天下制覇

Oh boy… exposition!

Man… is it really so much to ask that the freakin’ raw appear within 48 hours of the show airing? Really?

Impressions:

Any time that the monster is a little black cat, you can be relatively confident that it’s not going to be a particularly interesting episode. Lots of chatter and general foreshadowing that the Urakai are not the all munificient organization that they really haven’t ever been painted as anyway. If they’re going to prattle on at length, they could at least dedicate the other half of the episode to something more interesting than a haunted black cat. At least the next episode preview shows a team of about five artificial humans storming Karasumori as an official declaration of Kokuboro’s attack, so we’ll be back to the action.

Summary:

We begin by seeing a flashback to Masamori moping over not being the true successor, so clueless runt Yoshimori draws a square on his hand with a marker. Man, Yoshimori made an ugly kid.

Back in present times, Masamori has called whose-her-face the Oni user to a cafe for a meeting. They chatter on at length about nothing particularly interesting while he makes some veiled threats against her and Yoshimori. Mostly the point is that Masamori has been invited to join the Council of Twelve that rules the Urakai.

Over at Karasumori, Yoshi is napping in class and didn’t notice that his teacher has a phantom black cat on his shoulder. The cat keeps playing with his head as class goes on, while Yoshi laments the time before class is over so he can exorcise the poor critter.

Masamori is meanwhile walking in the mountains to the HQ of his Shadow Organization. They’re all pretty arrogant and laughing at his as he’s attacked by… and then dispatches a monster. He prostates himself before the Urukai shadow members and then takes a seat with them. Under his pillow is a medallion with his rank within the group, though he still thinks they’re a bunch of monsters.

Back at school, Yoshi tells Yurina that she needs to let him know about all suspicious things because a group is actively targetting Karasumori. He thinks about what to do with the cat, while Yuri feels sorry that the poor thing will have to be gotten rid of before it can be corrupted by Karasumori.

The teacher walks out and Yoshi tries to talk his way into getting the cat off him, until Gen walks up. Gen sees the cat and casually swings at it to kill it, but Yoshi grabs his hand and tells him that he shouldn’t just kill normal spirits. Gen argues that the cat is causing the teacher problems as the teacher’s shoulders are sore from carrying it around. Yoshi drags Gen off to argue more, and Tokine follows after. She calls them both stupid for getting worked up over it but sides with Yoshi.

A little later, Yoshi is in the staff room trying to figure out what the deal is with the cat clinging to the teacher. He thinks back and remembers how there used to be a black cat that hung out with him while he read out in the courtyard, but the cat disappeared awhile ago. As he reminisces about the cat, it stares out at the courtyard.

Shige is back at the dealer of the strange things. The creepy guy has apparently exorcised the miasma from the arm and now uses it as a servant. He talks more about how the human skin can be used to hide a monster’s presence entirely, and to demonstrate, the arm is actually moving because a tiny firebreathing demon is inside it. They also talk a bit more about the Kokuboro, but neither really knows about them, though the dealer is a bit overexcited about the prospect of human/ayakashi hybrids. Then he drops the bomb that the Urakai are probably also targetting Karasumori. Shige is stunned, but has faith that Masamori will be able to take care of things on that end.

Back at the school, the teacher is asking another if there was anything happening with a cat around the school lately. She tells him that there was a car accident where a cat was killed. He thinks back to becoming friends with the cat, and finally realizing it lets the cat peacefully ascend. Yoshi and Gen were watching from the shadows and Gen says that the cat was a good spirit after all.

The Urakai group meeting finally ends with one of the members yelling at Masamori to be careful of Kokuboro while another crawls over to him and goes for the seduction/beheading approach. He takes the medallion out and looks at again before taking off himself, annoyed at all the monsters, on his side and the other, with aims at Karasumori.