Kurokami: The Animation - Episode 20

The climax to the last episode of Kurokami saw Keita and Kuro seemingly left for dead at the hands of Reishin and Akane... Is it the end of the road in their bid to stop the evils of Masagami from being unleashed upon the world?


Although the pair aren't in fact dead, it does seem that way as Reishin makes his way unobstructed to the Holy Stone and prepares to "do his thing" - But is his real goal to gain Masagami's power? Perhaps not, as he looks to deal with the evils he unleashes using his powers, although it seems that many of them simply make a bee-line for Kuro instead. Why such an interest in our heroine? All is explained in the second half of this episode, right the way back from Reishin killing his mother onwards. In short, Kuro is in fact the "evil one" here, for it is her that carries the sign of Masagami as the crest on her wrist, and Reishin's entire plot from beginning to end was all designed with saving Kuro and freeing her from her curse in mind.

This is all well and good, but I have to confess that between sacrificing a single person (whether it's your sister or otherwise), completely screwing up the entire world and the Doppeliner system upon which it rests and killing countless people in the process seems like a rather... "counterproductive" way of going about things. In fact, as plot twists go, it borders on the ridiculously daft - You'd have to have a pretty deep sister complex to kill your mouther and spend years rampaging around doing all kinds of "bad stuff" just to help her out. But hey, I'm an only child and thus I've never had a sister who houses a potent and evil being, so what do I know?

I suppose I should be grateful for this turn-around in the series for mixing up the typical "good versus evil" battle we get used to with such things, but I have to admit I was far happier with the status quo before this episode started as it actually made a modicum of logical sense to me. Still, this isn't exactly the kind of series I watch for realism or deep, highbrow, thought-provoking entertainment, it's produced and pure adrenaline-fuelled fun, so after rolling my eyes for a bit and scratching my chin for a while I'm happy to simply nod in ascension and let Kurokami get on with doing whatever it wants to do while I tag along for the ride.