What They Say:
“Ultramarine”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The foundations were decently set in the first episode as we were introduced to nice guy Akihito, who is actually a human/youmu combination, and Mirai, one of those that hunts youmu in the world. The two certainly have an amusing relationship from the get go since he tries to stop her from what he thinks is a suicide attempt and she ends up cutting into him with her sword that’s used to eliminate youmu. But since he’s not a full one, it just hurts but doesn’t kill him. Thankfully, we get to see the start of a good fight in the previous episode and this one makes it clear that the sword animation for the series is a high, high priority, as the choreography and animation for it is just beautiful as she goes through the playground to deal with the strange mummified style creature.
While the fight doesn’t go too well overall and in the end is a bit inconclusive, what Mirai starts to learn is something more of the larger world that’s out there with them. While Akihito has kept his nature hidden, he’s known about it for a few years now and he’s able to help her understand some things, including the fact that there are services that youmu use created by other youmu in order to survive in the world. While a number of them are certainly outgoing and aggressive as we’ve seen, a lot of them are just the usual types that want to live and let live. This has Akihito introducing Mirai to others from school that are aware of such things, though Mirai’s understanding is comical and she gets easily flustered by all the girls that are now a part of things, particularly since she’s not sure she can actually trust what’s being said by them.
While we do get introduced more formally to Mitsuki here as well as Ai, we also get another male character enter the picture with Hiromi, who has a bit of a mild hands-on approach when it comes to dealing with “Akkey.” The cast gets fleshed out quickly here in an easy and relaxed way that’s surprisingly pleasant and almost fun. All of this does allow Mirai to get a bit closer to everyone overall and she even spends some time with Mitsuki to get a bit familiar and friendly with her, which is nice. There’s also an intriguing bit that comes into play as we see Akihito talking about his heritage and how there’s some disagreement between parties over which side of his family comes from the youmu side that has given him the quirk of birth that he has.
In Summary:
Beyond the Boundary does a couple of different things here and it largely works out well, though I suspect it will feel better when viewed as a part of the whole. The relationship between Mirai and Akihito is given a bit more heft and weight here as he proves to be quite knowledgeable about things and helps her adjust to the information she’s missing. This also has him introducing her to new people that he does some school stuff with and that helps to expand the cast, though it is a bit female focused here, which isn’t a surprise. And we also get some time with Mirai in full on action form, which works really well, as the sequence is beautifully done and had me playing it a few times just to see all the strokes of it. It’s a solid episode, a bit more information than some may care for at this point, but it does a lot of things right in building for the season as a whole.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
