Summary Key Points:

[spoiler]

• Kida has a talk with Dotachin and the gang, who give him Izaya’s identity as the person who knows the leader of the dollars
• Kida heads over to Izaya, and finds out that the leader of the Dollars is his best friend Mikado
• Izaya identifies that Kida thinks that because he couldn’t save Saki, he didn’t truly love her
• Izaya also states that Kida is using Anri as a test to see if its really true love
• Finally, Izaya puts doubts in Kida’s mind about whether Mikado is really his friend or not
• The growing tension between the Dollars and Yellow scarves increases
• Some members of the Yellow Scarves attack Takeguchi, a class fellow of Kida, Anri & Mikado
• The episode ends with a depressed Kida telling Mikado that he heard of Takeguchi being attacked, and is going to the hospital to visit him

[/spoiler]

Opinions: (B+)

Nice! It seems like some of the pace of the story is quickening again. Kida covers significant ground, and finds out who the head of the dollars is. I must say, I’m quite a bit surprised with this.  I was expecting Izaya to keep it to himself, but Izaya openly lets Kida know of it and even uses the opportunity to put further doubts in his head.

You know… this whole issue could STILL be resolved if either Kida, Anri or Mikado are actually honest with another and let the other one or two people know what the hell is going on. Izaya knows just how strong their friendship really is, and he doesn’t even have to worry about either telling the other something.

Izaya’s analysis of Kida was spot on, and while it was obvious, I kind of missed the idea that Kida was actually trying to prove that he had indeed found true love this time. I really do think that he doesn’t care for Anri, and its just his ploy to escape the fact that he couldn’t go and save the actual girl he loved. Kida’s character is truly the most realistic and intriguing of the trio, and I’m really digging the conflicts and problems he’s facing.

I was rather taken a back by Dotachin’s love for the dollars. The dollars aren’t even a real group with connections, and yet both Dotachin and even Yamasaki got super pissed when Kida brought to them, some very logical points about what may be happening. Maybe it just hasn’t been significantly touched upon, but I don’t really see a big reason for Dotachin and the gang to feel this passionate about the Dollars group.

All things considered, its really sad that Kida is truly alone in this. Mikado and Anri definitely have all the allies and forces, and the potential allies that Kida did have, have told him to go screw himself if a battle happened. Kida’s not exactly totally in the right with what’s going on but it is sad that a middle schooler will eventually have to take on the huge bunch of freaks that the dollars are.

The confrontation is slowly coming to a big hit, and I think we’ll have another episode or two developing the tensions before everything explodes. This transitional period is necessary0, but I  can’t wait for things to kick into high gear and really wrap up the big war between the trio.

On a side note, I definitely enjoyed the funny narration by Yamasaki and Erika, it was rather different and added a nice touch to the episode.

Preview:

Seems like its Mikado’s turn to be confused and start finding some answers. Argh… XD