Beyond the Boundary - Episode 10

The advent of the Calm, and the awakening of Akihito's youmu form, has put both himself and Mirai into a decidedly dangerous and highly unfortunate (to put it mildly) position.  But, as this tenth episode of Beyond the Boundary begins, all seems to be well once again, with Akihito recovering from his wounds in hospital while Mirai does her best to tend to him.

However, everything seems to be almost too well in this world - Akihito's fetishes are being served up at every turn, and even Mirai's behaviour is just different enough to raise an eyebrow.  In other words, this is no reality at all, but rather a dream - Akihito's dream, more to the point, which is being interacted with by the final vestiges of Mirai's blood within his body as he remains unconscious after her assault.  As for Mirai herself, she's simply vanished, leaving her fate unknown but not exactly looking positive.

While this sinks in, it's time to take a look at the history of this series thus far (and beyond) from Mirai's eyes, revealing that the whole reason she came into town was as a "sword for hire" of sorts explicitly tasked with killing Beyond the Boundary.  More importantly perhaps, Mirai was hired by none other than Izumi to carry out this deed regardless of the host of this most powerful of youmu.  So it goes that Mirai's first interactions with Akihito were in fact an outright attempt to kill him rather than simply "practice", while Izumi's hand in recent events also becomes clear.  What isn't clear, though, is what this means for the future of our two lead characters....

Although it employs some tried and tested methods to achieve its goal, I have to admit that this week's Beyond the Boundary was certainly successful at pulling the wool over my eyes only to spring a surprise on me - coupled with a look back over Mirai's actions throughout the series, this instalment was actually pretty strong in terms of justifying some of the show's wider plot points while also making you care about the characters and what's been going on, arguably for the first time in my case.  If nothing else, this series seems to be doing a good job of finishing far more strongly than it starter, and proving that it can be more than just a pretty face.