Ga-Rei -Zero- - Episode 7

It's probably fair to say that episode six of Ga-Rei -Zero- didn't exactly offer much joy and happiness for Kagura, as she found herself having to kill the school nurse who had been overtaken by demons right in front of her only two real friends at school. Mind you, at least she came out of the ordeal physically unscathed, which is more than could be said for Mei...

With everything that went on in the second half of that last instalment, episode seven was only ever going to be a continuation of those trials and tribulations, and that's exactly what we get here. Largely, episode seven focuses on Kagura as she tries to come to terms with what she had to do, as well as how her friends have reacted to the revelations about who she really is, issues which have a wider impact on whether she really wants to inherit the powers passed down through generations of her family at all.


By the end of the episode all seems well, as her friends eventually come to accept her and what she is, although doubts still linger in her own mind no doubt. However, all of this becomes of secondary importance as she arrives home to find her uncle (and Yomi's adopted father) murdered. Unlike Yomi and Kagura, we know who the culprit is, with Mei having seemingly risen from the dead at the start of the episode before behaving oddly throughout the rest of this episode...

While there's nothing spectacular per se about this episode or the way it deals with the issues it portrays, the overall tone and feeling of this instalment works pretty well - Kagura has quickly become the centrepiece of this series, making the focus on her emotions after a harrowing time naturally important to the story (and her constant tears actually made me feel a little glassy-eyed myself, so I guess that proves that her characterisation in this series has worked pretty well), while the whole incident with Mei has been made blatantly obvious to the viewer, which equally makes it clear where the next episode will most likely be heading. While Ga-Rei -Zero- will probably never live up to those rip-roaring first two episodes, I still have to take my hat off to it for continuing to be what I'd class a good series, that has managed to move away from those action-packed roots pretty capably to create a series that I find myself anxiously waiting for the next episode of each time.