Yozakura Quartet: Hana no Uta 07-10

The ugly truth.

Hello! Sorry for my long absence, I’ve been away at Japan on a scholarship trip eating good food and breathing fresh otaku air everyday ww. Ironically my schedule in Japan was so packed that I didn’t have time to catch up on Yozakura, so here is a really delayed post covering the 4 episodes I’ve missed! (This might get a bit long, I’m sorry :c)

Covering the big issues first, cat guy turns out to be Hiizumi Enjin in Gin’s body. Woah hold up a bit there – I’m sure we all saw the him being Ao’s brother thing coming, but I was expecting something more along the lines of he turned evil or got brainwashed by someone. Instead we have this huge plot twist where he had his body stolen and possessed by the other branch of Akina’s family that was sacrificed to the other dimension?! It’s awfully sad that Akina had to find out about it in this way – it’s not as if he doesn’t already have a whole bunch of responsibilities and guilt weighing him down, and now there’s another huge problem he’s inherited from his ancestors. Akina’s not the kind to just brush it off because it was in the past, and I think he’s taken it to himself to try to fix this somehow too. There’s going to be another big problem when they do finally manage to capture Enjin too, because they don’t know the possible harm that tuning may bring to Gin, whose soul’s location is still unknown.

It’s also really ironic how the seven pillars, which used to symbolize harmony and acted as the very structures that allowed humans and youkai to live together, are now the very things that will bring about the possible destruction of the town. We already know there’s no way Akina and Hime would sacrifice the lives of innocent youkai to protect humans, so the most likely thing that’ll happen here seems to be that they’re going to actually wait it out and see what happens when the two dimensions merge. Akina’s unlikely to tune all the youkai too, since Enjin described the other dimension as one full of hatred. Although the Elders disagree with what the office thinks, they don’t actually have the power to enforce a choice (since both methods rely on Akina’s participation) unless they resort to using the anti-youkai barrier or esoterism and hold one of Akina’s loved ones (likely Hime) as hostage.

Nooooope this picture isn’t yuri, not at all

Learning about Juri’s past was also really surprising – looking at her cheerful and cheeky self now you’ll never have guessed that she used to be such a serious, bitter girl when she had first arrived here. Hime’s grandmother managed to show her the right path for her to go on from there though – to become the best doctor that the town has ever had, and that’s what’s brought her to where she is now. One thing I noticed is that many, many people in this show have been touched by Hime’s grandmother in one way or another, having her helped to change their lives for the better. It’s lovely seeing how all the good things she’s done is slowly bringing Hime new friends that can help her in protecting the town, and I must say that as their entourage grows bigger, the fights also start to get more and more awesome.

There was this sudden jump between episode 8 and 9 (which kind of shocked me for a moment because this is my first time watching anything in the series), but a quick Wikipedia search revealed that stuff from Yozakura Quartet: Hoshi no Umi had transpired between the two episodes. You can find coverage for this by Fosh under our Yozakura tag, but just for all you lazy readers out there, a quick summary: Zakuro’s the first of the half-youkai youkai hunters Enjin has recruited, and is a necromancer – she’s come here to retrieve her ex-best friend whom she had rescued from an angry mob trying to kill her, namely Rin (the ramen delivery girl). The two had become best friends after that, but then Zakuro got “struck” and went a bit bonkers, thus causing Rin to run away for her and find solace in Sakura Shinmachi. Zakuro wants to kidnap Rin and make the entire town (all 2040 people) into her puppets, but Hime and the gang manage to stop her by having Akina tune only the evil youkai part of her away. Then Zakuro apologizes for all the destruction she’s caused and decides to stay in Sakura Shinmachi and work at le ramen shop with Rin.

I don’t suppose all of the youkai hunters will be this easy to defeat – Zakuro only succumbed so quickly because she already had lingering attachment to Rin who was living in the town. The rest of them are unlikely to have any form of affection for the town and its people at all, so things are only going to get harder from here. (Although I do know that the next youkai hunter is related to a certain someone in Hime’s entourage.) I wonder if they’re still going to go through each youkai hunter one by one though, seeing as to how there’s only 2 episodes left (unless they plan on creating another season).

I need to take a moment to talk about Akina and Hime because THIS SHIP IS PRACTICALLY SAILING ITSELF. I don’t know, a lot of people have been telling me that Akina x Touka is canon but I really don’t see as much chemistry between them as compared to Akina x Hime. Akina was this close to confessing to Hime when they had a moment (she had asked him if his opinion of her had changed after finding out she was a youkai) during episode 8… before he got interrupted by Ao and the rest :c And that scene when Hime had wrapped her scarf around her head to hide her tears because Akina was ignoring her!!! Aw man all my feels. I don’t care, my OTP is going to work out one way or another.

On a more general note, Yozakura is seriously still handling the whole transition from serious, life-threatening fighting to adorable, everyday life scenes to perfection. It makes it seem so easy when most shows would find this a difficult obstacle, and it’s still what I love the most about Yozakura, along with the heartwarming human(youkai?) relationships it manages to portray in a very natural way, even though there may be nothing natural about the Yozakura world.

This scene got me squealing at the screen ;u; Ao’s too cute!!

About Miyu

A stressed-out jyoushi kousei doubling as Metanorn's loli with a soft spot for sappy romance animanga. She will watch anything with bishies in it. :3