What They Say:
According to Izumi, Akihito’s youmu transformation could be permanent! She tells Mirai that she must kill Akihito during the Calm or else he will become a powerful youmu gifted with immortality. Mirai is torn by the decision she must make.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The introduction of the Calm in the previous episode definitely brought a new wrinkle to things when it comes to the youmu and highlighted some of what Akihito’s issues are since he’s a half breed. The show spent a good bit of its time on dialogue but it also gave us some good action, which it’s really finding a good balance for even when we have a couple of episodes that are mostly character and personality driven rather than main youmu action pieces. Everything does keep coming down to Mirai and Akihito though and with this episode, that gets reflected even more since she’s put into a very difficult position when it comes to him, but a necessary one.
With Akihito essentially being out of control here in his youmu mode, the show opens well with much of the first half being all about the action and attempts to slow things down since the whole thing is just out of control in a great looking way. Though there’s supposed to be the idea that the youmu are weaker during this phase of things, it’s showing them to be a bit more out of control than normal and that’s making containment and dealing with them all the harder. And with Akihito having succumbed to it, the psychological side of it for his friends is definitely making it difficult. What makes matters worse is that while they understand what’s going on, there’s also the fear that what could happen is that he could stay in this form and because of his abilities become immortal in that dangerous form.
That puts a huge burden on Mirai since she’s the only one that can actually stop him, which means killing him. This makes the second half rather discussion heavy while creating a particular mood since we have Izumi trying to put Mirai on this path to eliminate him while the others are trying to figure out how to save him. Mirai’s not exactly caught in the middle, but she has her own issues with it to be sure and is struggling with it. It’s a pretty good second half overall when you get into the nuts and bolts of it, but it has that forced dramatic pause from where things started that just makes it a bit awkward. Having the two sides working towards a conclusion with Mirai in the middle, trying to find her own way amid all the heavy atmosphere, does work though and you can really sympathize with her as it goes on.
In Summary:
Though we’re working in a fairly forced area here with what’s going on, Beyond the Boundary handles it fairly well. It hits up all the drama that you’d expect and ties it to some appealing animation, even when it’s trying to be oppressive and downbeat. Akihito is largely out of the picture here except for some key bits and that leaves the focus on others, where we see his friends trying to find a way to make it work while Izumi is pushing Mirai hard in the direction of having to kill him. Which is what she was here to do at the start anyway, but then she had to go and be friends with him and all. While it’s not a high point, it works well and the last minute is beautifully done.
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.
