C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control - Episode 7

Mikuni Soichiro may seem like the model of a smart, confident, modern businessman, but was he always that way?  Apparently not according to the first half of [C]'s seventh episode, which delves into his back story.

It turns out that Mikuni started out as your pretty typical teenager, obsessed with music and hoping to make a career as a musician despite the best efforts of his strait-laced father to teach him of the ways of the business world.  Once his hoped-for musical career had evaporated, Mikuni sucked up his disappointment and set about following in his father's footsteps as a successful man of business, learning the hard way in the meantime that sometimes business and money can be more important than family, or indeed that money can potentially be the difference between life and death.  Indeed, it's only after his sickly sister passes away that Mikuni really throws himself into the business fray, in a chain of events that leads him to where he is now as a wannabe master of the Financial District.

From here, the second half of this week's episode switches perspective once again, as this time we see the world largely through the eyes of Mashu as she spends her days watching Kimimaro as his Asset.  While this segment spends a little time postulating on the relationship between Deal and Asset and just how the latter represents the "lost future" of the former, I can't really shake the feeling that it's more an exercise in shouting from the rooftops "hey, look how cute Mashu is!" - not that this is entirely a bad thing, but I'm sure there are more important issues at hand than how Mashu looks when she's floating upside down.

In fact, both halves of this episode feel a little redundant to some degree - the second half of the episode doesn't have a huge amount to say for itself, but by the same token delving into Mikuni's back story hasn't really taught us anything particularly notable about his current actions within the Financial District in my opinion.  Even aspects like his sister's illness didn't really tell us anything new about what drives Soichiro, as it seems to have had no direct bearing on the way he goes about his business either inside or out of the Financial District.  Thus, I can only really label this particular episode as being borderline filler material - although maybe if it sells enough Mashu figures in the near future it will be worth its weight in Midas money...