Wednesday 27 November 2013

Beyond the Boundary - Episode 9

Ironically, things are getting dangerous in the midst of the Calm, and no more so than for Akihito.

Although this event should theoretically be responsible for weakening youmu, in Akihito's case it appears to be doing the opposite, with his human half weakening considerably and thus allowing the youmu half of his being to take over - no wonder he's the source of so much interest.  While various parties fight over him, Akihito's youmu form awakens and simply vanishes into the night, leaving his friends - including Izumi - searching for him.


Well, I refer to Izumi as a friend, but her thoughts on dealing with Akihito certainly don't count as friendly, as she suggests to Mirai that she should steel herself to kill him should she meet him, in the assumption that he'll never recover from his present youmu form and that he'll be practically indestructible once the Calm is over.  As you might expect, this prospect leaves Mirai distraught and with lots of soul-searching to do, although by the time she actually comes face to face with this dilemma it seems that her mind has been well and truly made up.  With suggestions that Izumi and the Nase family having their own interests in these current affairs and the prospective emergence of the youmu known as Beyond the Boundary, while other parties within the Spirit World Warriors have agendas of their own, it seems likely that there are no shortage of major clashes over the horizon.

As per last week's episode, this was another stronger instalment of Beyond the Boundary - its action scenes were exactly the kind of thing that I hoped for from this series, and although the current story arc isn't as well defined as it probably should be in places it's set up a number of interesting conceits for it to resolve over the next few episodes.  Even during an episode like this it can't completely abandon the tired elements of its humour, but it's certainly refreshing to see them take a back seat to more intriguing fare, and this show has suddenly become so much the better for it.

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