And here we go, it’s Adachi time! Really, aside from the almost required Marie part of the episode, this was all Adachi. They did a pretty decent job fitting his social link (most of it) into this one episode. The rest will probably play out next week and I’m really hoping that’s a great episode.

It really was an enjoyable episode seeing how Adachi was living in Inaba. You could see how he was interacting with others and what his mindset was. Some things were left for interpretation in terms of his inner thoughts, but that’s alright. It was something looking at the guy clearly losing it when he put Yamano and Saki into the TV and keeping up a relatively normal presence while interacting with Dojima or Yu.

One thing I thought was that Adachi was somewhat conflicted during the course of this episode. He had these people reaching out to him at different times. Whether it was Dojima at work, the old woman in town, or even Yu. Seeing him hold onto the pot or the containers just seemed to reflect that he did feel conflicted about things. Not sure he ever considered taking responsibility for his crimes though. And in the end he threw them away apparently accepting the path he had chosen.

Also just want to say that old woman was a piece of work. Pretty well used Adachi to cope with the loneliness of not having her son around and then the moment he comes back she cuts all emotional ties. Not that he was particularly warm to her, but that was pretty cold.

You could see Adachi ran into trouble pretty well from the start. He clearly wasn’t thrilled being sent out to a small town like Inaba and honestly struggled to fit in. Even though he was going to be spending a lot of time there, he didn’t seem to really try to get a feel for the community or locations. That bungled presentation kind of showed his problems in that respect.

Then of course you just get the murders. One can only imagine the terror for Yamano and Saki as they were shoved into that TV. A situation beyond comprehension that had no escape and only lead to their deaths. While they were shown in the original series, it felt like they had more time here and thus the effect was a bit stronger. It really required some effort to push Yamano into that TV and really he was downright frightening when he was dealing with Saki Konishi, with Dojima calling him as he was throwing her in.

I was actually a little uneasy at the start when Marie was following Adachi around. Thought they might have turned that into a really creepy scene with him confronting her. But in the end they managed to separate these two. He had some curiosity towards the mystery of that girl, but things haven’t gone much further than that.

This was a good chance to see the strange connection with Yu and Adachi. Something about Adachi does have Yu’s attention. He does try to reach out to him and probably not just because he’s going for a max social link run XD. While there honestly does seem to be something from Adachi’s side also. Seeing Yu surrounded by others and living happily like that. I’m not sure if he completely resented him for having others while he was very much on his own, or if that was mixed with something else. I do think that his desire to have Yu suffer was a motivation.

The conversation near the end really spoke for them. Yu can’t leave others alone and tries to help them as best he can. Adachi is a bit pessimistic about the whole thing. Had some accurate points about trying to help someone not always being in their best interest and sometimes things can turn out worse for it. But deciding not to do anything from the start because of the potential for it to not turn out well is where I tend to cut away from Adachi. The scene worked pretty well for that light and dark effect. Yu much more shining in the line from that vending machine while Adachi much more dimmed and in the dark.

And now we head for the finish. Adachi may be right that Nanako and Dojima wouldn’t be in their specific situation if Yu hadn’t gotten involved. But bad things still would have happened. At least Yukiko if not others would have died and even when Namatame stopped Adachi may have resumed killing. Kind of funny to pull “I told you so” when he was partially responsible for it. I do hope that they do a good job with Yu vs Adachi next episode. They’ve seriously skimmed over the battles, but this is one I think they could do something good with. Now having an OP Izanagi makes sense and I’d be up for a good fight between these two. Also if they wrap up Adachi and thus the main storyline next episode, that’s plenty left for the True End and Marie.
Score: A-