Okay, before we begin, I do need to bring up a detail from the previous episode that I completely skipped over in my writeup for it. I’m sorry, but so much happened last episode that something was bound to slip through the cracks, though I’m surprised it was something as important as this. Eri knows that Ogami temporarily regained his adult form and is trying to figure out what happened.
Again, sorry for forgetting that, but considering what was in the last episode, I knew something was bound to slip.
Anyway, today marks the very big occasion of Netflix actually subtitling the episode title in the episode itself. You heard me right. Previously, Netflix’s subtitles only subtitled the date that the episode came out. But this time?
THERE IT IS! 😀
And, funnily enough, despite this episode being named “The First Hitman Summit”, the summit itself doesn’t take up all that much runtime in the episode. Lol. Lmao. Roflmao, even.
Though one could say that the event is what’s needed to have events become the way that they are, so maybe there’s good justification for it being here.
Anyway, let’s begin covering the episode properly.
Before and During and Somewhat After The First Hitman Summit
Okay, so first, the two Rindou brothers transfer to the school. Let’s see if I can correctly recall each name correctly. If I recall correctly…it’s Eiji, who I’ve previously referred to as “the zombie Rindou brother”, who got into Ogami’s class, and Kazuma, who I’ve previously referred to as “the hypnosis Rindou brother”, who got into a third year class. Lemme see if I’m correct.
Back after checking: I was correct! Please pardon my language, but let’s fucking go! Honestly had my worries that I was misremembering, especially considering that I had never referred to them by name until now, but it’s nice to see that my memory hasn’t failed me yet! Just…ignore that I forgot a somewhat important plot point last week. That was just a clerical error, I promise.
With the fact that there are now four hitmen in the school, however, Ogami decides that it’s time for all of them to meet up and discuss just having a peaceful school life. Shin, however, doesn’t have a good view on the Rindou brothers, especially Kazuma. It results in them trying to fight.
And poor Kaneko has to submit a report on this. 😦 Bro did nothing wrong.
However, as a result of all of that, Shin begins acting somewhat differently around Noren, to the point that it’s even creeping her out. And that leads us into…
…background character shenanigans?
I don’t know if this is just a side story that they realized held more importance than they thought, or if this is genuinely the order that it goes in within the manga, but it felt weird to me to go from Shin being like “I’ll never forgive that guy for taking that hit from me” to one of the members of the Home Ec club being like “Ogami, can you introduce me to Tenma so that he can give me tips on how to work out so that people stop treating me like a small domesticated animal? :(“, as it felt like such a weird tone switch to me.
I wouldn’t have had as many complaints if the lighter moment we pivoted to was one where the connection between the First Hitman Summit and the current event were clearer. However, it seems like the only reason this event even gets covered is to set up what feels to me as nothing more than a joke. I’d be happy to get proven wrong, but until I get proven wrong, that’s all this little thing will add up to me as.
Yes, it technically also provides a bit of character development for another character that could make it important, but I didn’t care about this character by the end of the episode they first appeared in, and while I found the character development interesting, it wasn’t enough to make me suddenly care for them.
I will note that I don’t want to risk my comment section devolving into “you should’ve used these pronouns!” “no, you should’ve used THESE pronouns!” types of arguments, so I’m using they/them pronouns. Any comments making complaints about this will be deleted. As someone who identifies as non-binary, using they/them to refer to one person is 100% valid.
Anyway…
The actually important part!
The Home Ec club starts a challenge to make the best ramen, with the teams having already been decided, and to report back in a week with their ramen. Both Noren and Shin believe their respective teams will be the one to win, however, causing them to go all out, which we see with Noren dragging Ogami to various ramen shops.
Ogami dips part way through, however, after he ends up getting too full from eating ramen. As Noren goes ahead, Ogami rests. When he sees someone about to get hit by a moving vehicle, however, he intervenes.
On the day that the ramen tournament thing occurs, a random student gets brought in to be the judge for the ramen. I won’t spoil the winner, but the result is one that you’ve likely come to expect for Kill Blue.
As it turns out, though, the random student is actually who Ogami saved from the truck, and she has something she wants to tell him… but first chooses to fall asleep and have the other her wake up. I have my discomforts with the fact that they chose to represent the personality change with a change in skin color of all things. Like, I feel like you could’ve changed the eye shape or eye color and still gotten the same thing across. Maybe I’m overthinking things, it’s just that there are so many other ways that you could’ve let a personality change come across without doing that.
Whatever. This was still a fun episode overall, even with the complaints I had about it.
Kill Blue airs the final episode of its first (and hopefully not only!) season next week, and besides, if they’re willing to introduce this character now, that must mean their arc is a smaller arc that concludes next week, right?
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