Kurokami: The Animation - Episode 10

By the end of the last episode of Kurokami, things really didn't seem to be going too well for Keita and Kuro - Although the former had narrowly escaped death, he was hardly in the best of shape, and meanwhile Kuro was.... well, having her face licked by Hiyou. Ewww.

The face licking continues into this episode, although not for long as Keita somehow manages to make it to the cave where Kuro is held captive in no time at all (was it really that close geographically?). So, the rest of the episode is set up perfectly to pit Kuro against Hiyou, and Keita against Shinobu. It's the latter fight that really gets the lion's share of the attention however, with the revelation that Shinobu is a "Minus Root" - Someone who has killed their Master Root (in this case, Keita's mother of course) and thus completely broken the law of mathematics in some convoluted and bizarre fashion by my estimate... anyhow, it is this which gives her the ability to absorb the Terra of others.


So, while Kuro trades blows with Hiyou using all her fighting skills, Keita somehow manages to defeat Shinobu simply by telling her that she isn't happy, which is pretty much the equivalent of having a character in Street Fighter IV called "The Psychologist", who just stands there and wins every round by pointing out their opponent's character flaws. Anyhow, this observation plus a punch to the face saves the day, with Keita feeding Kuro a massive amount of power to defeat Hiyou. Is it all in vain however, as the Kaionji group seem to have pretty much all of their ducks in a row come the end of the episode...

After a fair few increasingly dull episodes, Kurokami finally shows some signs of improvement here, with an action-centric offering that actually made for a half-decent chunk of entertainment. Yes, there were some laughable moments (notably Keita's unlikely aforementioned victory followed by his quick and inevitable descent into "Oh woe is me" complaining again, and Hiyou's scream of defeat simply made me laugh out loud) but hey, it wasn't so bad for a mindless show this time around, and between all that action and the half-decent soundtrack it managed to hold my attention better than previous instalments.