Rating: A
Most of the plot covered by this episode was covered in the last episode of the live-action TV series, so I mostly knew what to expect here. However, I greatly prefer this version of the events. Everything which transpires just lands with much more impact done this way.
The first big matter is sorting out why Kana got caught up in the situation in the first place. The previous two episodes certainly made it look like Mako deliberately arranged the situation which led to Kana going off alone with the director, and I had been operating under the assumption that Mako was setting up Kana for a fall. However, Miyako’s supposition here in the Strawberry Productions office – that the paparazzi was actually staking out the director, and Kana was just collateral damage – is far more plausible. That Mako may have had a grudge against the director, and just didn’t care who got in trouble along with him, makes far more sense given his reputation, and Miyako makes a good point that, while B Komachi is on the rise, they’re not big enough yet to warrant that kind of specific scandal interest from the tabloids. That doesn’t change the fact that Kana will still be scandalized, though.
That Aqua would step in to try to do something about the situation makes both narrative and logical sense. Despite him backing off last episode when Kana seemed determined to weather the oncoming storm, we know he’s not completely heartless. He does apparently feel at least some responsibility for Kana, and he does want to help out Ruby. That sets up the first of the episode’s two most striking visuals: Ruby’s expression with one eye star shining white to show that she sincerely wants to help her friend despite the dark crusade she’s on (as represented by the dark star in her left eye). But as savvy has Ruby has become lately, she apparently didn’t realize what Aqua meant by the cost of his plan.
To Aqua’s credit, he does at least try to rectify the matter using previous lesser tactics – i.e., appealing to the reporter’s sense of decency over Kana being a high schooler. Since Kana is 18, though, the reporter has firmer ground to stand on in a moral sense, even if he admits himself that it’s still a tasteless thing to do. That leaves Aqua with having to pull out his big gun: bury one scandal by providing a far, far juicier one. Thus we finally get the series’ most explosive revelation since the first episode of season 1: the truth about Ai being his and Ruby’s mother coming out.
Frankly, I love how this adaptation handles this part. The directorial and musical choices lend real weight to the impact of this revelation, and by jumping around we get to see an all-too-realistic array of reactions. Some are stunned, others respond with disappointment about how it tarnishes their memory of a beloved idol, and still others suspect that Aqua might have spilled the beans as part of a strategy to get ahead or just use this as an opportunity to bad-mouth both idols and their agencies in general. (And you know this would happen IRL). But there are also fans touched by the emotional resonance of the story – that Ruby is literally following in her mother’s footsteps, and what better way to honor her mother’s memory? And while there are some reactions we don’t see that I wish we would (Kana’s in particular, as once she gets over the shock, she’ll have to realize that the timing here isn’t coincidence), the most impactful one is Ruby’s. She’s on record as having intended to take the secret that Ai was her mother to the grave, and that Aqua would pull this stunt without consulting her in more than a vague way has undoubtedly left her furious, to the point that we get another striking, never-before-seen eye pattern, with those dark stars now glimmering:
Somewhat surprisingly, though, the strongest reaction is actually Akane’s. She’s not surprised by the content of the revelation, since she had pretty much figured out this truth already, but she does take it as a sign that it’s time for her to make her big, serious move, too, and act on the information she has. She’s even using the same type of flower bundle that Ai’s killer carried, and despite her words to the contrary, I have no doubt that Akane was fully intending to use that knife rather than just bringing it along as a precaution. Would she have gone this far, I wonder, if she had known that Aqua had already realized that his father was still alive and thus was back on the revenge track? I also have to wonder how she had planned to try to get away with this assassination; after all, Ai’s killer certainly didn’t survive it in the long run.
But that’s where the other devastating truth comes out: Aqua has had her bugged, and for a long time now (ever since shortly after Love for Real). That’s a pretty damn huge overstep, especially once he startd taking (or at least seemingly taking) their relationship for real. Up until that point it was somewhat justifiable given that he was using Akane to figure out the truth about his father, but tracking your genuine girlfriend without her knowledge is completely outside of proper boyfriend behavior, and Akane has every right to feel betrayed about that; the irony, of course, is that she makes this complaint while being interrupted from doing something far out of line herself. The result is one of the most painful anime break-ups I’ve seen in a while. The even sadder thing is that Aqua cares enough about Akane to not want to drag her down with him, though that still doesn’t put him in the right here.
The break-up is even more significant because it effectively marks the Point of No Return for Aqua. Akane was his path to a more normal life, but he’s now shut that down, hence giving the impression that he’s now locked on a path to a self-destructive end, and he knows it. The two big questions now are how he’s going to go about his descent into Hell (and make his father hurt the worst in the process) and how Ruby is going to react to this. And, perhaps also, how Hikaru Kamiki is going to react to this news. Was going as far as revealing this truth to get his father’s attention always going to be part of Aqua’s plan, and shielding Kana from a scandal just gave him a good excuse to use it?
We now may be locked in for the course to the highly controversial ending that manga fans have complained about, but the execution in dealing with this pivotal series of events is superb. The darkness never fully goes away in this series, and now it’s back on center stage.
USA Anime 