Sara Talks Anime

I love making decisions for the titles of episodes when there’s a difference between titles for something, even if partially. Like…seriously, this is the second time this anime season I had to make a decision regarding what episode title to use. Under normal circumstances I’d use Crunchyroll’s title from outside of the subtitles, but this is a time where I have to put my foot down and be like “no, we’re doing something different”.

Alright, I’ll actually get into talking about the episode now.

Prior to the first titled segment, we have a scene of Chie talking on the phone with Mob’s boss, which is where we learn that Mob has seemingly gone missing, and apparently it’s normal enough for it to not be too concerning? Like…alright, I guess? However, when she’s back at the kindergarden, she feels like she’s being watched…which she is! Ooh~! And now…

Reversed Isn’t Scary

The section begins at the kindergarten, with a child crying after a relative of his asks him to fix his socks and shoes due to the socks being inside out and the shoes being on the wrong feet. While the relative makes the argument that all inside out = dead, Chie uses the approach of asking the child to show how he put his socks and shoes on due to both Chie and the relative not seeing it, with that causing the kid to put them on normally this time.

During her walk home, however, she gets a text from Mob asking her to visit a park at a certain time to meet. Chie does just that, and while waiting for Mob to arrive, notices that there’s now a boy sitting next to her. He swings for a bit, before his mom calls out to him, and he waves to her…

…oh yeah, the boy’s hand waves to his hand in the reverse way compared to a usual human, with him showing his nails to his mom. Seeing what would be the back of the usual human (but is probably the front for the ghost) rush towards the boy, Chie determines she’s seeing spirits and runs.

She runs into Mob, who she tells about the situation…but as it turns out, he’s possessed! Though the situation seems dire, a guy comes out and hits the spirit out of Mob, returning him to the Mob we know. As it turns out, this guy is named Namu, and he’s a homeless wanderer. I’m not going to say anything further about him until I get confirmation about his age.

They have a discussion about Kaya, which I don’t think the details of are too important.

That was certainly…a way to start us off. This was yet another segment in this series that I genuinely felt like I was scared, even if I was good at hiding it, and it’s just…damn.

The Sandbox Isn’t Scary

This section is on the simpler side compared to the last one. Kaya-chan and her friends are at recess, they play in the sandbox, with two different students making sand mountains (one focusing on style, the other focusing on size). The student who focused on size tried to mimic the other mountain by digging a tunnel, seemingly with help.

Surprise! The “help” was actually a spirit! Because everything manages to loop back to spirits in this world! As the spirit tries to pull the kid inside, Kaya uses the shovel to destroy the mountain, thus “killing” the spirit.

The kid has a bruise that can’t be explained, Kaya’s got some of her spirit stuff that’s seemingly sticking out (though she can still easily hide with her clothes), and her shovel seems to have dark energy in it now.

Notice how I put killing in quotation marks. With that ending, it suggests that we’re going to get more to the story later. Whether it gets adapted, however, is something that I’ll leave to fate.

This was another segment that I enjoyed, especially since it serves as one nice final victory for the episode before we get to the end of it.

Nice People Aren’t Scary?

Chie is volunteering at an event on her day off, with Kaya running into her. During the event, however, Kaya gets separated from her father, and runs into a person who wants to help her.

She tries to find her father, but keeps running into this person, to the point where she tries (and fails) to use her strength on him. Kaya’s about to break down until Namu comes in and plays the “father” role to get Kaya away from there. Though that’s how this segment ends, I suspect that the first part of next episode will be a direct continuation of this.

I enjoyed this segment, as it showed that Kaya’s only truly physically strong when it comes to ghosts. If it’s not a ghost, she can’t really do anything with her strength. I’m also excited to see what role Namu plays.

Considering the need for a continuation for this section, however, I get the feeling that next episode will only have two segments. Genuinely hope this is the case, as I always feel like these stories have more time to breathe if there’s just two of them per episode.

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Next Post: Episode 9 hasn’t aired yet. Assuming that no delays occur, it should go up on March 8th at 5:30 PM (PST).