Eyes up here, buddy
Summary:
Mamaaaaa, ooooooooh! Didn't mean to make you cry.
As Masaomi narrates, we watch Anri get harassed some more by Nasujima-sensei (who apparently once hooked up with Niekawa Haruna) and Anri tell Masaomi and Mikado about how her sorta-friend Mika liked to stalk Seiji. Unfortunately, Seiji rejected Mika, and it sounds like Mika went on some emo-trip. Anri now seeks to surpass Mika by becoming class rep. Masaomi later has lunch with his friends in order to ask Kyohei about the Dollars, hoping to dissuade Mikado from trying to join. This leads to a series of events that result in Masaomi getting harassed by a bunch of low-level Yellow Scarves.
At the same time Selty takes a mission to retrieve a briefcase stolen from Shiki-san of the Awakusu Group, but gets attacked from behind by the infamous Slasher. Selty gets her head cut off and her arm wound adds insult to injury by calling her a monster as it heals. This is where the two stories intersect as the Slasher’s appearance gives Masaomi a distraction to escape the Yellow Scarves, and the Slasher attacks the gangsters (possibly escalating tensions between the Yellow Scarves and the Dollars). Elsewhere, writer Niekawa Shuji is asking around to find out who the strongest person in Ikebukuro is. As Shuji goes home, his we see his daugher Haruna seems to have moved on from dating teachers to looking suspiciously like the Slasher and writing nonsensical jibberish as Saika in Kanra, Setton, and Tanaka Tarou’s chat room.
Reaction:
Big black horse and a cherry tree / I can't quite get there 'cause my heart's forsaken me
Masaomi’s statement about how he was depressed before corresponds to the time when the Blue Squares and Yellow Scarves wiped each other out last year. Combine this information with how the leader of the Yellow Scarves left the scene and how Masaomi seems to be regretting something in his past, and you have to conclude that Masaomi used to be the leader of the original Yellow Scarves. I figure after his buddies all got wiped out and his girlfriend got badly hurt, Masaomi quit the color gang. The previous episodes suggest that Anri is might also be part of a gang (perhaps that one the kogals belong to), and that she is high ranking; I get the sense that Anri was the right hand woman of Mika or something.
This obviously brings up the possibility that Mikado is also a member of a gang, since his friends are probably all gangsters. I originally thought that it would be nice and ironic if Mikado was part of the Blue Squares, but it wouldn’t make much sense for Masaomi to not know if Mikado was a top dog in the Blue Squares. From the way Anri and Masaomi have been meeting up with their own gang members without being recognized, and how Kyohei and possibly some of Masaomi’s other friends appear to be Dollars, I figure Mikado is either part of the Dollars or another unnamed gang. I would also be ok with Mikado being an alien, just so it would scare Selty out of her detached mind.
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This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1940 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, if you hadn’t posted that composite I wouldn’t have noticed the fact that Mika has different-colored eyes in her photo with Anri than when we see her (with the scar on her neck). Kind of reinforces the (anime-watcher only) theory that the head in the jar we see is REALLY Mika’s, and that her body is walking around with Celty’s head.
Ah man I didn’t notice the eyes too. I felt like an idiot, I was like what exactly is different between the two. There’s gone to be some other feature that distinguish them. And I totally disregarded Haruna. Also I’m astounded by all the conjectures your making. Mikado probably going to be taken in with the dollars, and with Izaya. And Kida I really want to know his connection with Izaya, and that girl in the hospital. It surprised me to see Izaya there.
I’m just wildly throwing out theories. After watching Baccano, I know that director loves him some foreshadowing. Considering they purposely make unimportant people grayed out, it’s hard to ignore all the meaningful looks and shots with Masaomi and the Yellow Scarves. From there, I’m just expanding based on the assumption that Anri, Mikado, and Masaomi are not just your average friends/classmates.
Yeah, I’m 95% sure the head in the jar is Mika’s and Selty’s head got a body downgrade.
The new body might be a downgrade in the hawtness department, but it cracks me up every time I think about the fact that Selty’s head just ran off and left her body with the pets and all the responsibilities. And now that she’s got Mika’s body, I’d say that she has truly embraced her inner child. Or maybe she and Seiji are saving that until their wedding night.
Haha, damn that deadbeat head. I like to imagine that somewhere in Japan is a stalker horse’s body with Selty’s horse’s head attached to it.
Shouldn’t Mika be able to go to school and dominate like Benjamin Button, though? Or at least attend some juniors equestrian events, right?
This is so odd, head swaps, and some dangerous women. And next we get to see the story of the blonded haired guy. On another note, is Selty’s head being over powered by Mika’s body (heart) love for Seiji?