What They Say:
The Hollow Shadow is drawing near. Akihito knows that Mirai wants to risk her life in a fight against the powerful youmu. The only way to stop her is to learn more about her past and confront her, but she’s been avoiding him…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Beyond the Boundary did a pretty decent job of expanding the setting and situation in the previous episode, as well as showing it can do some very slick and appealing action sequences, albeit fairly brief. Establishing what Mirai is doing and then focusing a good bit on Akihito and what he knows and is involved with as a half youmu certainly added a new wrinkle. Often we get the situation where the character in his position is all new to what’s going on and it’s a huge learning curve to understand it. With this, we get someone who is a bit more immersed in it all and is handling it well while also having some contacts and familiar people who also understand the situation. That provides for a more engaging setting since the character, like Akihito, feels more settled in his life.
While Mirai is settling into her life here now as she tries to figure out the best way to deal with her situation, we get a fair bit of movement throughout the first half as Akihito and others are doing their bit of research and exploring about this blood clan that may be causing trouble for all of them. Like any group that lives in relative secret, something loud and flashy that comes into the situation has a chance of completely disrupting things. So it’s good to see them being somewhat proactive here, if calm, to try and understand what’s going on. And that helps to draw in others, kids Akihito’s age and adults that deal with the society at large, which gives us a bit mor eof a feeling with how all of it works. Amusingly, they do find a way to slide a little fanservice into it with Mitsuki and her older brother that does make you smile.
While some of the tensions of the episode start to rise, we get some decent time spent with a bit of Miari’s childhood, which doesn’t go back too far overall, and we see how she adapted to living with the Imai family that took her in and the pain that was caused because of her cursed blood and what she’s capable of. It’s a good bit of exposition from her to Akihito that explains her mindset pretty well. This also provides a nice balance to the growing action that starts, which is a touch muted by well done, as various youmu start to surface across the city and we see the impact with those that can see and understand what they are. In a way, these smaller moments are more interesting than when Mirai gets forced into action herself, with a nice little surprise attached to it, since we get to see how some of the adults react to the situation.
In Summary:
As the show moves on, it’s introducing a few more key plot points but also expanding the base of the setting well when it comes to the cast and their connections. And it’s spending time with people away from the two main characters, which allows events to occur outside of their field of vision that can impact them later on, something a lot of series don’t really do that much anymore. The focus isn’t strong on any one character here and that gives you a chance to sample different things, which has me coming back to enjoying Akihito’s scenes since he’s such a welcome male lead in a lot of ways, even if he is still fairly one dimensional. Still, the payoff is there towards the end of the episode as we get the expected action as it hits all the right notes in terms of visuals and story elements. Beyond the Boundary isn’t knocking my socks off, but I’m certainly enjoying it.
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.
