Beyond the Boundary - Episode 4

Despite all advice to the contrary, Mirai has headed off alone to defeat the Hollow Shadow - luckily for her she isn't entirely alone, as inevitably Akihito has taken it upon himself to follow her.

Although he manages to save Mirai from her immediate fate and an unexpected enemy, escaping the clutches of the Hollow Shadow itself is another matter entirely, and it's a problem which only becomes more complicated once the pair find themselves tossed into some surreal dream world while still being chased by Sakura Inami, the sister of the girl that Mirai purportedly "killed", Yui.

Of course, given that this dream world is most likely feeding off Mirai's deepest, darkest fears, it's really up to her to win over her own subconscious first and foremost, and in the wake of this it seems that the day has been won... until the Hollow Shadow takes over Kanbara's body, forcing Mirai to attack and stab her friend to both save him and defeat the enemy.  With this done however, we get to see that Akihito is far from normal himself, and just like Kuriyama's own secret Akihito's "true" form is a decidedly deadly one...

Having failed to catch my eye with its opening three episodes, this at last felt like an interesting instalment of Beyond the Boundary - its comedy was pitched and timed better to offset some decent (if rather predictable) action, and some nicely timed twists and turns to keep the story moving and also set up what looks to be a wider narrative for the show to pursue moving forward.  It isn't enough to shift my opinion on this series entirely, and I suspect it'll fall back into its old ways again next week, but this is at least an encouraging example of what this series can do when its planets align and it puts its mind to it.