All that was built up will be torn down…
What They Say:
Episode #07: “Mom’s Back, and oh, Dad’s Back, Too”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The return of Mother is a glorious occasion. Lady Koto, despite her modern attire, resumes the role of a kind and understanding mother. She wants to see her children’s homes, and marvels and what lovely adults they have become. Yase is ecstatic, Kurama pleased but reserved, and Myoue suspicious but kind.
However, something isn’t right, and Lady Koto is hiding something that seems to worry her greatly.
Little Koto is perhaps the most excited of all the children. She finally gets to meet her mother. She doesn’t know of her past, her memories starting after her mother had already departed. At first Lady Koto seems confused, but then pleased. She hadn’t seen this daughter since she was a baby. There are great scenes of the two bonding, finally reunited but with the lingering feeling that this reunion is going to be a short one.
Lady Koto finally breaks it to the children that she’ll have to return shortly to wherever it was that little Koto found her. She gives a coy answer that it’s because she promised to return with Myoue, but in reality it’s obviously far more complicated than that. The ways of their world are mysterious, and nether parent entrusted their children with the truth.
Little Koto isn’t as strong as she appears. She’s still a child, and one who everyone is asking difficult requests of. “Sensei and the people at the Shrine won’t tell me anything!” The chaos that little Koto seems to bring about is a mystery that hasn’t been explained, and time is running short. Koto wields so much power, but it’s clear she doesn’t understand it. She breaks down first to her mother and then to her sibling, Myoue Jr.
Father finally arrives to set things right, shocking everyone with his arrival. The strange fact that he appears to only be little Koto’s age isn’t disguising his real identity, Myoue Jr recognizes him right away. That enigmatic creepiness that he gives off coincides with an impending collapse of their ideal little world. Not explaining anything to little Koto had a disastrous side effect for the Looking Glass Kyoto, and we see exactly how she was able to visit the place. It’s around the same time that Kurama realizes what she did to get in, and the ramifications of his father’s return. After all, he has a shrine scientist working for him, he probably knows what’s going on more than anyone else.
The last few minutes of this episode are bordering on terrifying. The world that Myoue and Lady Koto built is tragically coming apart at the seams. The crumbling world crisps into black ash and falls away around the concerned citizens. Lady Koto awakens from a dream of destruction and rushes off to meet the person who rules over the beginning and the end of the looking glass world.
I’m starting to think that Lady Koto and Myoue’s parting was exactly amicable.
In Summary:
This fairy tale is starting to reach the ‘moral of the story’ stage, with all the destruction and hard lessons that usually entails. Even little Koto can’t keep it together when confronted with the responsibility to carry out… whatever it is that everyone wishes for her to do. It’s nice to see little Koto rounded out as a character. At the very beginning of the series it seemed that Lady Koto was the mysterious driving force, but now it’s clear that force has always been Priest Myoue and his strange powers. Just what exactly are his, and the folks and the Shrine, goals in all of this?
Episode Grade: A –
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.8.4, via Safari 6.0.5, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
