuuko accepted a large amount of injuries while trying to get revenge on Yuu, not knowing that she would come to love him so much, then wishing that she could have said that she loved him in the first place.

Akira notices that Yuuko has inflicted injuries upon herself when she reaches home, then punishing her while expressing that there is no need for her to feel guilty for neither he or Yuu. Akira claims that Yuuko has done nothing wrong, but then becomes angry while wondering why his sister had to die. As Yuuko seems to have a resemblance to his sister, Akira wonders why she is alive. Yuu suddenly arrives to state that both of their sisters’ fates were poor, but Akira then claims that the both of them are unable to accept this. Exclaiming that Akira is mistaken, Yuu claims to be carrying his sister’s burden with his life. Akira begins beating on Yuu as he is unprepared, and despite Yuuko being seemingly ready to defend him with her knife, Yuu stops her from taking action. Akira then notices that Yuu has brought his sketchbook with him, expressing that humans are those who cannot quit things they truly desire to do. When Akira opens the sketchbook, he panics at the sight of the image that he has been unable to create for years.

When Yuu follows Akira into his room, he sees numerous faceless paintings of his dead sister. Now in a frenzy to create an image based on Yuu’s sketch, Akira simply has he and Yuuko leave. While treating Yuu’s wounds in her room, Yuuko explains that Akira did not really quit painting. He was simply unable to recreate the face of his dead sister on the canvas. Because of this, he was always crying by himself. Alone with his finished painting, Akira creates a fire in his room. Yuu attempts to save him from the large fire when he is alerted of it, but Yuuko stops him. With this, Yuu and Yuuko are only able to watch as Akira seemingly dies with the single painting of his sister in his arms.

Present:

Alone in his room, Kuze decides that he has finally put and end to everything. Unable to make anyone happy, and not stepping into a fight he knew he would lose, he simply waits for his time to end. While at the abandoned train station, Mizuki begins humming a familiar tune. Realizing that this is related to a song with vocals, she begins to sing the lyrics. When the Shindo sisters appear, they both express how tough and sad Mizuki’s situation is. Kuze wasn’t even able to separate from Mizuki with the expression that he hated her, something that Chihiro recalls she was unable to do to Renji. Chihiro then gives Mizuki a gift in the form of a key, while explaining that a dream is needed before it can be granted. As long as there is one, she can keep on striving for it. Kei realizes that she has a key as well, then giving it to Mizuki as a second charm. Though thankful, Mizuki requests for one more item of help. Getting a single page from Chihiro’s diary, Mizuki writes something down.

As his time continues to run out, Kuze even begins to wonder why he is keeping himself alive. Despite confirming that he has erased everything, however, he finally admits to himself that he is afraid to die. He begins to ask himself if what he has done is truly what he desired, recalling that he has always lived on to prevent hurting anyone. When he remembers Mizuki’s face, however, he wonders if this was a loss. Kuze goes to his door upon hearing the bell ring, and upon seeing a letter from Mizuki, he begins to cry. While kneeling in despair, the door opens before him.

Impression:

Need a fancier knife to cut yourself with there? I don’t understand why Yuuko took so long to realize that she shouldn’t have tried to be Yuu’s sister. I mean, come on now… That would be SISCON! But jokes aside, I really did like the use of physical scars to represent the pain both Yuu and Yuuko felt after being alone from each other for so long. The film strips that surrounded both of them was a pretty nice touch too, as they probably represented the stories of their lives that entangled the pair. I can only wonder how their fates are suppose to turn out now, especially with the hint given at the very end of the episode.

The theme of image creation was another artsy touch that I could really relate to, and seeing both Akira and Yuu’s connection with the ability really made me respect their characters more. I loved Akira’s statement about humans not being able to quit what they want to do. More subtly, his use of cigarettes might help to represent a similar theme. In my eyes, Akira probably died with the work he has been wanting to create for his entire life. It was nice to see him finally go, and he even appeared to be a bit less despicable than he has been made out to be recently. (He still needs to stop slapping people.) That was probably the longest death scene I have seen in a long time though, and even if it was suppose to be represented as powerful, I honestly got the picture about half way through.

Kuze and Mizuki’s story obviously didn’t move as fast this week, as they only had about a fourth of the episode to work with. There were a few things to pick up on though. It was interesting to see the red string attached to Mizuki’s finger while she was with Chihiro and Kei. I’m guessing that her silhouette was suppose to represent her soul? (I was too busy looking at thighs.) Kuze’s refusing to give up and die was also insightful towards anyone who has ever known that they were going to die or wanted to commit suicide. Humans by nature typically want to accomplish things, and even if they have seemingly gotten rid of everything, it would still be hard to go. Of course, it was obvious from the beginning that Kuze didn’t truly want to die. I found it kind of funny when the door opened up to enshroud him with light. “My hikkikomori days are OVER!”