I remember a handful of episodes back, as Oreki was going through the wringer induced by the end of the movie arc, that I renamed one of the episodes, “The Scourging of Oreki Houtarou.” For this episode, though, we’re facing happier times…
This is the Evolution of Oreki Houtarou.
And so concludes Nagi’s arc—complete with some truly touching revelations for her and her brother. To be entirely honest, I feel somewhat vindicated by the excellence of the emotional poignancy of the performance. I’ve been claiming all along that KimiUso is best when focused in on a single story, not splitting its attention in cursory reviews of each of its major characters. The stories still feel oddly disconnected from each other to me (Tsubaki at this particular performance is a great example), but everything we got from Nagi this episode was wonderful.
I think “Ties” was a good title for this episode, but I also felt like we spent a lot of time treading over thematic ground that was already covered last week. Jaeha, Ki-ja, and Hak all remain entrenched in their respective ideologies, although it was neat to see Jaeha and Ki-ja’s respective worldviews come into direct contact. Of more interest this episode was Yona herself, which is actually a focus Akatsuki no Yona hasn’t had in quite a while.
As expected, I had to do episodes 18 and 19 together, but I took notes in order, so hopefully I won’t be spitting out too much stuff about episode 19 in this post. But, I think, even if you haven’t watched episode 19 yet, you know where this is headed: a whole lot of heartbreak for everyone. I guess the big thing by way of summary for this episode is how much of it is lighthearted on the surface. Despite everything that we know is going on internally with our characters, there are a lot of fun and games stuff happening, like Toradora!‘s trying to distract us from the ugly pain that’s present and imminent.
Mage in a Barrel 