Score: A

In the best of ways, this episode just felt utterly packed. I was surprised how much time was still left at various parts of it. And they made good use of every moment. This episode ran the gambit between completely cute scenes, hilarious scenes, and dramatic scenes. It feels like we are heading towards the climax of the show, but there is still four more episodes to go. That’s still a third of the show left to unfold here. But with how fast events can unfold in this show, there’s just no telling how much it will actually accomplish before the end. There is still a lot of plot points we can expect it to hit.

She was so proud!

But first part of the episode was absolutely fun. Takina was on a mission to rescue that café from bankruptcy! Understandably she was utterly dismayed by seeing how badly their funds were looking even with the DA giving them financial backing. With Chisato being rather…excessive in her use of expensive non-lethal rounds, constant damage to their surroundings and I have a feeling those special parfaits are a bit too expensive to make for their price XD. There was good reason for Takina to just basically take over the entire operation.

I honestly thought the big punch of the episode was going to be her burning out from overdoing it. And that may still come into play in the next episode where she’s got to come to Chisato’s rescue. But for the time being she seems fine. The biggest hit Takina took was social media’s response to her special parfait XD. I’m sure it was a very efficient parfait to make and was priced appropriately. Poor Takina was utterly crushed though. She just didn’t see it. That parfait…yeah, that was poop. Even worse because she went with hot chocolate…it was steaming. She was so proud of it!

They aren’t paying for those bottles!

Honestly the first half was great for just having fun and further establishing how good a team Chisato and Takina have become. Early on it was natural for Chisato to be taking the lead a lot of the time. But Takina has developed to the point where she can absolutely handle herself and even take hilarious actions of her own. I mean it was pure perfection watching her use the weapon that fires wires to wrap up Chisato and thus stop her from wasting more ammunition XD. Takina seriously has been making legitimate changes to Chisato’s style.

And it was working! They were avoiding having to use that cleaner service as often and Chisato wasn’t needing to use so many bullets for the same results. That little bomb scene just showed off how far they’d come. Chisato let the other guy do most of the shooting so there was no reason for them to have to pay for the damages. And they made sure to pile on the pressure so the guy that hired them to defuse that bomb actually paid XD. Takina herself was honestly growing quite a bit here too. She’s seeing the more varied ways things can be handled without just killing people.

RIP Walnut!

But the episode wasn’t just fun and games. Clearly the Alan Institute has reached its limit of patience. And that probably is thanks to Chisato making clear to Shinji how she doesn’t remotely see things the way he does. She’s not just going to turn into a killing machine through light provocation. Chisato isn’t interested in killing people and won’t just go off the rails as it stands. And so, they clearly decided to target her physical checkup. No surprise that Shinji is using his secretary to do his dirty work again. It just reflects his and that institute’s viewpoint. Free will is an illusion. People with talent are basically directed by God to do specific things. They have no choice in the matter.

And it’s a real shame. That secretary shows that regardless of what talents she has, she had the potential to be other things. That woman could have easily gone on to be a chef and that would have been fine. But the institute doesn’t believe that. And the same goes for Chisato. It doesn’t matter that she wants to help people. As far as that organization is concerned it is a crime against God for Chisato to be anything but a killing machine. Chisato unfortunately needs to realize this, but it might be too late. I wish Maki was willing to speak up against Shinji and warn his allies. But he’s just not ready to do that and it might have consequences. Also, my condolences go out to Kurumi for taking a brutal chop after referring to Shinji as Maki’s lover.

If they somehow turn Chisato murderous…it could get scary

We can only guess at what that organization is trying to do to Chisato at the end of this episode. Normally I wouldn’t think electric charges and an artificial heart would mean brainwashing…but I kind of think it does. I mean they want Chisato to be a killer and at this point I can’t imagine they think threatening her will work. Even if they tamper with her heart and threaten to kill her, she wouldn’t start killing people. What exactly would they try to do in order to change her tune? Again, I’m not sure if tinkering with her heart would impact her mind, but stranger things have happened. At the very least they don’t want to kill Chisato and wouldn’t want to diminish her physical abilities. It is those abilities they want to see flourish. Whatever their plan, it has to involve making Chisato use those talents to kill.

Almost as scary as child Chisato!

All this stuff going on and somehow Majima hanging out at Chisato’s place wasn’t even my top moment of the episode! He just broke into her place to have a chat! It is interesting that he didn’t make any move to kill her. Even though he knows she’s good at avoiding bullets I’m sure he can think of some ways to get an advantage. But instead, he wanted to talk with her and find out what she knows, thinks, and remembers. He seems pretty open about the Alan Institute backing him and expects they want Chisato for her killing talent. But right now, she’s not believing it. I’ll presume that Chisato didn’t make a move against him because her gun wasn’t at the ready. And maybe she wasn’t confident she could beat him by taking his gun without killing him.

The flashback was pretty awesome. Chisato was a total beast even as a kid. She was just all over the place and really took down that whole group (including Majima) by herself. All that after the other Lycoris had been killed off. And it does confirm that she was using those non-lethal rounds even before her injury in that explosion. Through this flashback they really are setting up Chisato and Majima as these similar, but different rivals. She’s got great vision and he’s got great hearing. They both have talents for killing, but only one of them prefers to use it. That tower incident had them both as central figures and I’m guessing they were both saved by the Alan Institute. Chisato got her artificial heart…and maybe Majima got artificial eyes or they fixed his. He was wearing that blindfold in the flashback for some reason.

Takina has seen the horrors of social media!

I’m absolutely excited for what is coming our way. Takina is on the move and will do whatever she can for Chisato. It’s hard to say if she’ll get there in time though. There are a lot of interesting layers. This pair continue to be really close. That gift Takina gave her might be a tracker. But regardless I think it could be a symbolic replacement for that Alan institute necklace. That she’ll eventually let go of her connection to that thing and focus on what she has in Takina. If nothing else I did love Takina getting intense about establishing phone call rules between them XD. But I get it considering how many times extreme things happen around Chisato. I just hope this show ends on a positive note…