Kurokami: The Animation - Episode 9

This ninth of episode of Kurokami is something of a two-pronged affair as everything is slowly brought together, with a central focus around the current goings-on in Okinawa.

First of all though, we have to handle Excel, Steiner and company's invasion of the current headquarters of the Kaionji group, in the dual hope of finding out exactly what's currently going on as well as potentially putting a stop to it. To this end, they fail on both counts in a sense, as the main behind it all (and Kuro's brother) Reishin manages to escape on account of his incredible powers, making his way to Okinawa in the process. They also don't manage to get any explanation of what he's doing either (he obviously hasn't read the chapter of the villain's handbook about monologuing regarding your plans whenever possible), leaving them with little more than a name of who is responsible to add to their knowledge.


Meanwhile, Keita finally manages to track down the Master Root who looks like his Mum from the photograph... or rather, she tracks him down. Rather daftly, he seems to eat up her schtick until of course she tries to drain him of all his Terra, bringing him to the brink of death before he finds the power (thanks to that handy ring Excel gave him) to retaliate with devastating force. Things are going even less well for Kuro, who by the end of this episode finds herself kidnapped by Hiyou, who seems to be in a particularly perverted mood.

For a series so focused around action, there really was a dearth of it in this episode, with plenty of set pieces that could have brought forth impressive fight sequences instead being reduced to ridiculously brief one or two punch affairs that hardly set the world on fire (well, one of them set an office on fire I suppose). That wouldn't be so bad if the actual content and storyline of the episode was tight, but to be honest even that all felt a little lazy, between Keita's mother look-alike suddenly popping up out of nowhere and the sudden kidnapping of Kuro - Well paced this episode is not, and it seems to generate less and less interest from me by the week.